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#5 Overall, Trent Williams, San Francisco 49ers, Offensive Tackle, #1 Offensive Lineman
2024 Pre-Season Rank #6, 2023 Pre-Season Rank #6, 2022 Pre-Season Rank #20, 2021 Pre-Season Rank #33, 2020 Pre-Season Rank #35. 2018-23*
Aging like wine, we love the story of Trent Williams, who was one of the better Offensive Linemen in Washington history, who wanted out after he felt that the team misdiagnosed a dermatofibrosarcoma protuberans, a growth that was determined to be a type of cancer in 2019, but was dismissed by the Redskins medical team in 2013. He did not play at all in 2019 and wanted out, landing in San Francisco in 2020, where he has been a First Team All-Pro the last three years and now has the most Pro Bowls (11) of any active Offensive Lineman.
What Williams has accomplished in San Francisco has cemented a bronze bust.
*Williams sat out in 2019.
Modern Positional Average
Offensive Linemen: Joe Thomas (2023), Tony Boselli (2022) Alan Faneca (2021), Steve Hutchinson (2020) and Kevin Mawae (2019).
As we progress in football analytics, it is easier to calculate the effectiveness of Offensive Lineman more than ever before. We will be adding more metrics in the future (time did not permit it for this year), but games are won and lost in the trenches, and football fans are visually divested there.
Here are the statistics that we are using based on the last group of Offensive Lineman to enter the Pro Football Hall of Fame:
- Games Played: 174.8
- Approximate Value: 188
- Approximate Value per Games Played: 0.6760
- Games Started: 173
- Approximate Value per Games Started: 0.6832
- Approximate Value per Five-Year Peak: 65.4
- Approximate Value’s Best Five Results: 68.0
- Pro Bowls: 7.8
- First Team All-Pros*: 4.8
- Super Bowl Wins 0.4
- Super Bowl Appearances 0.2
*This is an aggregate of the Top Five finishes (5th = 1, 4th = 2, 3rd = 3, 2nd = 4th, 1st = 5)
**This is a reminder that the All-Pros we use are from the AP.
#4 Overall, Travis Kelce: Kansas City Chiefs, #1 Tight End
2024 Pre-Season Rank #5, 2023 Pre-Season Rank #7, 2022 Pre-Season Rank #12, 2021 Pre-Season Rank: #20, 2020 Pre-Season Rank #37. Peak Period: 2018-22
Travis Kelce's performance is exceptional, especially when compared to the only two legends in the Modern Positional Average statistics, Shannon Sharpe & Tony Gonzalez. Despite this daunting comparison, Kelce has not only measured up but surpassed expectations. In the 2010s, he was the number two Tight End behind Rob Gronkowski, and now, he stands as the top man at his position among active players. It's not an exaggeration to say that he is the most recognized man in football.
Dating Taylor Swift (and now engaged to) will do that.
This man is a rock star of an athlete, but even if he was a mute, Kelce has the numbers of a Hall of Fame Tight End: over 12,000 Yards and 77 Touchdowns, a nine-year Pro Bowl streak, and four First Team All-Pros. Throw in three Super Bowls, and you have a man making a first-ballot Hall of Fame case and someone looking at the Mount Rushmore of Tight Ends.
Kelce might be declining, but not in popularity.
Modern Positional Average
Tight Ends: Antonio Gates (2025), Tony Gonzalez (2019), Shannon Sharpe (2011).
Please note that there are only three Tight Ends who have been inducted in the last two decades and we will base the average only on these three players. This should change in the next five years.
Here are the statistics that we are using based on the last group of Tight Ends to enter the Pro Football Hall of Fame:
- Games Played: 236.7
- Approximate Value: 126.7
- Approximate Value per Games Played: 0.5352
- Games Started: 204.3
- Approximate Value per Games Started: 0.6198
- Approximate Value per Five-Year Peak: 54.3
- Approximate Value’s Best Five Results: 57.3
- Pro Bowls: 10
- First Team All-Pros*: 4.3
- Receiving Yards: 12,342.7
- Receiving Yards Five-Year Peak: 4,880
- Top Five Receiving Yards Finish: 0
- Receiving Touchdowns: 96.3
- Receiving Touchdowns Five-Year Peak: 38
- Top Five Receiving Touchdown Finishes**: 1.7
- Receptions: 1,032
- Receptions Five-Year Peak: 380.7
- Top Five Receptions**: 4
- Super Bowl Wins 1
- Super Bowl Appearances 1
*This is an aggregate of the Top Five finishes (5th = 1, 4th = 2, 3rd = 3, 2nd = 4th, 1st = 5)
**This is a reminder that the All-Pros we use are from the AP.