5 most valuable NFL players at every position

Posted by author October 31, 2024 Football

• Joe Burrow is the NFL leader: Burrow’s 1.80 WAR is the highest of any player in the NFL so far.

• Rookies making an impact: Brock Bowers, Zach Frazier, Dominick Puni and Jared Verse have performed well in the early portions of their careers.

• Unlock your edge with a PFF+ subscription: Get full access to all our in-season fantasy tools, including weekly rankings, WR/CB matchup charts, weekly projections, the Start-Sit Optimizer and more. Sign up now!

Estimated Reading Time: 6 minutes

Determining the top player at any NFL position is always a challenge. While familiar names tend to dominate rankings, it’s essential to back those choices with meaningful data, such as advanced stats, PFF grades and other advanced metrics.

Wins Above Replacement (WAR) is one of the most valuable metrics in sports, which is why our team of data scientists developed PFF’s own WAR model. This model evaluates how well a player performed, assesses his actions and their importance to winning football games and tracks how often those actions occurred.

Using this intricate formula, we’ve calculated each NFL player’s value relative to a replacement-level player. Click here to read more about PFF’s WAR model.

Here are the five most valuable players at every position through the first eight games of the 2024 season.

Note: Fullback, kicker, punter and specialists are not included.

Quarterback

Quarterback is the most important position in football, as shown by their much higher ranking in PFF WAR than other positions.

Joe Burrow has returned from a wrist ligament tear in full force. The Bengals star is far and away the leader in PFF WAR, driven by his league-best 88.3 PFF passing grade and microscopic 1.3% turnover-worthy play rate.

Geno Smith‘s 77.2 passing grade ranks eighth among qualifying quarterbacks, but he sits in the 90th percentile in avoiding negative plays. Lamar Jackson holds the best clean-pocket grade in the NFL (97th percentile) and the highest overall grade by a quarterback (90.5) while committing a turnover-worthy play on just 1.5% of snaps.