All-Pros and Expectations

First off, congrats to Brian Westbrook for being named to the AP's All-Pro team.  That's a huge honor, and one he richly deserves.  Good on ya, mate, as our Aussie friends might say.

Secondly, I just want to point out something interesting that I noticed a couple of weeks ago.  Think for just a moment about how people are telling the story of Brian's career.  I bet for most people it goes something like this:

2002 -- Rookie with speed from a small school.
2003-2005 -- Dangerous return man and change of pace back.
2006 -- Still not really an "every down back" although the Eagles had no choice but to feed him the ball continuously when Garcia took over the team down the stretch, when he produced.
2007 -- All-Pro and arguably the top back in the league.

Maybe you'd quibble with some of the details, but especially for folks outside Philadelphia, I think this is the general mindset.  He started to get a bit more attention last year because of his fantasy numbers, but even so I don't think he would have been included in many discussions of the league's five best running backs.

So here's what's interesting.  Take a look at his career stats:

Look how similar the 2006 and 2007 seasons are.  In fact, you could even argue that on a per-touch basis, Brian was a little better last year.  And the thing that really depressed his 2006 stats was that last game against Atlanta, when he made a token appearance before leaving once the result didn't matter.  Give him another 20 rushes and five catches in that game and the years would have looked almost identical.

I wrote something a few months ago about how Westbrook "made the leap" this year.  I was probably one of 100 people to do so at some point this season. 

We were all wrong.  He did it last year. 

(And that should be some solace to the "underrated and unknown" Trent Cole.)