A few days ago the gentle people of Pro Football Focus rolled out their Top 50 NFL Players for the 2023 season list. They split the entries in 10-player chunks, and no member of the Baltimore Ravens made it past the first cut.
After tight end Mark Andrews (no. 49) and quarterback Lamar Jackson (no. 41) made the list, no other Raven got the nod. That, honestly, felt a little bit wrong.
Where was Kyle Hamilton (the best safety of the 2022 season by the very own lads over PFF...)? Where was Marlon Humphrey, recently named one of the best players of the NFL by the league? And most shockingly, where in the world was legendary kicker Justin Tucker!?
Turns out good old Tucker "just missed out" on making it to the Top 50, according to the latest entry written by Sam Monson of Pro Football Focus on Tuesday, July 25.
"You can construct a case that Tucker is one of the best five players in football, but we tend not to because of the can of worms that opens up for somebody who was on the field only 168 times in 2022. Tucker is as good as it gets at his position — and has been for years. The gap between him and the next-best kicker over any extended period of time is as large as it is at any other position, but it’s hard to put a player whose role is so limited on a list as exclusive as this over excellent players who log more than five times as many snaps over the season."Sam Monson, Pro Football Focus
As the saying tells, "Kickers are people too." Perhaps that has to be changed to adapt to Monson and his peers, adding "unless you work at PFF," at the end of it.
All Monson could come up with to justify the snub was that Tucker "was only on the field 168 times," not before saying that Tucker is "one of the best five players in football." Sheesh...
The analyst even wrote "The gap between and the next-best kicker over any extended period of time is as large as it is at any other position," but of course, he once more relied on the whole "playing time" to justify his poor (non)selection of Tucker as a Top 50 NFL Player.
Somethings will never change.