View the original article to see embedded media.
As we said in Thursday’s AFC column, identifying an “underrated” player is a truly subjective exercise. A player I might find underrated, you might simply see as a replacement player. Who I might see as a replacement player could be Pro Football Focus’s third-highest-graded interior pass rusher. This is the beauty of the NFL.
I once talked to a former Bengals scout about a moment when he was watching tape on a player. Marvin Lewis walked by, and the scout said (I’m paraphrasing a bit): Look at this defensive lineman. Isn’t what he’s doing terrible? Lewis said: Actually, this is what he’s supposed to be doing. Lewis stayed and explained the intricacy of the defense that actually required the odd maneuver to succeed. It cemented in the scout’s head the idea that we so often look at this game through different lenses. Without communication, we’re doomed to sit here staring at a manifestation of our own world believing it’s everyone’s universe.
