TO - NFL's most exciting player

[DH]

Ah, whatever.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9069128/

[Diomedes]

Well, he's certainly the most covered player.

[rjs246]

No question — T.O., Vick NFL's most exciting
Eagles receiver, Falcons' do-everything QB wow you in surprising ways
Tim Shaffer / Reuters

Being a talented athlete is one thing. Being exciting is more difficult to define.

Was Mike Tyson the greatest "athlete" ever to box? Not hardly. Was he exciting? Have you been living in a cave the past two decades?

Was Bo Jackson either the best running back or the best outfielder ever to grace an American sporting edifice? Not even close, but Bo knows excitement, and so did you whenever he touched the ball or a bat (Even if he often failed to touch the bat to the ball; even then he was still exciting because you kept waiting for him to break that bat across his knee in frustration, as he once did in a game while with the Kansas City Royals).
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Although it might be easy to define the best player at most positions on an NFL field, it's considerably more debatable who are the most exciting players in the league today. Here is NBCSports.com's Fab Four, plus one you may not have thought about.

You might have your own list or just want to argue over these choices.

That's the point of this kind of exercise in the first place, isn't it?

1. Terrell Owens
Wide receiver, Philadelphia Eagles
Owens is one of the few football players who doesn't have to be in uniform to be exciting.

He can do it wearing headphones as he walks silently by everyone around him, including his teammates. He can do it pulling a Sharpie out of his sock. He can do it with a football or pompoms in his hands.

Owens scored on 14 of his 77 receptions a year ago while averaging 15.6 yards a catch, the kind of explosiveness the Philadelphia Eagles needed finally to soar into the Super Bowl. Not even a broken leg could corral him, as he proved in that Super Bowl with a nine-catch performance on one leg that was one of the most courageous and remarkable feats in recent playoff history.

Then there's the rest of the story.
   
Less than three months later he's ripping his quarterback, claiming his bosses are cheap and making a fool of himself on national television. A fool, by the way, that the national media was tripping over themselves to get a word out of, even if it made absolutely no sense.

With Owens you not only have to be worried about him on the field, you have to be worried about him in the locker room, on the sidelines, at a TV studio or in the face of his quarterback, be it Jeff Garcia or Donovan McNabb. Owens never has seen a ball he couldn't catch, a defender he couldn't beat or a teammate he couldn't hate. He also hasn't seen a newspaper he couldn't put a headline on.

Nobody works harder than T.O. to get ready to play, but no one more deserves to have his nickname changed to M.E. than this guy, either. He has taken self-absorption to a new level.

Put that together and you have a package of dynamite waiting to explode. The intriguing part is you can never be sure if the explosion will come on game day in the end zone or on Wednesday in the lunch room.

2. Michael Vick
Quarterback, Atlanta Falcons

At the moment (but not for much longer), he's a man without a position. Or, more accurately, he's a man inventing a position.

Vick is a personal highlight reel, but he isn't yet an NFL quarterback. He's a Pro Bowl thrower with a career completion percentage of only 53.6 who has been sacked way more times than a guy with his speed and athletic ability should be. But that's part of the excitement: Will they get him before he gets them?

A year ago, Vick threw for 2,313 yards and 14 touchdowns, average numbers at best for a guy making 15 starts on a playoff team. Then again, he rushed for 902 yards, scored three times and has had runs of 35 yards or longer every season he's been in the league. Now that's excitement.

Vick is often compared to John Elway, but that is inaccurate unless one is solely talking about athletic ability. When Vick came into the league he was a college runner masquerading as quarterback, while Elway was a thrower who could also run. The Falcons are asking Vick to become the latter in a controlled West Coast offense that demands 65 percent accuracy to be at its best. If Vick ever does, that he won't just be exciting, he'll be unbeatable.

Vick has improved every season, and his team has as well. And he has done it with a flair lacking in the league these days. He might not be Peyton Manning or Johnny Unitas, but he's more fun to watch than either of them whether he's throwing a 62-yard touchdown pass, running for a 50-yard gain or being sacked a remarkable 46 times because of his still-absent sense of pocket awareness and downfield vision.

Say what you want about Vick but concede this: He's the most exciting quarterback in football ... assuming he's a quarterback at all.

3. Julius Peppers
Defensive end, Carolina

Last season Peppers, with All-Pro defensive end Mike Rucker and All-Pro defensive tackle Kris Jenkins both out much of the year with injuries, still finished with 11 sacks, two interceptions, seven passes defended and four forced fumbles. He also scored two touchdowns and would have flown the team plane if he had his pilot's license.
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Many people view Indianapolis' Dwight Freeney as the better defensive player because he has made 40 sacks the past three years and forced 17 fumbles. But he has defended only five passes in his career and never intercepted a ball while Peppers, despite playing in three less games during the same period because of injury, has 30 sacks, 14 passes defended, 12 forced fumbles and three interceptions on a line that, unlike Freeney's, is not built around him.

Peppers is one of the most explosive pass rushers in the game and also one of the most athletic. He is also a versatile player who can kill the quarterback on one play and drop into the flat and cover a back or tight end out of the backfield on the next.

Although it's not exciting, he's also stouter against the run than Freeney, who is a light load of poles in that aspect of the game.

4. Randy Moss

Wide receiver, Oakland Raiders
He is the only receiver in league history to gain over 1,000 yards receiving in each of his first six seasons, and his 90 touchdowns in seven years is the second most in league history. Only Jerry Rice topped that figure, which is an exciting fact if you're Moss.

Like Owens, he's as exciting off the field as on it too, whether it's admitting to smoking a joint "once in a blue moon," tipping over a traffic cop with his car bumper, squirting an official with a water bottle from the sidelines or mooning the fans in Green Bay after a touchdown. No matter how you slice it, Moss makes headlines.

He also makes touchdowns commonplace, enemies wherever he goes, absurdities every fifth time he opens his mouth and defensive coordinators nervous. Very, very nervous.

In this day and age, that's excitement in all it's accepted forms.

5. Rodney Harrison
Safety, New England Patriots
If knockouts are your thing, forget about the heavyweight division and keep an eye on the smallest guy in the Patriots' secondary. If you like fouling, forget about Ron Artest. Just keep an eye on most NFL officials' favorite target.

If you like contact forget about Ray Lewis (which is hard to do frankly) and don't take your binoculars off Harrison, the Patriots' heat-seeking missile. If you like flag day, do the same and watch the officials running near him because they'll find some excuse to flag him whether he's innocent or very, very guilty.

No defensive back in the league makes as many big hits or takes as many big many fines as Harrison, a guy who would be a Pro Bowl regular except that the bulk of the voting is done by the people he regularly is trying to decapitate.

Harrison has made more tackles in the last decade than any other defensive back, has more sacks than anyone to ever play in any secondary (27.5) and is the only player in NFL history to ring up 30 or more interceptions, 25 or more sacks and 10 or more concussions in one career.

Plus, the NFL never would have heard of Kurt Warner if Harrison hadn't taken out Trent Green when he was starting for the St. Louis Rams in 1999. Add in that and you have a guy best described by the old football philosopher Ron Meyer, who once said he wanted his defense in New England to be "a rolling ball of butcher knives."

Harrison fits that description.

Boring.

[General_Failure]

Since when can Vick do everything? Since when can Vick do anything besides run or hand off?

[Larry]

If you poll 100 people and ask them to list the 5 most exciting players, Rodney Harrison wouldn't get one single solitary vote.

[DH]

I wish the general public would realize that Vick is nothing more than a running back who can occasionally throw the ball. Yea sure, it's pretty entertaining to watch him run, but I'd take a whole bunch of QB's over him.

I guess I always thought throwing the ball from the pocket was a pre-requisite of being an NFL qb. Obviously, I was wrong...Silly me.

[rjs246]

If you poll 100 people and ask them to list the 5 most exciting players, Rodney Harrison wouldn't get one single solitary vote.

I live in New England and I'm fairly certain that two or three other Patriots would get votes before Harrison. Ridiculous.

[General_Failure]

That Tom Brady is so exthiting!

[MURP]

yeah, Vick isnt a very good QB, but there is no doubt the guy is exciting to watch. 

Rodney Harrison?  hahahahaha.

[PhillyPhanInDC]

Personally I think watching Vick running around like an idiot, hoping he gets he's femur split in two is exciting as hell.

[Don Ho]

No Reno?  This is fixed!

[Zanshin]

Will he be stopped for no gain, or lose two yards?  It's like living on the edge of your seat.

[Larry]

I can make a better case for Mahe than Harrison.

Reno gets the fans excited in an angry sort of way.  Most don't give 2 cents about late hitting Harrison.

[WEST is GOD]

He probably is the most exciting.

[PoopyfaceMcGee]

He probably is the most exciting.

Well, he is god, after all.