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.
