Independent Country

James Leroy Wilson's one-man magazine.

Monday, April 28, 2025

Ranking the NFL's Top Overall Picks

 

Last Thursday, quarterback Cam Ward of the Miami (FL) college football team was selected by the Tennessee Titans as the first overall pick of the 2025 NFL draft. Like anyone who's selected in the draft, I'm unsure how well he'll perform as a pro; more importantly, I'm uncertain about his prospects for the team that drafted him.. 

Ward may win a Super Bowl for the Titans, in which case, the draft pick will have worked out perfectly for them. Or, he might struggle with the Titans and then earn Pro Bowls and win Super Bowls elsewhere. If that happens, then when his career is over, we'll say he was a great player who lived up to his potential as the #1 overall pick.

But… How would that have helped the Titans? Perhaps they could have won a Super Bowl if they picked somebody else.


I'm curious how well the #1 overall picks have worked out for the teams that selected them. If the player was a starter on a Super Bowl-winning team, the pick was a success, no question. He was selected to fill a need, and it all paid off. What more could be asked? An NFL team will win the Super Bowl once every 32 years on average. If you picked a guy who helped get you one, you picked the right guy.


Below, I rank the #1 overall picks based on how well the player worked out for their first team. So, for instance, Peyton Manning's work with the Broncos isn't taken into consideration, only what he accomplished with the Colts. 


Speaking of the Broncos, John Elway wasn't drafted by them; he was drafted (coincidentally) by the Colts, and the Broncos traded for him before the season started. I'm proceeding as if Elway had been drafted by the Broncos, because he never signed with any other team. There was a similar situation with Eli Manning and the Chargers; I'm treating him as if drafted by the Giants.


I am ranking the players based on the number of Super Bowl titles they won with the team that drafted them. In the event of a tie, I prioritize the number of Pro Bowl selections they had with that team, as Pro Bowl selections are indicative of championship-caliber play. A Pro Bowl selection is evidence that the team was not wrong in making the pick. 


I'm beginning with 1970, the start of the modern era of the NFL, following the AFL-NFL merger. Oddly enough, the most excellent #1 overall pick of all time is the first, Terry Bradshaw.


Here is the list, a relatively short one, of top overall picks who won Super Bowls with the team that drafted them.


  1. 1970 Terry Bradshaw, QB,  Steelers, 4 Super Bowl wins (3 Pro Bowls)

  2. 1989 Troy Aikman, QB,  Cowboys, 3 Super Bowl wins (6 Pro Bowls)

  3. 1991 Russell Maryland, DT, Cowboys, 3 (1)

  4. 1983 John Elway, QB, Broncos, 2 (9)

  5. 2004 Eli Manning, QB, Giants 2 (4)

  6. 1998 Peyton Manning, QB, Colts, 1 (11)

  7. 1997 Orlando Pace, OT, Rams, 1 (7)

  8. 1974 Ed "Too Tall" Jones, DE, Cowboys, 1 (3)

  9. 2013 Eric Fisher, OT, Chiefs, 1 (2)


As you see, only nine of the 55 picks from 1970 through 2024 won a Super Bowl for their first team. It doesn't mean everyone else was a mistake. Continuing the ranking, here are the top overall picks who didn't win the Super Bowl for their drafting team but earned a pile of Pro Bowls and, usually, some other honor (such as Defensive or Offensive Player of the Year, All-Decade team). Players in bold are still playing, although not necessarily for the same team.


  1. 1985 Bruce Smith, DE, Bills (11 Pro Bowls)

  2. 2017 Myles Garrett, DE, Browns (6)

  3. 1976 Lee Roy Selmon, DE, Buccaneers (6) 

  4. 1978 Earl Campbell, RB, Oilers (5)


These four did the next-best thing to leading their teams to a Super Bowl win, and that's a Super Bowl appearance. Cam Newton leads this group because of his 15-1 MVP season:


  1. 2010 Cam Newton, QB, Panthers (3 Pro Bowls)

  2. 1993 Drew Bledsoe, QB, Patriots (3)

  3. 2016 Jared Goff, QB, Rams (2)

  4. 2000 Joe Burrow, QB, Bengals (2)


Impactful over a limited number of years (7 or fewer for the drafting team):


  1. 2012 Andrew Luck, QB, Colts (4 Pro Bowls)

  2. 2001 Michael Vick, QB, Falcons (3)

  3. 1980 Billy Sims, RB, Lions (3)

  4. 2014 Jadeveon Clowney, LB, Texans (3)

  5. 2008 Jake Long, OT, Dolphins (4)

  6. 2006 Mario Williams, DE, Texans (3)

  7. 1996: Keyshawn Johnson, WR, Jets (2)

  8. 1980 George Rogers, RB, Saints (2)

  9. 2019 Kyler Murray, QB, Cardinals (2)


Considered at least pretty good over a long period:


  1. 1975 Steve Bartkowski, QB, Falcons 11 years (2 Pro Bowls)

  2. 2009 Matthew Stafford, QB, Lions 12 yrs (1)

  3. 2003 Carson Palmer, QB, Bengals 8 yrs (2) 

  4. 1984 Irving Fryar, WR, Patriots, 9 yrs (1) 

 

At least a promising start; early evidence that the pick wasn't necessarily wrong:


  1. 2021 Trevor Lawrence, QB, Jaguars (Pro Bowl and playoff win in second year)

  2. 2018: Baker Mayfield, QB, Browns (over .500; playoff win in third year)

  3. 2022: Travon Walker, QB, Jaguars (24 sacks over three years)

  4. 2015 Jameis Winston, QB,  Buccaneers (Pro Bowl rookie year)

  5. 1971 Jim Plunkett, QB, Patriots (Offensive Rookie of the Year)

  6. 2010 Sam Bradford, Rams (Offensive Rookie of the Year)


Better on a later team(s), but never elite:


  1. 2005: Alex Smith, QB, 49ers

  2. 1987: Vinny Testaverde, Buccaneers

  3. 1990: Jeff George, Colts (he led the NFL in passing yards with the Raiders)

  4. 1973: John Matuszak, Oilers (A near disaster. Traded to Chiefs after one year in contract dispute; later won two rings with Raiders. The trade worked out for Houston, who received Hall of Famer Curley Culp and a 1975 first-round pick, Hall of Famer Robert Brazile.)


41-50 Mostly mediocre at best throughout career in alphabetical order; injury what-Ifs are italicized.


1977; Ricky Bell, RB, Buccaneers 

1994:  Ki-Jana Carter, Bengals

2000:  Courtney Brown, DE, Browns

1988: Aundray Bruce, LB, Falcons

2002: David Carr, QB, Texans

1999: Tim Couch, QB, Browns

1992: Steve Emtman, DE, Colts

1972: Walt Patulski, DE, Bills

1982: Kenneth Sims, DE, Patriots 

1994: Dan Wilkinson, DT, Bengals


Biggest Bust:


51: 2007: JaMarcus Russell, QB, Raiders


Disasters:


52. 1980: Tom Cousineau, LB, Bills. The Bills were outbid by a Canadian Football League team. (Talk about a different era!) Cousineau later played with the Browns.

53. 1986: Bo Jackson, RB, Buccaneers. Refused to play for the team with good reason, opted for MLB. A season later made a splash with the Raiders.


Too soon to rank, although not as promising as other players in their draft class:


2023: Bryce Young, QB, Panthers

2024: Caleb Williams, QB, Bears



Subscription rates to the MVP Chase are the lowest that Substack allows: $5 per month or $30 per year (a 50% discount). You can also support me through PayPal or contact me using an alternative method. The more support I have, the more content you'll see. Contact me for writing, editing, research, and other work at jamesleroywilson-at-gmail.com.


Check out JL Cells for my non-sports weirdness.

Tuesday, April 22, 2025

The NHL MVP Chase winner

 

Photo credit: Santeri Viinamäki

The NHL completed its regular season last week. It's time for members of the Professional Hockey Writers Association to fill out their Hart Memorial Trophy (MVP) ballots.


The NHL MVP Chase can help inform their ballots. It counts up the number of games in which players made significant contributions to team success:


  • A  skater earns an MVP point if his points (goals and assists) plus +/- equals two or more in a win or OT loss. 

  • A goalie earns an MVP Chase point each time he allows two goals or fewer in a win or OT loss.


In a year with no statistically dominant skater, Kyle Connor of the Jets came out on top with 40 MVP Chase points. He's unlikely to win it, however. Although he was the best skater on the best team, he was "only" seventh in the league in points and eighth among the top ten scorers in +/-. His goalie's dominant season helped him win so many games.


That goalie, Connor Hellebuyck, finished second in the MVP Chase. He's the one who should win the Hart Trophy:


  • Hellebuyck tied for first with Andrei Vasilevskiy of Tampa Bay among goalies in games played, with 63.

  • His 47 wins led the NHL; Vasilevskiy was a distant second with 38.

  • His 0.925 save percentage also led the NHL.

  • In 39 of 50 games he played for the Jets in which they earned at least one point in the standings, he allowed two goals or fewer.


Here's the final list. In the event of ties, the player from the team that finished higher in the standings is ranked ahead.


  1. Kyle Connor, LW, Jets, 40 MVP points

  2. Connor Hellebuyck, G, Jets, 39

  3. Mitch Marner, RW, Maple Leafs, 39

  4. Nikita Kucherov, RW, Lightning, 39

  5. Brandon Hagel, LW, Lightning, 37

  6. Leon Draisaitl, C, Oilers, 36

  7. Aliaksei Protas, C, Capitals, 35

  8. Jack Eichel, C, Knights, 35

  9. Nathan MacKinnon, C, Avalanche, 33

  10. Cale Makar, D, Avalanche, 33

  11. Connor McDavid, C, Oilers, 33



NBA MVP Re-examination


I anointed Shai Gilgeous-Alexander (SGA) as the NBA's MVP last week. I determined that he had 50 games in which he played great, and his team won. 

 

The standard for a "playing great" is: Game Score plus +/- is 30 or more. I realized I haven't named this statistic; I'll call it "Game Score Plus" or GSP.


What if Nikola Jokic had as many or more 30+ GSP games as SGA, even though not in as many victories?


I examined the top five finishers in the MVP Chase and analyzed the total number of 30+ GSP games they had, along with their team's records for these games.


  1. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Thunder: 54 (50-4)

  2. Nikola Jokic, Nuggets, 48 (39-9)

  3. Giannis Antetokounmpo, Bucks 37 (34-3)

  4. Karl-Anthony Towns, Knicks 36 (32-4)

  5. Jayson Tatum, Celtics 34 (31-3)

Jokic comes in second to SGA in most 30+ GSP games as well as in most 30+ GSP wins. The order for the top five is the same whether we're counting total games or just wins. It's notable that when the other players had these games, their teams hovered around a 90% win rate, while Jokic's Nuggets were barely over 80%. 


SGA and Jokic were on another level, with Giannis the best of the rest. SGA, however, had as many great games in wins as the Nuggets had total wins. That's strong evidence that he contributed the most to the team's success this year. 


Subscription rates to the MVP Chase are the lowest that Substack allows: $ 5 per month or $30 per year (50% off). You can also support me through PayPal or contact me using an alternative method. The more support I have, the more content you'll see. Contact me for writing, editing, research, and other work at jamesleroywilson-at-gmail.com.


Check out JL Cells for my non-sports weirdness.

Saturday, April 19, 2025

Left, Right, and Elon Musk's Grandfather

 On a recent episode of The Farm Mach II podcast, Steven Snider discusses the Technocracy movement of the 1930s and its impact on current U.S. policy. Elon Musk's maternal grandfather, Joshua N. Haldeman (1902-1974), had been a prominent leader of Technocracy Incorporated in the province of Saskatchewan, Canada. While Haldeman's influence on his grandson makes for interesting speculation (though he died when Musk was just a toddler), my thoughts went elsewhere. This episode, along with other recent developments, helped me clarify the distinction between the Left and Right. Economics has little or nothing to do with it.


First, some background. I had associated the word "technocrat" with a public office holder or senior-level administrator who possessed knowledge of specific fields related to public policy and would ideally make decisions based on expertise, rather than politics or popularity. In recent years, previously non-partisan senior banking officials have become prime ministers of major countries, including Mario Draghi (Italy, 2021-2022) and Mark Carney (Canada, took office in 2025), due to their technocratic orientation.


The Technocracy movement of 90 years ago, however, would have no room for such economists. Or the price system. Or money at all. Production and distribution would be coordinated by scientists and engineers who would determine the amount of energy consumed per capita and issue "energy certificates" in place of money for people to use.


As Ira Basen describes it,


"This meant there would be no room and no need for democracy. All the normal functions of government ― education, health, sanitation, public safety ― would be run by experts chosen by their peers. Doctors would vote for the person in charge of the health-care system, teachers for the person who’d run the schools and so on. There would be a cabinet made up of about a hundred of these experts, and they would select a “continental director” to oversee the whole thing."


If that sounds radical, it is. The movement's founder, Howard Scott, said, “As far as Technocracy’s ideas are concerned, we’re so far left that we make communism look bourgeois.” 


But was it truly "far left"?


Until very recently, the primary Left-Right debate has typically centered on economics, with the Left advocating for state control or regulation of resources, production, and markets with the goal of equitable distribution, and the Right emphasizing the preservation of the status quo, including private property rights.


The Technocracy movement, with its proposed 4-hour work days, 4-hour work weeks, and retirement age of 45, certainly sounds far Left indeed, if Left-Right is really about economics. But I don't think it ever was. Ronald Reagan, considered further to the Right than the Republican Establishment of his time, advocated open immigration and free trade. Donald Trump opposes free trade and immigration, but is considered even further to the Right. 


Free trade and open immigration are free-market ideas, which have been confused with Right-wing ideas. The Right, however, cares more about culture than economic policy and always has. So does the Left.


The goal of the Left is universal "brotherhood" expressed as equal rights and equal access to social benefits. The Left's enemies are those who cling to special privileges at the expense of others. The goal of the Right is the preservation and advancement of the nation, often in the form of ethnonationalism. The Right's enemies are advocates of cultural and lifestyle diversity and critics of the nation's traditional religion.


In Episode 499 of Conspirinormal, historian Richard Spence discusses how Benito Mussolini was a leading Figure in the Italian Communist movement. (Communism is Leftist, if you haven't heard.) Mussolini left the party when he realized Italy meant more to him than the worldwide class struggle. This is where he made the move from the far Left to the far Right. In previous episodes, I've listened to Conspirinormal hosts Serfiel Stevenson and Adam Sayne refer to fascism, founded by Mussolini, as a form of pragmatic or undogmatic socialism.


Fascism can promote very Leftist-looking economic policies, but that doesn't make fascists "Leftists." Whereas the Communist wants to empower the State to achieve equality, the Fascist seeks to empower the State to preserve and strengthen the national culture. 


We might discover whether the Technocracy was truly "Leftist" in the life of the aforementioned Haldeman, Musk's grandfather. According to a CBC profile, before Haldeman's involvement with Technocracy, "he joined a couple of left-leaning farmers' organizations." In the early to mid-1930s, he assumed leadership roles in the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation, which advocated for the "eradication of capitalism and the establishment of a socialist state."


Later in the 1930s, Haldeman joined Technocracy Inc., which called for the abolition of North America's borders to create a "Technate of America." Technocracy Inc. believed the continent as a whole could be self-sufficient, with no need for external trade. The vision resembled a "leftist" utopia of economic equality and minimal work.


Technocracy Inc.'s vision for North America (Snipped from Wikimedia Commons)


After leaving Technocracy, Haldeman quickly became a national leader of the Social Credit Party, an expression of the social credit movement that advocated a form of national dividend similar to a universal basic income (UBI), a proposal that, on paper, is quite leftist.


In 1950, Haldeman and his family moved to South Africa, which had just recently instituted Apartheid. He didn't move there because of business or family reasons, but because he thought the recently established Apartheid system was an excellent idea. This was the kind of society he wanted to be a part of.


In current conceptions of "Left" and "Right," one might think that Haldeman continually changed his mind and ideology, as he moved from the CCF (forerunner to today's New Democratic Party in Canada) to the extreme right Christian nationalism of Apartheid South Africa.


Haldeman may have changed his mind on many things, but there is nothing in this brief outline of his political involvement that suggests he ever underwent a fundamental shift in his worldview.


In the 1920s-40s, an age before civil rights for people of color, women's rights, and gay rights gained momentum, a white man could be on the "left" because he was thinking of himself and people like him; he wanted the government to give the white male citizen a fair shake. The rights of other kinds of people were outside his consciousness; he took the existing social arrangement for granted.


Long after Haldeman had left the party, the CCF took power in Saskatchewan in the late 1940s and passed a Bill of Rights. However, a brief review of CCF history did not mention civil rights or other social issues in Canada, such as the Protestant-Catholic and English-French divisions, or immigration from Eastern Europe, during the time Haldeman was involved. 


In the 1920s, these issues contributed to the Ku Klux Klan gaining 25,000 members in Saskatchewan, a province with a population of under one million. To clarify, I do not know whether Haldeman was a member of the Klan during that time. But later in his political career, he expressed beliefs that were in alignment, and there didn't seem to be an inherent conflict between the CCF and Klan values in the 1930s, any more than there was a conflict between the Democratic Party and the Klan in the United States.


What about Technocracy? Leader Howard Scott was hostile to "aliens and Asiatics" and would ban foreign languages. He was anti-Catholic because he thought Catholicism was anti-science;  I also read (source lost) that, essentially, the Technate would eliminate Mexican and Quebecois cultures (both of which were Catholic and non-English speaking). I have not encountered Scott's thoughts on race and civil rights, or his views on eugenics and the Technate's role in family planning.


As far as the Social Credit Party goes, it was famously anti-Semitic, and Haldeman tolerated and defended the anti-Semitism within the ranks. He also published anti-Semitic sentiments after he moved to South Africa.


Haldeman consistently believed in social engineering. He believed in a heavy governmental role in the economy and society. None of that ever made him a Leftist. Maybe he was a Leftist when he was younger, but his involvement with the CCF and Technocracy isn't necessarily evidence of it. On the Left/Right spectrum, only the culture matters: anyone who favors the Right on cultural issues is on the Right, regardless of the economic system they favor. 


This explains the changes in the Republican Party. While supporting more economic intervention than in the past might seem like a sign of veering Left, it's moving even further Right. 


Many people once took the Republican Party of "freedom, limited government, and traditional family values" as preferable to what the Democrats were offering. However, the Republicans have now sacrificed freedom and limited government messaging for the sake of the "values."


And if there were enthusiastic Reagan voters who are now enthusiastic Trump voters, we now know that, for them, it never was about the economics. It was the values they cared about, and it was the values that put them on the Right.


Subscription prices to JL Cells are the lowest that Substack allows: $ 5 per month or $30 per year (50% off). If you enjoy the content, please consider a paid subscription, support me using PayPal with an amount of your choice, or contact me if you prefer an alternative method. At this point, I cannot promise that a paid subscription will provide bonus material, but it will help keep this project going. Thank you!


James Leroy Wilson writes The MVP Chase (subscribe) and JL Cells (subscribe). Thank you for your subscriptions and support! You can contact James for writing, editing, research, and other work at jamesleroywilson-at-gmail.com.