AFC's most overrated players

To paraphrase a John Facenda line, the NFL offseason is a time of hope. It isn't hard to look over the personnel changes that occurred in free agency and the draft and find a path for mediocre teams to become playoff contenders or for playoff contenders to become Super Bowl champions.

That type of positive mindset can be useful, but it can also be damaging when it comes to grading personnel, as it can make mediocre players seem good and good players seem great.

Those types of personnel grading errors cannot and should not go unchallenged, so let's take a look at six players in the AFC whose hype levels exceed their performance levels.

Joe Flacco, QB, Baltimore Ravens

Flacco put himself on this list by saying in an April radio interview that he thinks he is the best quarterback in the NFL.

That he isn't the best field general in the league comes as no surprise, but Flacco's 2011 season doesn't even place him in the upper half of the league. His 9.6 vertical yards per attempt mark (VYPA -- which measures success on passes 11-plus yards downfield) ranked tied for 25th, and his 10.7 stretch vertical YPA (SVYPA -- passes over 20 yards downfield) ranked 26th.

To see the rest of the most overrated players in the AFC, plus to get access to all of Insider's NFL coverage, sign up today.

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KC Joyner

NFL Insider

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• NFL and CFB analyst for ESPN Insider
• Known as "The Football Scientist"
• Uses proprietary metrics from game tape study