Matthew Stafford certainly earned a lot of respect for leading the Los Angeles Rams to a Super Bowl victory last weekend, cementing his place among the best quarterbacks in the league. But some people are getting a little carried away with their rankings of the top signal-callers in the league and the NFL world is more than happy to let them know.
Sam Acho appeared on ESPN’s First Take on Thursday and presented his list of the top 5 quarterbacks in the NFL. They include, in order, Buffalo’s Josh Allen, San Diego’s Justin Herbert, LA’s Stafford, Green Bay’s Aaron Rodgers, and Cincinnati’s Joe Burrow.
All of those quarterbacks are certainly deserving of high praise. But notably missing from that list is Kansas City’s Patrick Mahomes, who has taken the Chiefs to two Super Bowls, been named NFL MVP and Super Bowl MVP, and is a four-time Pro-Bowler. All due respect to everyone on that list but it’s pretty impossible to make a top 5 and not include him. It’s absurd.
Acho’s debate partner, Harry Douglas, agreed.
On First Take, Sam Acho had a top 5 QBs list that excluded Mahomes (Allen, Herbert, Stafford, Rodgers, and Burrow)
Harry Douglas handled about as well as one could. pic.twitter.com/p6iBloyLOG
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) February 17, 2022
“Man, you gotta give me some of that good plant that you cheefing on,” said Douglas. “You don’t even have Patrick Mahomes in your top 5 list.”
Even host Molly Qerim got in on the action, calling Acho’s list “bogus.”
And the shots didn’t stop when First Take was over. As Hannah Storm was introducing SportsCenter later on, even she couldn’t let the list stand.
“Patrick Mahomes not in the top five?” asked Storm. “Even with the GOAT retiring?”
And of course, the reactions to Acho’s asinine ranking weren’t limited to fellow ESPN employees. Plenty of NFL folks got in on the action on social media as well.
https://twitter.com/carronJphillips/status/1494342818613149696
That Acho Reserve strain>>> https://t.co/C7IM0g2tSJ
— Andrew Hammond (@ahammALDC) February 17, 2022
I maintain my stance that there are very few people who wake up and think,"I wonder who's in Sam Acho's Top 5 QBs" https://t.co/hpD0cgc1lr
— Eddie Radosevich (@Eddie_Rado) February 17, 2022
https://twitter.com/Cruz_Buchanan_/status/1494359441277440007
Perhaps Acho woke up this morning and chose violence as is required of so many ESPN personalities looking to create conversation for the sake of reality. Or maybe he honestly believes that Mahomes is not one of the elite quarterbacks in the NFL today. Either way, it’s pretty stupid.
