Where the NFL’s top 100 players list went wrong… so far

The NFL released its own list of its best players, from 100 to 51. Here’s where the NFL, with all due respect, got it wrong.

Every year, the NFL polls its players to get their lists of their top players, and out of that, the league compiles its list of the top 100 players in the NFL overall. As is the case with any subjective ranking in any endeavor, the results will often be controversial, and as we’ve already seen based on the release of the NFL’s 100th- through 51st-best players on Sunday, people are up in arms about quite a few things.

Here at Touchdown Wire, we’re not just throwing stones at the rankings other people put together — Doug Farrar and Mark Schofield did their own list of the NFL’s 101 best players, based on comprehensive tape and stat analysis. We’d like to believe that we got everything right, but hey — as we said, these things are all subjective.

That said, here’s how we had it.

The 101 best players in the NFL today, Nos. 101-51

The 101 best players in the NFL today, Nos. 50-1

Given all that work, we feel qualified to audit the NFL’s list, even though we’re probably not, and when has that ever stopped anybody from spouting off?

This is based on the NFL’s list from 100-51. The NFL Network will have the 50th through the 21st-best players show on Sunday, August 21, and the 20 best players on Sunday, August 28 in a special three-hour show.

Here’s the entire list so far.

We’ll wait to discuss the exclusions until the entire top 100 has been revealed — after all, we don’t want to get ahead of ourselves there. But based on the first 50 players ranked, here are some things that really made us shake our heads in wonder.