Ever wonder what the worst team of NFL starters would look like? Here it is

On an individual level, NFL Top 100 Player Lists are what get people excited. We get it. Patrick Mahomes is number one and the most competitive race is the scrum for number two. However, half of NFL fandom is groaning about the weak links on each unit. There’s enough glowing coverage of the NFL out there to make you forget that half of the league is stocked with expendable talents and many of them are just fighting to remain on the field.

There’s just as much pressure to perform on the even the most inadequate starters on each roster. The NFL’s worst players are worthy of just as much ignominious recognition as their distinguished counterparts. After surviving roster cuts last week, it’s time to give them their due.

The best way to do so is with an All-Pro team that makes their position coaches’ eyes bleed. As my last preseason exercise, I composed the worst roster by plumbing the depths of the worst fringe starters from around the league. The objective is to assemble a Frankenstein’s monstrosity so abominable they’d be able to draft Caleb Williams No. 1 whether he enters the draft in 2024 or 2025.

These 22 players are nightmare fuel for the football soul.

(New GM Dave Gettleman cackles, pulls lever, watches the shoddy wiring catch fire.)

Pittsburgh Steelers’ Kenny Pickett made the advent of the forward pass look like a mistake that must be rectified. Despite throwing for seven touchdowns and nine interceptions in nine starts, the Steelers managed to make the postseason riding a historic defense and some timely completions against the Baltimore Ravens and Las Vegas Raiders to close out the season. Pickett can work his way off this list, but he still completed fewer than half of his passes in the final two games of 2022 — both wins. Already 25, it’s imperative that he evolves fast. I have my doubts, but his tiny hands are a bad risk that Team Tank… I mean the All-Abominable Team’s offensive coordinator Matt Patricia will take a risk on.

He’ll be backed up by emergency quarterback Zach Wilson, whom the Jets believe can be salvaged after watching him running around like a chicken with its head cut off for two seasons. Remember that Wilson was benched in favor of Mike Effin White after a disastrous performance against the rival Patriots.

At tailback, Rachaad White is one of the NFL’s least-efficient runners averaging 3.7 yards per carry in 2022 behind an awful Tampa Bay offensive line. The metrics won’t look much better this year.

Throughout his rookie campaign, White didn’t exhibit much wiggle in the backfield, was unable to force missed tackles, and gained meager yardage after contact at a miserable rate. He was touted as a great pass-catching back, but even when Tom Brady was quarterback, White was unable to generate much momentum in that aspect either. Leonard Fournette’s release elevated White to the top of the depth chart alongside one of the NFL’s worst starting quarterbacks, Baker Mayfield. This season might be a dud for White.

Patriots wideout Tyquan Thornton is the latest Bill Belichick offensive experiment to leave a mushroom cloud behind. The Hoodie has never been into combine freaks, yet Thornton — who was a serviceable, but not standout receiver for Baylor — is the guy he’s invested in developing as a starting receiver. Doesn’t help either that Thorton has a slight build.

At receiver, Kadarius Toney is internationally known, and universally disrespected. His biggest contributions so far have been the memes. His inclusion is partially based on his performance in Week 1, but his cumulative career warrants this as well. He’s the rare injury-prone receiver who’s worse off when he’s running routes. Toney is renowned for his slipperiness in the open field, but during the NFL’s annual kickoff game, we saw glimpses of the Crisco hands that have hampered his career. Toney excels on special teams, at reeling screen passes in and dodging tacklers in bullet time, but that only works so long. His career arc is beginning to play out more like Tavon Austin’s than Percy Harvin’s. Drafting Toney in the first round ultimately cost Dave Gettleman his job. Fortunately, they get to reunite on the Abominables.

As the 2021 John Mackey Award winner awarded to college football’s best tight end and Cardinals first pick in the 2022 Draft, Trey McBride spent a season learning from one of the best in Zach Ertz. In relief of Ertz, McBride caught more penalties than receptions and extended stone hands to drop passes.

Down in the trenches, Ravens left guard Ben Cleveland is apparently easier to get around than security at an MLB ballpark. Last training camp, Cleveland missed four practices after failing the Ravens’ conditioning test. It’s one thing when Albert Haynesworth is sucking wind at the beginning of training camp , it’s another when a backup guard is losing reps. In the Ravens 2023 preseason opener against the Philadelphia Eagles, rookie Jalen Carter blew by Cleveland on the first play of his NFL career like he was a stiff breeze. Now he’s losing out to a sixth-round pick.

Protecting your quarterback is an essential part of building a winning franchise. Jonah Williams surrendered the second-most sacks in 2022 and often had Joe Burrow out there like a roasted duck on a window sill.

On the right side, Washington Commanders offensive tackle Andrew Wylie was a massive design flaw in the Kansas City perfectly curated offensive line. After following Eric Bieniemy to D.C, Wylie is the new enemy within, tasked with keeping the pocket clean for Washington’s young Tank Commander, Sam Howell.

Guards Dillon Radunz of the Titans (pictured) and Texans rookie Kenyon Green top off this porous AFC O-line. Radunz was the bane of the Titans’ existence at right guard last season while Green’s inaugural season was a perpetual lowlight that resulted in him committing the second-most penalties of any lineman.

Assuming we’re running a 4-3 defense, former Kansas City Chiefs defensive coordinator Bob Sutton is the ideal man for this job. At his previous stop, the nicest thing you could say about Sutton was that he was the only man who could thwart Patrick Mahomes by conducting a wayward defense that needed a colostomy bag the year before Steve Spagnuolo was hired to fix his mess.

The interior is manned by Leki Fotu (pictured), who ranked 125th out of 127 players at his position in PFF. I’m no mathematician, but that sounds like a failing grade. Cleveland’s Jordan Elliott is touted as one of the least impactful starting defensive tackles. It’s probably not great that he suits up beside Myles Garrett.

The talisman on the edge is Panthers defensive end Yetur Gross-Matos, who was moved to 3-4 outside linebacker in the final year of his rookie deal after registering eight sacks in his first three seasons. I hope a move to the second level works out for him, but if we’re getting the 4-3 edge rushing version of the Panthers 2020 second-round pick, this disaster class in roster construction would be worse off for it.

Joining Gross-Matos on the edge is Raiders defensive end Chandler Jones, who bottomed out last season with just five sacks opposite Maxx Crosby and is internally imploding right now. Now, he’s either due for a resurgence or his decline is leading him off a metaphorical cliff in 2023.

On the second level, Devin Bush (pictured) wanders aimlessly in coverage. He’s now occupying the second line of the Seahawks’ defense. The trademark speed that Bush displayed as a Steeler was mitigated by an ACL injury in 2020. Sapped of his superpower, Bush was a liability in coverage for Mike Tomlin and his notoriously perfectionist defense and was getting eaten up by blocks on rushing downs. He’ll be joined by the only former teammate whose instincts in coverage were worse — Robert Spillane, now with the Vegas Raiders. Now that we’ve created a portal in pass coverage, it’s time to detonate the run defense. That’s where former first-round pick Kenneth Murray’s NFL-worst 28.2 run-defense grade comes in.

The All-Abominable secondary is a big-play generator. Pass defense is important, which is why Team Tank elected to have Derion Kendrick from the Los Angeles Rams and future Hall of Shame defender Eli Apple (pictured). They are the most hospitable pair of corners in the league, making receivers comfortable. In the past two seasons, Apple has allowed a 101.5 passer rating in coverage, produced just two interceptions, been beaten for 11 touchdowns, and been slandered countless times by superior targets he won’t stop goading with bulletin-board material.

Kendrick was the fourth-most targeted defensive back according to PFF and his 43.7 PFF grade was the second-lowest in the league. This season with L.A., he’s the most experienced starter in a secondary considered the NFL’s most unreliable since trading Jalen Ramsey to Miami.

Last, but not least for the defense, is former Cardinals safety Isaiah Simmons. Simmons has alternated between hybrid linebacker and safety since he became the toast of the 2020 NFL Combine. We stan combine warriors. Simmons can move quicker than a tachyon, but in coverage leaves the roof in the secondary more open than Stephen A Smith’s hairline. After bouncing between positions, the Cards saw cooked enough at safety to move on from him in exchange for a seventh-round pick from the Giants.

The kicker — who is currently on the practice squad, not the Rams’ 53-man roster — spent multiple seasons alternating between periods of reliability and historic streakiness of the worst kind. Last season, Maher missed four of his five extra-point attempts in Dallas’ Wild Card win over the Tampa Bay Bucs.

While he caught on for a bit with the Cowboys, Maher has bounced around in camps or on practice squads with the Jets, Commanders, Texans, Browns, Cardinals, and Broncos. He even spent time in the CFL.