Build an NFL roster

The idea is if you were given the task of building a NFL roster from nothing, where would you start and in what order would you prioritise the various positions? Essentially what value do you give to different positions when building a team?

Would anyone start somewhere other than quarterback, and what would your argument be for doing so?

After QB what positions would you look to fill next?

QB
RB
DL
LB
WR/KR
OL
DB
TE
P
K

I think that covers it in most people preferences

I'd have the OL higher up, possible like this:
QB
DL
OL
RB
WR
LB
DB
TE
P
K

I think OL is a top need but maybe move it up one spot on my list because a good QB and defense is a good foundation. I suppose if you have a good OL you won't need top receivers, just adequate ones.

QB
OL
DL
WR
LB
DB
RB (dont need a good one if your OL is good enough!)
TE
P
K

I think the weight given to LB and DL would vary depending on whether you wanted to run a 4-3 or 3-4. Also I'd probably have RB lower down than most, I think if you've got a great OL you don't really need a superstar running back to have an effective run game. The Patriots were 9th overall in rushing last season, but I don't think you could say Green-Ellis or Woodhead were elite RBs. I'd rather have a mediocre running back and a great run blocking OL than an elite running back and an OL which struggled in the run game. I generally like smashmouth football and running between the tackles rather than fast flair backs running to the outside. Brandon Jacobs over Chris Johnson, that kind of thing.
I suppose it also depends on what kind of offense you were thinking of. An elite pass catching TE could be a real asset to a pass heavy offense.
Here are my picks for a 4-3 defense, with an offense that favours the run slightly more than most.
QB
DL
OL
WR
DB
LB
RB
TE
P
K

With a 3-4 Defense

QB
OLB
LT
NT
RT
Rest of O-Line
CB
Safety
RB
Rest of D-Line
WR
MLB
TE
K
P

OL, DL and DB is quite general, I was looking for something a bit more specific similar to what GSC has posted plus some reasoning like FrobisherO has included in his post.

As I think everyone would have expected the consensus is you start with the quarterback so assuming the QB is already in place here is the line that I would take:

It all starts in the trenches.

DT: If I’m running a 34 then my first port of call is a NT. Sure there is a need for a pass rush but in the 34 the DL, and in particular the NT, plays a much more vital role. Most of the pressure in a 34 comes from the DL anyway, unless it’s a blitz heavy scheme. I wouldn’t swap a Vince Wilfork or Haloti Ngata for Clay Matthews as the versatile big guys on the DL are just too valuable.

LT: Having an elite LT can impact your offense in multiple ways:
Affords the quarterback more time
Quarterbacks health
Improves the running game
More time for the WR to create space

DE: Back to the DL and finding an elite 34 end in the mould of Richard Seymour, someone who can provide pressure and get you 5 sacks a season plus play the run and be generally disruptive by blocking passing lanes at the LOS etc. Takes up blockers by demanding a double team and allows others around him to make plays as well.

3-4 OLB: Its a passing league and the QB can't throw from his back. 3-4 OLB provide the pressure in the 3-4.
LT: Have to protect the blindside. Most of the elite pass rushers line up opposite also.
NT: An elite NT can take a 3-4 to the next level.
RT: Takes the opposite pass rusher.
Interior O-Line: For me its easier to find guys to play well inside.
CB: Gotta be able to make the QB hold onto the ball long enough to generate pressure.
Safety: Similar to CB but need to mix that with some run support.
RB: Seems easy to find a couple RBs and plug them in nowadays.
DE: Fairly easy to find run pluggers to play 3-4 DE.
WR: Finding a group of good WRs is better than 1 great one.
MLB: Don't have to be great to play MLB in a 3-4.
TE: Can find basketball players to catch passes p.easily.
K: Who cares
P: See Kicker.

Graeme Swann's Cat wrote:3-4 OLB: Its a passing league and the QB can't throw from his back. 3-4 OLB provide the pressure in the 3-4.

DE: Fairly easy to find run pluggers to play 3-4 DE.

In the 34 the OLBs are pass rushers however on the majority of plays the chances are only one of the OLBs will be sent after the QB, unless you’re running some sort of zone blitz scheme or send 5+ rushers more often than is the norm, so most of the pressure still comes from the DL.

JIMO but I wouldn’t say it’s easy to find good 34 ends. It’s going to be scheme dependant but I would look for a 34 end to do much more than take up space. Its pretty slim pickings IMO and then you have to consider the importance of the position and the fact you need two of them.

Interesting discussion, I remember some old PC NFL game where you had to pick a team along similar lines. I would always underscore the OL and DL for some fancy RB or WR, but i learnt the hard way that the game is won in the trenches!

Not surprising to see the Kicker and Punter at the bottom, but how many times have they won or lost a game?

They've lost a few thou, Bills fans understand that and Vinatieri won a few for the Pats.

Simple. OL, OL, OL, OL, OL and more OL
RB
QB
DL
SS
FS
CB
OLB
MLB
K
WR
P

No OL, no offense. A mobile and/or smart QB and a good running game will keep you competitive, even if you have mediocre WR's - just look at last years Rams.

Without a good D, it almost doesn't matter how good the O is, you're still likely to get outscored.

Why rank K above WR? With a kicker who can pretty much nail anything from inside 50 yards, you have almost guaranteed points on the board if you can win the field position battle. There are enough games won with only FG's in NFL history to know that TD's are important, but ANY points are most important. A dominant D, decent running game and quality kicker are more likely to lead to winning than the flashiest pair of WR's in the league - just ask the Bengals.

Agreed about OL being ranked above QB.

The Bucs won the Superbowl in 2002 with Brad Johnson under center. The Bears got there with Sexy Rexy. If your defense and running game is good enough and you scheme your team correctly, a game manager is all that's needed.

Pr4wn wrote:Agreed about OL being ranked above QB.

The Bucs won the Superbowl in 2002 with Brad Johnson under center. The Bears got there with Sexy Rexy. If your defense and running game is good enough and you scheme your team correctly, a game manager is all that's needed.

Ravens with Kitna was even more of a classic example. That was in the days when the 'defense wins championships' adage still held true.

In a 3-4 the D-Line's job is to occupy blockers rather than rush so the OLBs are unblocked or single blocked.

Recent QBs to have won a SB:
Aaron Rodgers
Drew Brees
Ben Roethlisberger x2
Peyton Manning
Eli Manning
Tom Brady

McNabb and Warner have also lost in a SB.

Nowadays, you need a QB. The Jets had everything apart from a QB a season ago. They fell short.

At the time of their SB wins, each of the above teams had elite offensive lines.

In Roethlisberger's most recent SB win, the Steelers won in spit of him, not because of him.

I still say that if you have an elite defense, running game and o-line, all you need is a game manager at QB.

OL
DL (both last long in the league)
WR
QB
DB
TE
LB
RB


Assuming this is order of high draft picks or free agents.

The NFL is won in the trenches. With the O-line you give your QB time and that means they flourish, also if you give RB holes then they gain yards, simples. With D-line you get pressure, and stop the run. Both these positions last a long time in NFL so clever to get them first.

Wide receivers before the QB as it takes time for most to get NFL ready.

QB next, as will last and you now have him the time and weapons.

DBs next as it is a passing league, and you need to stop the pass.

TE just to give a young QB a good first option incase of pressure.

Now linebacker, although it is good to have a dominant MLB (4-3 team) you can live with just a good group that work well together.

RB backer last. Like i said im assuming this was for high draft picks and free agents. First not often do you get a good free agent RB with lots of miles left on the clock. You can also get steals late, and even undrafted RBs that can become stars, or even part of a stable of RB like most teams use, so think now adays it has to be last, as you can get a good running game without picking up a star.

Elite? . Peyton makes his look far better than it is. Brady also does a great job of eluding pressure. Brees has a good interior, the bookends arent amazing. Ben hasn't had a great O-Line ever really. Eli I'll give you but he needed help.

Packers gave up the 11th most sacks this year and couldn't generate a run game all year. Rodgers was concussed twice.

Even with that you still need a great QB (with the exception of Eli, who's still a franchise guy) or you dont win the SB. The league has changed, its a passing league.

Yes, and by the same argument, if you take away an opponents passing game (great D and/or knock the QB out of the game) they can still win with a good D and running game. Nobody wins with a bad D, and few win without a running game of some threat.

The Packers just won the SB without a credible run game for most of the season. Peyton's got by for years. At the end of the day you have to have the QB. Look at Parcells. He admitted this offseason he should've taken Matt Ryan over Jake Long simply because you need a QB.

Look at the last 2 SB's. Whilst both winners passing game dominated the statistics, the games were all but won on turnovers, and particularly points off turnovers. 2 INTS's by Big Ben and 1 by Peyton Manning, both with 1 returned for a TD. Had Manning not thrown that INT, they were driving into scoring range. In Superbowl 43 the Steelers ran the ball 25 times and only passed 30 times (admittedly it was one of those passes that won it for them).

I'm not saying a great passing game can't carry you, but if you do rely on it, you still need a dominant D to be able to win, else a team against you with a good running game will chew up the clock, keeping your passing attack off the field. Both the Steelers and the Packers relied upon their defenses to get to the SB and to some extent, win it.

And they still needed elite QBs to even make those SBs. The defense didn't absolutely destroy the Falcons when the Pack went on the road in the playoffs. You need a franchise QB or you don't win the SB nowadays.

It depends what you mean by nowadays. Last 4-5 seasons? I guess there's some truth to that, but without a quality D you aren't going to make the post season, or at least make good progress.

Well you obviously need a good all round team.

Graeme Swann's Cat wrote:In a 3-4 the D-Line's job is to occupy blockers rather than rush so the OLBs are unblocked or single blocked.

Yeah they occupy blockers by trying to get to the QB - look at it this way - on a non-blitz play there will be 3 Defensive Linemen and one Linebacker going after the QB.
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Just finished a 12 hour shift so can't really be bothered getting into the value of a QB debate right now but essentially I agree with GSC that it's going to be difficult to win a SB with a game manager under centre.

The 3-4 D-Linemen's job is to essentially eat up space. With respect a guy like DeMarcus Ware rushes pretty much every play anyway and you'd usually bring at least 1 more guy.

You have to get the QB, then the guys to make him look good.

I was going to post something similar where by you built a team around 5 players and these could be any players any position so my 5 players would have been

QB Aaron Rodgers
RB Adrian Peterson
LT Michael Oher
DT Suh
LB Clay Matthews

So if i were a GM these would be the players I would look to build a team around, all very young, and you could build a strong side around.

Michael Oher sucked at LT last season! He is a great RT but he's nowhere near pro-bowl standard at RT. I'd rather have Jordan Gross.

I took Oher due to his age, and is still only played 2 seasons, on reading back through some posts I cant believe that some people have TE ranked so low, sure you might get your basketball TE like Gates who are really Wideouts but a true TE a Witten, Gonzalez that both block and catch are not ten a penny, and I would have my TE up there above Safeties and maybe an OG, they add another dimension.

If you're looking for a young LT, then Jake Long has to be your man.

I'd even rank Russell Okung above Oher at LT.

Leeds - you can run a spread offense with some success in the NFL. Look at the Patriots, who don't rely on a TE very heavily. Quite a few teams use a 3/4 WR set with no TE. Its a good point that players like Witten etc. are not common, but there are quite a few teams around the league that make do without, or rather have other players (HB, FB, slot receiver) pick up the slack in the passing game. I don't think TE is therefore as essential as say, OL, QB, RB.

Gotta agree with you Skins. Look at the Packers last season. Finely went out early on and they ran a very spread offense, often using 5 WR sets and they ended up winning the Superbowl.

There's no way I'd take a good TE or a good OG. A good mauler inside can totally control the running game (and the clock).

Skins, what about Gronk,and Hernandez, these were weapons that Bill never had before and were used quite a lot, IIRC Bill took another TE in the 2nd this year? Pr4wn as for Packs Finlay was projected to have a huge year but injury curtailed this. I still rate a TE quite high but what I was getting at was that some people had TE just above the Kicker and Punter yet I would have him in the middle somewhere.

Its easy to find a TE in the lower rounds that can catch though. Using your example, the Pats found 2 last year. Finding a complete TE like Witten isn't as easy, but not worth it in comparison to the impact you can get from another position imo.

Gronk was a 2nd rounder, and hernandez is a 4th rounder

alright so one was a late rounder. Still doesn't make the TE position worth more

Graeme Swann's Cat wrote:The 3-4 D-Linemen's job is to essentially eat up space. With respect a guy like DeMarcus Ware rushes pretty much every play anyway and you'd usually bring at least 1 more guy.

The NFL average is for teams to blitz on ~35% of plays but that will vary depending on the defensive scheme employed. For example an aggressive team might blitz on ~50% of plays while a more conservative team might only blitz on ~15% of plays. Exactly where the Cowboys rank in this range (since we’re using them as an example) I’m not really sure but from watching them I doubt they rank close to blitzing on 50% of play. Maybe a Cowboys fan, if there are any on the site, could shed more light on this for us. In any case even if they did blitz a large percentage of the time it still wouldn’t be much more than 50% so at least half the time the Cowboys are only sending 4 rushers, whether that’s out of the base 34 (3DL+ LB) a zone blitz or sub package.

You’re correct that Ware rushed the passer more often than not (he only spent ~12% of the time in coverage) and looking at the two other OLBs with most snaps we can see that Spencer dropped into coverage ~30% of the time and Butler spent ~8% of the time in coverage. Add that up and we see that on at least 50% of plays at least one of the two OLBs were in coverage. If we’re talking about your standard 1 gap 34 on most of the defensive snaps it’s likely the majority of pressure is going to come from the DL.

My 5 players to start a franchise would go as follows

1 Aaron Rodgers
2 Demarcus Ware
3 Nnamdi/Revis
4 Joe Thomas
5 A.D

Ware and Spencer accounted for 20.5 sacks.

Spears, Ratliff and Olshansky accounted for 3.5. Actually Ratliff accounted for 3.5 sacks. And he's one of the most disruptive 3-4 NT in the league. The D-Line occupy blockers and are supposed to grab double teams. The point is to get your best pass rushers, the 3-4 OLBs, into a situation where they get a free run at a single blocked opponent. Disruption from them is a bonus. Its why 3-4 OLBs generally end up with higher sack numbers than the 4-3 DE equivalent.

Graeme Swann's Cat wrote:Ware and Spencer accounted for 20.5 sacks.

Spears, Ratliff and Olshansky accounted for 3.5. Actually Ratliff accounted for 3.5 sacks. And he's one of the most disruptive 3-4 NT in the league. The D-Line occupy blockers and are supposed to grab double teams. The point is to get your best pass rushers, the 3-4 OLBs, into a situation where they get a free run at a single blocked opponent. Disruption from them is a bonus. Its why 3-4 OLBs generally end up with higher sack numbers than the 4-3 DE equivalent.

I think you’re missing my point and perhaps it’s because I’m not explaining myself very well but let me make it clear that I’m not disagreeing with the underlined portion of what you are saying. My point is how they draw these double teams, 300lbs of offensive lineman matches up fairly well with a 300lbs defensive lineman so the need for a double team arises when the defensive lineman is particularly disruptive and I come back to the example of Richard Seymour who is one of the best 34 ends of the last 10 years. Now there is another type of defensive linemen who can play the position and demand a double team i.e. massive 340lbs + guys who still possess the required athleticism, however something that’s often talked about in draft circles called “planet theory” dictates that there are only so many guys on the planet with that blend of massive size and athleticism. It’s the reason good NTs are so difficult to find.

You are correct that disruption (sacks) from defensive linemen after they have been double teamed is a bonus but it’s how they draw the double teams that is the point. If they weren’t disruptive in the first place they wouldn’t draw double teams.

We’re going round in circles but the fact is that depending on scheme a 34 team will sent four rushers between 50% and 85% of the time and the majority of that time 3 of them will be defensive linemen.

Just FYI Ratliff has actually averaged 5 sacks per year over the last 5 years and if you watch Olshansky when he’s at his best he’s one of the better 34 ends in the league, excellent run stopper and when he’s not doubled he gets a lot of pressure on the QB. Spears is meh and wouldn’t appear on my list of best defensive ends.

Olshansky is a very mediocre 3-4 DE in my opinion. I think they will bin him in the next year or two.

Pr4wn wrote:Olshansky is a very mediocre 3-4 DE in my opinion. I think they will bin him in the next year or two.

Yeah probably went a bit too far with my praise for Olshansky, he's still solid vs. the run but he wasn't as good last season as he has been previously. :$

With any luck he will be back to his best this season.