CBS Sportsline list of overrated and underrated players for each team

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Originally Posted by 70Chip

I think Gibbs puts a lot of value on him as a returner. A great return man can singlehandedly take you from 8-8 to 10-6. Only a few other players are in a position to do that. I think there will have to be a re-evaluation after this season. Those big returns seem really valuable when a team is successful and he's due for a couple this year.

I see what you are saying, but I have to disagree that a return man can singlehandedly add two wins to a teams total. If he can do that, it's likely that the team probably was good enough to win ten games anyway, and it just so happened that the methodology happened to involve 2 PR TDs. I think a good punt returner can be the difference between 10 wins and 8 wins on a team that has, ya know, 9.5 win kind of talent. I don't think even a great PR like Hester could take a .500 team and have them win 10 games without any additional breaks. I think that type of performance would need something like 8 PR TDs with no fumbles, which is unprecidented.

Additionally, Randle El is hardly the leagues best PR. And maybe Gibbs overvalues him in that role. I mean, hes a big improvement over Antonio Brown. But Football Outsiders argues that he created only about 3-4 points over the course of a season over a league average Punt Returner. 3-4 points probably isn't going to change the outcome of any games. Of course, its about an 8 point improvement over Antonio Brown, which is worth about half a win-ish.