I don't want to quote all that Mike, but here's a brief response:
I don't think these guys are being penalized for things outside of their control. If anything, many of these players have been rewarded much more than penalized for things outside of their control. Emmitt for instance is considered one of the very best RB's ever, was paid a ton of money, and had immense team success all in part due to that supporting cast that was outside of his control. If he's drafted by Tampa, do you think he's rated equally, higher, or lower? Could Montana possibly be rated much higher? But if he was in a mediocre situation, he's probably not ranked nearly as high.
I feel the guys that are often unfairly rated are the ones that didn't have good situations, so their numbers were hurt, they didn't get rings, didn't get as much media coverage, etc.
I think it's pretty clear that the guys in the good situations don't get hurt that much in rankings because there aren't nearly as many contrarians like myself as there are people who mostly take the results at face value, and even people like myself probably rank guys higher than if they had been in a crappy situation.
I mean, we'll never know what Emmitt would have done without that Cowboys O-line. His brief stint in AZ was at the end and isn't accurate of what he was in his prime. It's impossible to say what if this guy was in this situation instead.
We know Montana put up respectable numbers and won two SBs without Jerry Rice on the team yet.
I agree with the bolded part. It's why Helton's retirement announcement went damn near unnoticed. It's the Rockies, no one cares. One WS appearance and all the attention is on the Red Sox anyway.
