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#12 Overall, Calais Campbell, Arizona Cardinals, Defensive End, #5 Defensive Lineman/Linebacker: Pass Rusher
2024 Pre-Season Rank #19, 2023 Pre-Season Rank #19, 2022 Pre-Season Rank #26 2021 Pre-Season Rank #28, 2020 Pre-Season Rank #36. Peak Period: 2014-18
Longevity, talent, and class.
39-year-old Calais Campbell remains a solid Defensive End in the National Football League, and in 2025, he returns to the team he played for from 2008 to 2016, the Arizona Cardinals.
“The Mayor of Sacksonville” went to six Pro Bowls in a seven-year period (2014-20), which includes his last two in his first run in Arizona, all three of his seasons as a Jacksonville Jaguar, and his first in Baltimore. Campbell, who won the 2019 Walter Payton Man of the Year and the 2023 Alan Page Award, was also honored with a 2010s All-Decade Selection.
Campbell also has a statistical Hall of Fame resume with 110.5 Sacks and 187 Tackles for Loss, making him the active leader in that stat. The Hall of Fame loves character guys, but they don’t get a pass unless they show what their goods are on the gridiron. Calais Campbell did just that.
Modern Positional Average
O.K.. This is tricky. Initially, we were ironclad on positions regarding how they appear on a stat sheet, but we were kidding ourselves. The front seven on any defensive corps is a rotating group of roles that are far more complicated to define than any offensive position. We made a significant change, focusing on pass rushers and interior linemen, but even then, the myriad of roles renders it difficult, especially when we are looking at matching current players with their first five counterparts.
Here are the statistics that we are using based on the last group of Defensive Lineman/Linebackers/EDGE to enter the Pro Football Hall of Fame:
- Games Played: 211.4
- Approximate Value: 132.4
- Approximate Value per Games Played: 0.6263
- Games Started: 191.8
- Approximate Value per Games Started: 0.6903
- Approximate Value per Five-Year Peak: 63.4
- Approximate Value’s Best Five Results: 68.6
- Top Five Defensive Player of the Year Finishes**: 4.8
- Pro Bowls: 6.8
- First Team All-Pros*: 3
- Quarterback Sacks: 129.8
- Quarterback Sacks Five-Year Peak: 63
- Top Five Quarterback Sacks Finishes: 9
- Tackles for Loss: 157.6
- Tackles for Loss Five-Year Peak: 75.4
- Top Five Tackles for Loss Finishes: 11.2
- Combined Tackles: 600.2
- Combined Tackles Five-Year Peak: 259.2
- Forced Fumbles: 35.6
- Forced Fumbles Five-Year Peak: 15
- Super Bowl Wins: 0.6
- Super Bowl Appearances: 1.2
*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.
#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.