ESPN NFL

Any discussion about the most improved players around the league has to start with a careful definition of what it means to be truly "improved."

Do we include players who already are fairly established but are considered superstars now? (Chiefs KR-PR Dante Hall comes to mind.) Or is this a group that should be made up of nobodies-turned-solid players?

We leaned more to the former, invoking, as one editor dubbed it, the "Torry Holt rule" -- leaving off the list players who are playing at an all-time level this season if they had achieved some level of significant accomplishment in past seasons.

So that leaves us with the others guys -- the players who, for whatever reasons, are going from rags to relative riches this season. Either they have come a long way from where they ever had been before or their latent talents finally are being realized.

Whatever the reason, they deserve to be recognized.

To continue reading this article you must be an Insider