Football fans have no respect for the Redskins roster.
NFL Player’s Inc. released its list of the 2015 Rising 50: Future Top-Selling Stars. They released four days ago.
Nobody in DC noticed because NFL Players did not project any of our players as a future star.
“The NFLPI Rising 50 rankings provide an objective analysis and also take into account on-field performances during the 2014 season, fantasy league popularity, early demand from current partners and licensees and new faces in strong markets as factors for sales popularity analysis. Players must not have appeared in previous NFLPI Top 50 Player Sales lists. The list of players will be updated only once annually.”
The bright spot is that the NFLPI does not relist players already named to a Future Stars list. They ranked Robert Griffin III fourth on the 2014 Future Stars list. His actual jersey sales ranked tanked to 37th from September 1 through November 30, 2014. No other Redskins player pulled in the top-50 merchandise sales.
Football fans are voting their wallets on the quality of our stars. The league pays attention.
TE Jordan Reed was the sole Redskins on Elliot Harrison’s NFL.com story All-Under 25 Team of 2014 (Feb. 13, 2014). Harrison had little to choose. Alfred Morris and Ryan Kerrigan were already 26.
Griffin will be 25 on February 12. He is as big a question mark going into this season as he was the last when he was the odds-on favorite to be comeback player of the year.
The Pro Bowl is about player name recognition as it is about honoring the true best players at their position. Name recognition grows from the exposure of playing for contending teams. The NFL gives us players that fans most want to see. That’s why few deserving Redskins make the cut.
Alfred Morris deserved to go. He went as an alternate. Ryan Kerrigan was more deserving. He did not go at all.
Popularity is an indirect pointer to player talent. Better players get more notice. Better players on winning teams draw media attention and fan dollars. Brian Orakpo alluded to that in his lament about his punter.
https://twitter.com/rak98/status/547568860530884608
The NFLPI’s Future Stars lists tells us not to get our postseason hopes up.
Meh! Jay Gruden realized late how big was the job to turn this ship around. Scot McCloughan should have come into the job already knowing that.
No surprises.
No excuses.
Prove it.
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