Paulson Adebo named ‘most valuable’ returning player in 2020 (per PFF)

Look, I named his as the best returning player in 2020, so I’d have to agree here.

If Paulson Adebo plays up to par in 2020, he definitely will be in consideration as one of the most valuable players in the entire country, not even just on this Stanford Cardinal team. He’s that good.

Pro Football Focus (yes, PFF, my former employer) named the ‘most valuable’ player on each of the 130 FBS teams this week and Adebo was the selection for the Cardinal. No real context was added in the article itself, just stating: “Using PFF’s advanced database, we present the top player on all 130 FBS college football teams as we look forward to the 2020 college football season.”

Usually coinciding with some metrics or numbers from PFF, this lack of context puts the whole list in question, even if I would agree with Adebo up there. My thoughts are this list is produced as a ‘glance over a huge subset of data’ that includes PFF’s ‘WAA’ metric that is basically like WAR in baseball. There seemed to have very little thought about the player’s impact towards the actual 2020 season and rather just be a look behind at what has transpired, specifically when talking about Adebo:

Entering the 2019 season, Stanford’s Paulson Adebo looked like a sure-fire first- or second-round pick in 2020. In his first year of collegiate action as a sophomore in 2018, Adebo finished the year as the ninth most valuable defensive back in PFF wins above average (WAA) and led the nation in pass breakups (19). This year, though, Adebo increased his yards allowed per coverage snaps from 0.89 to 1.24 and surrendered three more touchdowns than the year prior on fewer coverage snaps. A season-ending injury after Week 11 didn’t help Adebo’s draft stock, either. If Adebo’s 2020 is close to what we saw in 2018, he’ll be right back into early-round consideration.

There’s that WAA mention and past look with another mention of a draft pick when we’re talking about ‘just college value’ that also draws some question into the writeups and meaning behind the piece.

I’d definitely put Davis Mills and our tackle duo of Foster Sarell and Walker Little firmly into the conversation of who is the most valuable, along with Adebo, of course.

So, who’s your most valuable player for 2020?