Smith is the foundation stone around which every coverage shell the Vikings run can be built; he is the movable piece that allows everybody else to slot into the role to which they are best suited.
Nobody can do what Mahomes can right now, and 2020 should bring about an even better version than last year if he stays healthy.PFF grades say Drew Brees should be even higher on this list, but we can’t look past his age and his concerning decline in play over the past two seasons, even when he had time off due to injury in 2019. The fact that a down-year for him still sees him post 70 total pressures and earn an overall PFF grade of 86.2 speaks to just how dominant a force he is. What Cameron Tom brings in his return to New Orleans - … Unsurprisingly, Tom Brady was ranked first, considering how dominant he and the Patriots were for most of the decade. At his best, Wagner is the best linebacker in the game, but last season’s performance drops him out of top 10 on this list (he was No. Schwartz pass-blocked for 142 snaps — with his team in obvious passing, hurry-up situations for much of it — and allowed just one hurry. Brady can still play, though perhaps not quite at his very best level anymore. It’s the small subset of below-average play that separates the two players, however, and if Watson can just eliminate that in the way Russell Wilson did over the past season or two, he would vault into the top echelon of players on this list. 1 corner. His run to the Super Bowl was one of the greatest postseason performances of any player at any position in NFL history, but because he’s a right tackle, few people noticed. He also notched 49 defensive stops, which led all edge rushers by six, and he was doing this with less help along the defensive front for the Chargers than he has typically had in the past.PFF's exclusive metrics provide matchup previews, position rankings, grades, and snap counts.Bobby Wagner had something of a down year in 2019, though all the Seahawks linebackers had to deal with the team electing to play base defense on 68.7% of its snaps. Nelson was a bona fide star early in his college career, and there’s a good chance he could get even better in 2020 and beyond.Tom Brady’s 2019 was a major drop-off from his previous baseline of play. But here’s what PFF wrote … Jackson may well reinvent the quarterback position and, at the very minimum, will be one of the hardest players to limit as long as he continues to play at this level.Our exclusive database, featuring the most in-depth collection of NFL player performance data.Watson’s play looks like that of Patrick Mahomes for the majority of the time, only Watson has far less help. Tom was picked up by the Saints in 2017 as an undrafted free agent out of Southern Mississippi. With an improved unit around him, there are reasons to be optimistic that David can repeat that play in 2020, but there are too many seasons on his résumé that fall some way short of that standard — that’s the only thing keeping him away from the top end of this list.Harrison Smith has been the player who makes Mike Zimmer’s defense go in Minnesota. That was more than 30 percentage points higher than any other team. His overall grade was worse, but there’s something to be said for Tom standing up more respectably than Clapp in pass protection. It marked the second consecutive year he had more than 100 receptions, and his 116 catches were the most by a running back in NFL history.Julio Jones is the most productive pass-catcher in football at a time when that skill has never been more valuable. Obviously, at his best Miller is one of the best players the game has ever seen.
Over the past decade, he has the highest forced incompletion rate of any cornerback to play in the league, and he has never earned a PFF coverage grade below 73.0.Only age keeps Richard Sherman this low — the best cornerback of the past decade will enter this season at 32 years old coming off one of the best seasons of his career. His feel for the game and ability to make special plays as a passer is absurd. Of his 108 snaps played, 97 were at left guard (89.8 percent) and the remaining 11 at tight end as an extra blocker (10.2 percent). Here’s how both of these young offensive linemen compare through four years of Pro Football Focus grades (three years in college, one year in the NFL).