Grading The Mock Drafts: Mel Kiper is Your Champ!

Mel Kiper, your 2013 BQB Mock Draft Champ!

Thursday, we posted 6 experts' most recent mock drafts.  Last year, Peter King beat the field of 6 to take down the title.  This year, Mel Kiper of ESPN takes the title.  Final scores were as follows (see Thursday's post for scoring):

Assessing Offseason Movement for All 16 AFC Teams

Even with these guys at the helm, Jets fans should be happy with their offseason

Last night's season opener marked the end of one streak and the continuation of another.  The Giants became the defending champ to lose the season opener in prime time, breaking a streak of 8 years in a row. In a related story, the Backup Quarterback got knocked out in his Suicide Pool in week 1 for the 3rd year in a row.  The Giants sure seemed like a sure thing, so I blame the fact that the game was on a Wednesday rather than a Thursday.  At least Floyd Mayweather made some money betting on the second half.

While watching last night's game, the BQB finished up his AFC offseason player movement rankings.  Several AFC teams got their own posts throughout the offseason (including the Bengals, Jets, Chiefs, Titans, Browns, and Bills).  Following final cuts, we had to re-run the numbers, so some of the outlooks have changed.

Groundrules for this post:

1. We're considering non-rookie player movement only.  Draft picks are covered here.

2. Each player gets a value ascribed to him, based on the AV formula from our friends at Pro Football Reference:

2009 AV + 2 x 2010 AV + 3 x 2011 AV

3. If a player was on a team's roster the previous season and is no longer on that roster this season, that represents value "lost" for the team.  If a player is on the roster this season and was not on the roster last season, that represents value "gained" for the team.  It doesn't matter how they got there -- free agency, trade, waivers, whatever.

4. Net value represents value gained minus value lost.

5. A player's value is all that matters here.  Their salary, what a team got in return for that player via trade, intangibles, etc. aren't considered.

6. These obviously aren't the be-all and end-all of our season projections (coming soon), but they are a component of them.

So who had the best offseason in the AFC?  The answer surprised us . . .

Opening Night: Why The Smart Money's on the Giants

Thanks to the President, the Giants will open the season a day early

In the first Wednesday night game in the NFL in 64 years (thank you, President Obama and the DNC), the Cowboys and the defending champion Giants open the season tomorrow.  The NFL first started having its most recent champion play a home game in primetime to start the season in 2004.  And since then, the defending champs have been overwhelmingly successful.  Details after the jump:

Offseason Review: NFC East

In an effort to get our team offseason reviews done by the Giants-Cowboys game, we're combining the remaining teams in each division in a single post.  Today, we look at the NFC East.  We covered the Redskins back in May and look at the other three teams below.

For those of you who haven't been following along:

1. We're looking only at roster changes from year-to-year; Aaron Rodgers is the best player in the game, but the Packers don't get credit for having him on their roster because he was on it last year.  The Broncos, on the other hand, get credit for acquiring Peyton Manning.

2. We're not considering rookies -- neither draft picks nor undrafted free agents.  You can see our draft rankings here and we'll consider them in our mega-NFL preview in a few weeks.

3. The two main quantitative metrics are "starts gained or lost" and "value gained or lost."  Starts are straightforward -- if a player started a game in 2011 and left the team, that's a negative; if a player started a game in 2011 and joined the team, that's a positive.  So if a team loses a player who started 8 games but gains one who started 10 games, that's a net of +2.

4. "Value" is defined using a weighted version of Pro Football Reference's AV ratings, considering the past 3 years in increasing order of importance:

Value = 2009 AV + 2 x 2010 AV + 3 x 2011 AV

5. That's where the quantitative ends and the qualitative begins; we opine on what the numbers mean for each team at the end of every post.

With that out of the way, who got better and worse in the NFC East?  The 4 teams are listed after the jump in order of most improved to least improved.