Corey's comments regarding Orpheus Roye in the most recent edition of The Jersey Numbers, raise an interesting, yet confounding, question: Who has been the MVP of the first seven years of the New Browns? What makes this difficult to answer are the ungodly lows and lowly highs experienced by the team since 1999. I've been known to argue that Chris Gardocki has been the most valuable Brown of the past seven seasons. It just seems that anyone with talent or promise quickly becomes injured (Jamir Miller, Courtney Brown, etc.), and those that stay for an extended period of time can only be solid role players at best (Orpheus Roye, Tim Couch, etc.). Anyways, I'm curious to see if I can use the Football Outsiders' statistics in any way to help determine (at least) the greatest strength of the franchise since its return, and hopefully the MVP too.

Unfortunately, outside of skill positions, FO doesn't have individual player statistics. Let's take a look at how the three units (offense, defense, and special teams) stacked up each season, included are both their DVOA and respective rank among NFL teams:

      ODVOA Rk  DDVOA Rk STDVOA Rk
1999 -20.9% 25  18.4% 31  -7.3% 30
2000 -31.9% 30  11.8% 25  -1.7% 30
2001 -22.9% 30 -22.1%  2  -3.1% 26
2002  -6.4% 26  -1.2% 14   2.3% 10
2003 -12.7% 27  -4.0% 12   0.9% 15
2004 -11.9% 27   9.7% 24   2.3% 12
2005 -13.8% 25   6.1% 24   4.4%  5

The only real "strength" of the franchise has been steadily improving special teams and wildly fluctuating defenses. Therefore, I think we can now throw any offensive player right out of the discussion. No matter how consistent Kevin Johnson was, or how uh... many snaps Tim Couch took, the offense undeniably sucked in a Michael Stewart kind of way. Think of it this way, if the best player were on the offense, for the team rankings to be so low, the rest of the offense would have to have been magnitudes worse than what anyone has ever thought before. And that would be a tough pill to swallow.

Having narrowed the field a bit, let's get on with Tablemania! Here is a breakdown of the Browns defenses against the run versus against the pass:

       Pass Rk    Run Rk
1999  18.3% 28  18.4% 31
2000  12.4% 23  11.3% 27
2001 -42.7%  1   0.4% 21
2002  -6.5% 12   4.3% 19
2003 -11.7%  7   4.3% 22
2004   5.9% 21  12.9% 30
2005   1.4% 21  10.9% 27

Not once have the Browns defended the rush better than the pass, which doesn't surprise me. Outside of Jamir Miller's sack-wacky 2001, I can't remember the Browns having much of a defensive front seven presence. Right now, I'm a little tempted to name someone in the secondary, or maybe a linebacker as the MVP. Let's just get the breakdown of special teams out of the way now too (these are in DPAR however, not DVOA, and without rankings):

     FG/XP KICK    KR  PUNT    PR
1999   2.1 -0.1 -18.5 -10.5 -13.3
2000   0.3 -3.9  -2.8   6.9  -9.9
2001   3.7 -1.6  -6.7   0.0 -12.6
2002  -2.4  2.0   1.9   5.1   6.3
2003   1.9  4.3   0.4   5.9  -7.6
2004   3.3 -0.9  -4.9  17.0  -2.0
2005   5.1  4.3   8.8   6.3   0.2

Normally, I would launch into an ode to the greatness of Leigh Bodden right about now, but I'll try to hold back. Let it suffice to say that last year the Browns were good against the pass (especially #2 receivers) and in 2004, with Leigh as gunner-extraordinaire, the Browns punt coverage skillz were mind-bendingly amazing.

Here's the part where I tell you that these team-wide statistics are too blunt a tool to judge the best player on the team. Case in point: Orpheus Roye has been a consistent and dependable defensive lineman for six seasons now, yet the Browns have been consistently bad (if not awful) at what defensive linemen are supposed to do, stopping the run and pressuring the quarterback. (As an aside, I just cringed using those superfluous definite articles. Why can't we just say "stopping runs" and "pressuring quarterbacks"?) This might be, either because Orpheus isn't as good as generally believed, or the rest of the Browns front seven has been incredibly awful and the defense has managed its meager results only thanks to Orpheus. Personally, I lean towards the former. Sure, Roye has been better than the other options the Browns have had at DE and DT, but the fact remains that the Browns have been failing precisely at what Orpheus should be doing well. Nevertheless, he is still a good player (even to me) and I'm glad he's on the team.

To be honest, the best aspect to the Browns has been special teams; and the specialest team of special teams has been that of field goal and extra point kicking. It's been the most reliable source of positive value on the team since 2000. I hesitate to name Phil Dawson the MVP on this alone, for a couple reasons. Firstly, even if Dawson was the best kicker in the NFL (which he isn't), he'd still only be involved in a fraction of the plays non-special teamers are. Secondly, the FG/XP numbers are basically all Phil. No other player (save a bad snap, haha, yeah right) could believably screw up the kicking game. This makes Phil look good. But, other good players don't receive this same nice treatment. Say the team has one really good guard and the other four linemen are lousy. The rushing game will still stink, even though that good guard deserves a lot of praise--his good performance is masked by the stinkitude of the other four clowns.

This has been a lot of writing to basically say, I don't know who the Browns MVP has been. I'm pretty certain it's not an offensive player, and the defense hasn't been too impressive either. If you're comfortable with it, you might have to choose a player with a "high peak" over one with "longevity" to determine who has given the Browns the most value. Essentially, which is better: three years of Jamir Miller, or six of Orpheus Roye? I lean towards choosing the high peaking players like Miller, since the longest lasting New Browns have not been wildly talented. I haven't come up with anything close to being definitive, but I've at least clarified my own opinion on the matter a great deal. I now believe the top candidates to be Jamir Miller, Orpheus Roye, and Phil Dawson. Give me one more season of Leigh Bodden, and being the push-over that I am, he might have to be included on that list too. I hope this has helped you too at least sort through the possibilities.

Update: I foolishly originally overlooked Daylon McCutcheon as a possible MVP candidate. But thanks to the keen eye of loyal reader Matt, I can add Daylon into the discussion for Browns MVP. He is another in the Orpheus role, except Daylon receives even less praise than Roye does. However, Cutch plays in the secondary, the apparent strength of the defense. I think Daylon deserves to be mentioned, but is a lesser candidate compared to Miller, Dawson, or Roye.