Folks, it is that time of the year: the offseason. The deep, deep offseason. The part of the offseason where the only articles coming from football outlets are analyses of drafted players, articles scrutinizing and criticizing new rules, and of course, everyone’s favorite, the NFL Top 100 list.
And then there are articles that mock the Top 100 list. This will be one of those.
The concept of the Top 100, initially, seems like a cool idea. It is a list voted on by the players, so they get to voice their opinions on who makes it near the top of the list. It seems like it would be a good way of cutting through the noise to get opinions from the players on who ranks among the best in the league.
But it seems as though players are also biased in the same ways that fans and media can be.
Like many lists similar lists, voting slants toward the flashier players. Last year, 14 quarterbacks made the list. Only 10 total offensive linemen received enough votes to make the list. Considering that there are five starting offensive linemen for every one quarterback, those are some pretty biased rankings.
That bias was clear when Marshal Yanda was announced as the 79th ranked player. He will be the only guard to even make the list. Pro Football Focus ranked Yanda as the fifth best player in the league. That is quite a difference between the premium stat site and the NFL’s list.
I’m sure that most of the players who voted on the list would tell you that Marshal Yanda is much better than the 79th player in the league, which is the problem. The players are asked to list only their top 20 players, and the NFL makes the list from there. They don’t account for the players who are more universally accepted as among the best but aren’t quite in the top 20.
So don’t let the results of the Top 100 anger you. The players would probably have the unsung heroes of the gridiron a lot higher if they were to make a complete list.
And after all, it is just offseason fodder.
