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Originally Posted by Rain Man
Granted, I'm sure that he would say the same thing about the Giants if interviewed for them, but Roger Craig and that buffoon Randy Cross were interviewed about the Saints, and it was kind of funny. Craig said that he played the Saints when Vaughn Johnson first joined the team, and that he got nailed by Johnson on the first play or two of the game. They then showed the clip, and Johnson just destroyed Craig on a tackle. Craig then went back to the huddle and told the offensive line, "I have no idea who that guy is, but you guys better not let him hit me any more. That really hurt." The buffoon then confirmed the story.
Craig then said that he hated playing the Saints more than any other defense they played against.
It's hard to compare 4-3 units against 3-4 units, but as a 3-4 unit I think the Saints' guys stack up with anybody. If you compare them on a scale of 0 (Lew Bush) to 100 (Lawrence Taylor), I would score it as:
LOLB: Banks 86 Jackson 90
LILB: Carson 83 Mills 83
RILB: Reasons 70 Johnson 87
ROLB: Taylor 100 Swilling 90
Total: Giants 339 Saints 350
Yes, this is my scientific system.
I still think that Van Pelt and Kelley were stronger than Banks and Reasons, though.
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I like to do rating scales. But in rating football players, I don't think a bounded scale that goes 1-100 scale works very well. I think you need an unbounded scale, like an IQ scale. Let's say we can assign a number that represents a LBs skill LBIQ and that number has no bound. I an going to assume that LBIQ is then distributed normally across all able-bodied males in the age rage of 21 to 35 (typical NFL playing ages). Now everyone who is in the NFL is clearly in the far left tail of that distribution. But as you consider rarer and rarer individuals the distance of separation between one player and the next best player gets larger and larger.
I think your rating system partially captured that in that you put LT at 100 and no one else above 90. But I think the distances between other players might be suspect. Carson is a HOFer, while none of the Saints are. HOF is not a perfect measure because it is subjective. But in the era we are considering, only 14 LB have been inducted. That is going to put you really far out on the distribution. With LT you are looking at the best LB of all time. Carson is a HOFer. Both the '70 Steelers and the Chiefs had two players that made the HOF. As another indicator of quality beyond HOF, The Sporting News ranked the top 100 NFL players of all time. LT, Bell, Lanier, Lambert and Ham were all on that list. If you consider the differences in skill between those players and the Saints, I think it is pretty large.
To illustrate the gap among good and elite players, consider Silling (a pass rush specialist) against Thomas. Swilling had 106 sacks over 12 seasons compared to Thomas' 126 sacks over 9 seasons. That is 14 sacks per season compared to 8.8. Thomas was 60% more productive at rushing the QB as Swilling. And Thomas is not yet in the HOF, and would probably never be considered in the top 100 players. The gaps in ability get huge when you start comparing very good to elite.