Every year in seemingly every sport, the top 100 players at the moment are ranked and released to the public for debate. On Monday, the NFL Network announced another installment in its NFL Top 100 players as voted on by the players themselves.
Checking in at #35 on the list was Houston Texans’ defensive end J.J. Watt. The 28-year-old played only three games this past year due to injury. In three games Watt recorded 1.5 sacks, 1 fumble recovery, and 8 tackles.
Despite Watt’s extremely short season, his peers still thought he was the 35th best player in the league. However, Watt publicly disagreed.
.@JJWatt comes in at number 35 on the #NFLTop100 voted by his peers! pic.twitter.com/68mfw0CDFN
— NFL Network (@nflnetwork) June 6, 2017
I played 3 games… this list is a joke. https://t.co/KnKDX1p816
— JJ Watt (@JJWatt) June 6, 2017
How big of a joke is it? Well four spots behind Watt was Bobby Wagner, a linebacker for the Seattle Seahawks who had an impressive year and arguably should’ve been higher than Watt.
In 2016 @Bwagz54 led the NFL in total tackles (167)#NFLTop100 pic.twitter.com/24BR03Ugn3
— NFL Network (@nflnetwork) June 6, 2017
But Wagner doesn’t agree with the rankings either and instead agrees with Watt. Wagner tweeted his agreement with Watt, but has since deleted his tweet.
The two didn’t necessarily go into detail about why the rankings are bad other than Watt pointing out he played in just three games. However, they don’t really need to explain themselves because a simple glance at the rankings and one can easily determine that they’re pretty bad.
We can’t completely dissect the list because the entire Top 100 hasn’t been released yet. The NFL Network is releasing their rankings 10 at a time every Monday. So far they’ve done 31-100.
Based on what they’ve released so far, it doesn’t seem like the final 30 will be perfect. We’ve already shown you how Watt should’ve been below Wagner, so here are two more examples of bad rankings of the players named so far:
#41 Devonta Freeman should be higher than #33 DeMarco Murray
Freeman: 16 GP, 227 rushing attempts, 1,079 rushing yards, 11 rushing touchdowns, 54 receptions, 462 receiving yards, and 2 receiving touchdowns.
Murray: 16 GP, 293 rushing attempts, 1,287 rushing yards, 9 rushing touchdowns, 53 receptions, 377 receiving yards, and 3 receiving touchdowns.
Freeman had 66 fewer rushing attempts, but managed to record two more scores. Yes Murray did finish with 208 more rushing yards, however if Freeman got 66 more carries, he would need to average just 3.15 yards per carry to equal Murray’s rushing yard total. Additionally, Freeman had only one more catch, but managed to finish with 85 more receiving yards.
In short, Freeman should be higher than Murray, not 8 spots lower.
#70 Kirk Cousins should be higher than #51 Andrew Luck
Cousins: 16 GP, 67.0% completion percentage, 4,917 passing yards, 8.11 yards per attempt, 25 touchdowns, 12 interceptions, 71.3 QBR, and 97.2 passer rating.
Luck: 15 GP, 63.5% completion percentage, 4,240 passing yards, 7.78 yards per attempt, 31 touchdowns, 13 interceptions, 71.2 QBR, 96.4 passer rating.
Cousins did play in one more game than Luck, but that shouldn’t matter because there’s no way Luck would’ve caught up to Cousins in the passing yards department. As a result, it’s ridiculous that Cousins is 19 spots lower than Luck despite having a better completion percentage, more passing yards, higher YPA, fewer interceptions, higher QBR, and better passer rating.
But for some reason, Luck is ranked higher, because that makes sense. Luck has more touchdowns than Cousins, which is great, but not enough to reasonably rank him 19 sports higher. So there are definitely a few others besides Watt who have legitimate complaints.
