You should certainly question it, it was done by an amateur (me). I was down on McCourty earlier and felt he had lost a step but watching more closely he is still hugely important as a leader and setting up the backend. I bumped up his rating.
The idea of the sheet is not to be exact because it is so subjective, the concept is to look at the overall roster and focus resources.
I am open to any suggestions, send them along.
Roster building is difficult to conceptualize to begin with, much less represent graphically in a spreadsheet. I know, I've tried it for probably a dozen seasons and organized just as many different ways. I've found that the depth-chart format, especially when using traditional positional designation categories rather than real-world roles, just isn't detailed enough to ever feel "right".
You've undertaken a daunting task.
There has to be something between "Pro Bowl" (which has little value) and "Quality Starter" because you seem down on Cooks, McCourty, Chung and I have a feeling you don't even know who Thuney, Andrews, Mason are
Ranking the players accurately in terms of their importance is problematic regardless. I definitely agree about the worthlessness of "Pro Bowl", but even "Starter" doesn't have much meaning for most positions since so many key players are used rotationally and situationally, especially on defense. These days, many sites that analyze the cap/free agency situations of teams seem to focus increasingly on the snap counts and production that would need to be replaced if certain players walk or are released, and even on their roles rather than on position to some degree.
Ideally, I think it might be more accurate to represent the players under contract (and free agents) using a method similar to what the Pats use to represent prospects on their draft board - making a "card" for each player listing their age, physical suitability, playing strengths, areas for improvements, the roles they've played, snap counts (which often vary from game-to-game depending on the opponent-specific game plan), etc., and deriving some overall point-based grade. IOW, the "self-scouting" component.
This immediately makes for a messy grid, of course. For instance, with Chung you might need to tack up copies of his card under a few different role headings - MOF "Robber", ILB, Edge defender, slot DB (plus his ST roles) - for all the various things he's done. OTOH, the number of role headings that a guys "card" get tacked up under might be a virtual quantification of his versatility - another valuable trait. And then, of course, you might need to include an honest assessment/projection of what roles a player may (or may not) be able to take on going forward.
It would be a metric crap-tonne of work to do it all like this, but it would provide a feel for the effort and hours that BB and Caserio, et al, put into the roster-building process every off-season.
