During the Patriot’s bye week, we’d like to take a moment to check out the performance grades of the Patriots players. These rankings are courtesy of Pro Football Focus, where they track the performance of all the NFL players and teams. You really need to check out their site and read up more on how these grades are earned.

Quarterback
NFL Best- Ben Roethlisberger 26.5
NFL Worst- Jamarcus Russel -9.5
Tom Brady 12.5 (14th)

Brady has had an up and down season, so his middle of the road ranking seems only a little low. Look for his ranking to further improve as his accuracy comes back into form. How Big Ben is this far up above Brees / Manning is beyond me.

Running Backs
NFL Best- Maurice Jones-Drew 9.0
NFL Worst- Matt Forte -11.0
Kevin Faulk 2.2 (16th)
Laurence Maroney -3.2 (45th)

It’s no surprise that Kevin Faulk has been our best RB (Taylor and Morris didn’t play in at least 25% of snaps) as the veteran has been amazingly consistent for the Patriots during this decade.

Wide Receivers
NFL Best- Reggie Wayne 10.8
NFL Worst- Terrell Owens -11.1
Wes Welker 5.1 (10th)
Randy Moss 1.2 (31st)
Sam Aiken -0.8(54th)
Julian Edelman -1.6 (64th)

I was very shocked to see Sam Aiken ranked higher than Edelman, although Aiken’s game against the Bucs certainly didn’t hurt him. Welker’s ranking of 10th is great, but I still feel that is too low.

Tight Ends
NFL Best- Jason Witten 12.3
NFL Worst- Sean Ryan -18.9
Ben Watson 2.2 (12th)
Chris Baker 0.4 (18th)

Two solid rankings for two solid Patriots, as both Baker and Watson have provided good blocking along with being quality targets for Tom Brady.

Offensive Line
NFL Best- Nick Mangold 21.0
NFL Worst- Demetrius Bell -24.5
Steven Neal 17.0 (2nd)
Nick Kaczur 6.5 (17th)
Sebastian Vollmer 6.4 (18th)
Dan Koppen 6.2 (21st)
Logan Mankins -0.4 (Xth)
Matt Light -3.8 (Xth)

As the left side of the Patriots line normally gets all of the accolades, I found it quite ironic to see the right side of the line cleaning up in the performance grades. Stephen Neal has played well, but Kaczur being that high was a surprise. Vollmer looks like a real keeper.

If you’re wondering this is how the running avg’s stack up when you break it down:

Runs over LE: 3.8 yds/a (17 attempts)
Runs over LT: 6.4 yds/a (14 attempts)
Runs over LG: 2.8 yds/a (20 attempts)
Runs over OC: 6.5 yds/a (24 attempts)
Runs over RG: 4.4 yds/a (31 attempts)
Runs over RT: 4.0 yds/a (31 attempts)
Runs over RE: 3.5 yds/a (21 attempts)

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