Yesterday, we took a look at the ideal AFC Pro Bowl Roster, but now it's time for the boys on the National Football Conference side. (That last line is best said in a Jon Gruden voice.)
We decided to take a look at who should have actually made the final Pro Bowl roster, and to do it, we used our Net Expected Points (NEP) formula. I explained it in a past MVP Watch article thusly:
Every single situation on the football field has an expected point value; that is, how many points an average team would be expected to score in that situation. For example, the Chiefs may be facing the Pittsburgh Steelers, with a third and two on the 50 yard line. That's a ton of variables, but luckily, numberFire has data from the past dozen years of every single play, so most situations have come up at least once. According to our data, an average team may be "expected" to score 1.23 (estimated number) points on that drive. However, Jamaal Charles reels off a 32-yard run to bring the Chiefs into the red zone, increasing the "expected" point value of the next play to 4.23 (still an estimated number) points. Jamaal Charles then gets credit for the difference, in this case 2.96 points, as his NEP total. That's Net Expected Points.
Since passing is often more efficient than running the ball, you'll often see running backs with negative NEP per play scores, meaning that they are losing their team expected points every time they touch the ball. Receivers and tight ends, meanwhile, will usually have high, positive NEP per play scores, since receivers don't touch the ball unless it's a high-yardage completion. Quarterbacks can be in the middle, either positive or negative: completions typically help their score, while incompletions lower it. So when you're looking at NEP, it's important to look at the numbers based on position.
So what did we find for the NFC? A pair of New Orleans snubs, and the plain old wrong Falcons receiver.
Quarterback
The Actual Roster: MVP trophy this season, and Aaron Rodgers ranks as the third-best player in the entire NFL in adding value to his team. Both players have added an average of more than 12 points per game over expected value to their teams this season. That's good.
RGIII is barely over the double-digit average plateau too - he has 146.98 NEP in 14 games played - but his value doesn't compare to that of Drew Brees. The fourth-best overall player in the league according to our analytics, Brees has added 166.61 NEP to the Saints this season. Brees has averaged 0.25 points added to New Orleans per throw as compared to Griffin's 0.22, and although he doesn't have RGIII's running ability, Griffin's 58.43 NEP added on the ground doesn't come close to making up the difference.
Sure, it didn't translate into the wins that RGIII has, but New Orleans' No. 25 opponent-adjusted defensive ranking may just have something to do with that. The numbers don't lie, and Brees should be headed to Honolulu. It's about all he'd have going for him this year.
Running Back
Right behind Peterson is Frank Gore, who in 241 rushes has only lost the San Francisco 49ers 4.09 expected points on the season. That's what sadly passes for successful these days, my friends. He doesn't have the high NEP marks in total because he's not much of a pass-catcher - he's about a touchdown's worth of points behind Ray Rice, for instance - but his efficiency rushing the ball means he has to be there.
Marshawn Lynch would have been out of our ideal roster had this been written seven days ago; Doug Martin had previously been holding down the third spot for the past couple of weeks. But Week 16 brought the hammer down on Martin's chances. He lost the Bucs 1.04 NEP against the Rams with only 62 yards on 18 carries and no TDs. Lynch, meanwhile, activated beast mode and gained 2.53 expected points for Seattle against the Niners. That was enough to send him flying past Martin and up to 6.04 NEP total on the season.
Wide Receiver
The Actual Roster: on Wednesday, he might even be one of the top five tight ends since the year 2000. He's gained the Falcons 72.17 NEP adjusted for targets - that's three points more than Julio Jones. And he's done it with a career-best 76.5 percent catch rate, the second-best mark of any NFL player with at least 50 receptions behind Randall Cobb.
Jason Witten, meanwhile, was an easy choice for the second tight end spot. He's gained the Cowboys 50.19 NEP this season, a mere 0.17 more than Miles Austin for the second-highest amount on the team. Some may try and argue for Jimmy Graham, but this season, he wasn't even close. Graham gained New Orleans only 38.17 points above expectation, about half of his 2011 total.