In conjunction with the release of the #NFLRank rollout on ESPN.com, Football Outsiders will provide an audit of the list, selecting the most overrated and underrated players revealed each day of the countdown.
Here are the most overrated and underrated players ranked 90-81 on both offense and defense:
Overrated
Dwight Freeney, OLB, San Diego Chargers (No. 90)
Freeney
The closest thing today's lists may have to an overrated player is Freeney (No. 90). The offensive list from 90-81 features Andy Levitre, Ben Grubbs and Evan Mathis. You could argue that the guard position in general shouldn't have many players in the top 100, but those three men certainly are three of the league's top guards. (There are five other guards on the list yet to be revealed.) On the defensive side, there might be questions about when Chris Clemons will be back from the ACL injury he suffered in last year's playoffs, but there's no question about his track record as a pass-rusher.
That brings us to Freeney. The problem isn't whether he can still get to the quarterback -- he can, with five sacks, eight hurries and 18 hits last season despite missing most of three games. But is there a place in the top 100 for someone who is essentially a part-time player?
By the last three weeks of the season, Freeney was playing only 75 percent of the Colts' defensive snaps. And he's generally meaningless if the opponent decides to run the ball, with just six run tackles for all of 2012. Both his playing time and his value will continue to decrease as he gets older (he'll be 33 this year) and tries to cope with nagging injuries such as the high ankle sprain that lingered throughout last season.
Underrated
Ike Taylor, CB, Pittsburgh Steelers (No. 83)
Taylor
He doesn't stand out as the same kind of man-coverage "on an island" cornerback, but it's reasonable to say that Pittsburgh's coverage schemes are built around Taylor just as much as Tampa Bay's and Arizona's coverage schemes are built around Darrelle Revis and Patrick Peterson. Every coverage scheme has its weak points, and a lot of the 10-yard comebacks that Taylor allows are just part of the Cover 3 that Pittsburgh often plays.
Nonetheless, even though Cover 3 is technically a zone, the Steelers clearly move Taylor around to shut down the other team's biggest weapon. According to the Football Outsiders' game-charting project, Taylor was covering the opposition's top receiver on 65 percent of passes where we listed him in coverage, tied with Champ Bailey for the fifth-highest mark in the league.
Perhaps Taylor suffers in some minds because he struggled early last season. In the first five games, he was targeted 45 times, allowing 8.6 adjusted yards per pass (adjusted for the quality of the receivers being covered) and a 42 percent adjusted success rate. But from Week 7 through the ankle injury he suffered in Week 13, Taylor was targeted just 28 times, with 3.2 adjusted yards per pass and a remarkable 81 percent adjusted success rate. Overall, Taylor has ranked in our top 20 for both adjusted yards per pass and adjusted success rate each of the past two seasons.