Jamaal Charles Checks In As The 10th Best Offensive Weapon In The NFL

Kansas City Chiefs RB Jamaal Charles has tied San Diego Chargers TE Antonio Gates for 10th in ESPN.com’s Power Rankings Series.

ESPN has been using a panel of “experts” to rank players at various positions all offseason. At first there appeared to be some structure to what they were doing. I assumed they would cycle through each position group until they had ranked all of them. You know, do the RB’s then the WR’s, then the DT’s and so forth.

I apparently thought wrong.

I am now thoroughly convinced that ESPN has constructed a wooden “Lockout Wheel Of Content Hilarity” that they spin each week to decide what kind of ridiculous rankings they will have their “experts” vote on each week. To date, they’ve ranked the top ten owners and the top ten helmets. HELMETS!

This week, they came up with an even more confusing and convoluted set of criteria. Instead of continuing to rank the position groups, it appears the wheel landed on the “rank the best offensive players in the NFL but you can’t include QB’s because while QB’s are indeed offensive players, they are so important to the offensive process that the list would likely be dominated by QB’s and we already ranked QB’s so we want to get some different kinds of names in there, you know and who knows, maybe even a lineman will make this list and it won’t be as boring as just a set of rankings ranking lineman because really, who cares about lineman, they aren’t exciting and don’t score TD’s and maybe next week we can do jerseys or cleats or something” spot on the wheel.

More after the jump.

Anyway, with QB’s taken our of the equation, old JC, also known around here as the hands down best RB in the NFL, managed to sneak in at #10, tied with Antonio Gates. This isn’t bad, considering this list included all offensive players not named Quarterback.

Adding to the ridiculousness and inconsistency of the ESPN Power Rankings series is that if you go back and look at the previous rankings of certain offensive position groups, they are not consistent. For instance, Charles ranked as the 5th best running back in the RB Ranks, behind #4 Arian Foster. However, in the “offensive players not named QB” rankings, Charles ranked 10th and Foster tied for 14th.

So let me just get this straight in my head ESPN. Charles is 5th best RB in the NFL and the 10th best offensive player and Foster is the 4th best RB and the 14th best offensive player?

ESPN may not always bust out their best stuff but at least they provide plenty of material for us to make fun of them about.