Don’t diss Bailey for All-pro!

Champ Bailey was only named to second team all-pro by the AP, and Dr. Z dissed him for his All-pro team as well. Ordinarily I like Dr. Z a lot, but ol’ Z is running on a different set of stats than I like.

As I’ve said before, I’m a big fan of Football Outsiders; and one thing their stats does is that it says that Bailey is one of the two best corners in the league, year-in and year-out.

In a Football Outsiders’ mailbag article, Aaron Schatz says:

Skipping nickelbacks and guys who allow a low number of yards per pass because of Cover-2 schemes, we can still find some much better choices than Newman for the title of “best cornerback in 2007.” For starters, Bailey would have been a better choice. He was 30th in yards per pass, but first in Success Rate with a very low number of targets for a first-string cornerback. … Finally, there’s Nnamdi Asomugha. He would have been in the top ten for both Success Rate and yards per pass but teams were so busy avoiding him that he doesn’t even have enough passes to qualify for my lists. The Pats may have avoided Antonio Cromartie in the AFC Championship game, but over the whole season, evidence is pretty strong that the only cornerbacks who actually scare quarterbacks away are Asomugha and Bailey. Those are my All-Pro corners.

Thanks for the reminder, Aaron!

It’s easy to forget how effective Champ is; he didn’t get 10 interceptions this year because the line couldn’t hold up its end of the bargain, but quarterbacks didn’t want to throw to Bailey; and when they did, no other corner in the league was as effective at breaking up the pass..