Five Seahawks make NFL Top 100 list but…
By Lee Vowell
The NFL Network announced its list of the best 100 players in the NFL. There are five Seahawks listed. But there is a problem.
12s know the Seahawks have lots of talent. Maybe they don’t have as much as in recent seasons. Not on paper, at least. But even the latest NFL Network list of top 100 players in the league is troubling.
In 2017, Seattle had eight of the top 100. Seven of those were in the top 56 players. Of those eight – Michael Bennett, Earl Thomas, Richard Sherman, Kam Chancellor, Russell Wilson, Bobby Wagner, Cliff Avril and Doug Baldwin – four are not on the 2018 roster. Seattle missing Bennett, Sherman, Chancellor and Avril could be a huge problem.
And that is with the 2018 version of the top 100 including Chancellor. The strong safety didn’t go to another team, but he was not medically cleared to play so he won’t be on the field this season.
Even worse, Jimmy Graham didn’t actually make the list in 2017 but did in 2018 at number 89. Graham, of course, won’t be with the Seahawks either. He will be playing in Green Bay.
Of the Seattle players still on this year’s team, two of them went down in the rankings. Doug Baldwin dropped from number 88 to number 99. Earl Thomas went from number 30 to 42nd.
On the positive side, though, Russell Wilson moved up from 24th to number 11. Bobby Wagner (who we all know is really a top-10 player) moved from 39 to 21. 20 better players in the NFL than Wagner? I don’t think so.
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And that is the problems with these lists. They really mean nothing other than to get readers and stir debate. But the NFL Network does a good job of that. Even if they do include Seahawks who are no longer playing.