This year’s All-Underrated team is back, better than ever and comprises many non-premium-position players. This isn’t a list of punt gunners, but it is a celebration of the notably unsexy. I was texting with one coach as I was putting this list together, wondering how we don’t have an adequate way to measure how well someone simply does what they’re told, and within that system developing their own kind of structured greatness that is good for the team as a whole.
There are defensive players whom we might never see near the top of the sack list who impact a game in myriad ways simply by being where they are supposed to be, or by understanding when someone else isn’t where they are supposed to be. While not every entry in this year’s list goes that deep, it was part of the consideration. So was a player’s emotional impact, mental impact and stylistic impact. Being underrated is in the eye of the beholder, and maybe this list is just my flagging my own knowledge gaps.
Either way, we should venture through it together. Even if the player isn’t underrated to you, he is to some crackpot analyst out there somewhere. And it’s always fun to say I told you so.
