Professional Football Researchers Association Forum

I always remembered a snippet from when Peter King took on the ambitious project of ranking the top 500 NFL players in the preseason of 2007. He lamented the consequences of such a project.

"I could just hear my next call to Rodney Harrison, the Patriots safety -- or, rather, his call to me: 'Two hundred and thirty-sixth?! Behind Leigh Bodden, Michael Roos, Jahri Evans? I never heard of Jahri Evans!' "

That's hilarious because my initial reaction to this thread was "Who?"

JohnH19 wrote:That's hilarious because my initial reaction to this thread was "Who?"

Me too, and I also thought "The Seahawks had an O-lineman who made six Pro Bowls? Really?"

Question: which guard post-Alan Faneca is better than Jahri Evans? The most likely options I can see are folks like Marshal Yanda (4/5/10s?), Mike Iupati (1/4/????), Logan Mankins (2/7/10s?), or Josh Sitton (2/3/????). Zack Martin has a good start at 2/2/???? in his first two seasons. Barring film study evidence to the contrary, Evans looks about top of the heap at 4/6/10s?

Jeremy Crowhurst wrote:Me too, and I also thought "The Seahawks had an O-lineman who made six Pro Bowls? Really?"

Hey, James Carpenter did get an all-pro vote from the AP a couple years back . . .

bachslunch wrote:Question: which guard post-Alan Faneca is better than Jahri Evans? The most likely options I can see are folks like Marshal Yanda (4/5/10s?), Mike Iupati (1/4/????), Logan Mankins (2/7/10s?), or Josh Sitton (2/3/????). Zack Martin has a good start at 2/2/???? in his first two seasons. Barring film study evidence to the contrary, Evans looks about top of the heap at 4/6/10s?

I don't know if Evans will make the '10's All-Decade Team, but I think he would be a prime candidate for the 2005-14 Team.

bachslunch wrote:Question: which guard post-Alan Faneca is better than Jahri Evans? The most likely options I can see are folks like Marshal Yanda (4/5/10s?), Mike Iupati (1/4/????), Logan Mankins (2/7/10s?), or Josh Sitton (2/3/????). Zack Martin has a good start at 2/2/???? in his first two seasons. Barring film study evidence to the contrary, Evans looks about top of the heap at 4/6/10s?

From the late 2000's to the early 2010's the Saints had arguably the best offensive line. As a unit. Evans and Carl Nicks were the best pair of guards in that time, too. In the late 2000's they were near equals though with Evans being slightly better. In the early 2010's it was Nicks were was clearly better. Though because of when their careers started Evans was first up for the huge contract and it timed perfect for him since there's an argument he was the best guard in football at that exact time. He got paid like it. While immediately after that is when Nicks became the better of the two (Evans was still good) and only then did Nicks get some attention (all-pro, pro bowl, etc). While with Evans getting the headlines from his contract he was still the "name" and he collected all-pros and pro bowls based off what he had done seasons prior. Of course, once Nicks left his time in TB was a disaster and ended his career. The Saints o-line stayed good as a unit for another year or two and honors wise Evans continued to benefit from unit success and name recognition.

Late 2000's period I'd have Mankins as probably better. In the 2010's, so far, Evans is behind many, including Nicks. And Mankins, still. Plus Marshal Yanda, Evan Mathis and Josh Sitton, to name a few.

I don't like all-decade teams, personally, but if I was picking two guards from 2010-current I'd take Mathis and Yanda. The problem with Mathis is that it took years after he was already top of the list at his position for him to get recognition.

There was guards better than Evans over the different spans of his career but for one of the HOF questions - "Was he ever the best at his position?" - you can arguably check that for him for at least one season. One season isn't enough for me, he got a lot of reputation honors after that season, but that's based on what I would want the HOF to be. For what it is? Being the best at one point in time is better than some of the people they put in and certainly better than some of the names that advance through the various stages of the HOF voting process.

I do remember saying it on the old forums that Evans and Nicks were essentially equals and Evans was picked to represent them honors wise and even after Nicks passed him by Evans continued to get honors off reputation so in the period they played together where they were nearly equal talents and then Nicks was better, Evans ended up with at least twice the honors.

Evan Mathis is the one who got screwed in all that. Evans has at least a couple of 'his' all-pro selections.

For what it's worth, Evans signed back with the Saints.