Schlereth: ‘NFL Top 100’ flawed, Von Miller a top-3 football player
Jun 22, 2018, 4:46 PM
Since the first season of “NFL Top 100” aired in the spring of 2011, 80 players have been ranked in the top 10.
Of those 80, nearly a third (32.5 percent, 26 total) were quarterbacks, and 34 (42.5 percent) were offensive skill players.
Combined, the offensive players (with no offensive lineman reaching the top 10 since its inception) have accounted for 75 percent of the top tier NFL players as voted by their peers.
And therein lies the flaw of the annual program, “Schlereth and Evans” host Mark Schlereth said on Friday.
“For all you guys who follow this and all you guy who love this, there are things that annoy me about this top 10 thing,” Schlereth said.
Pointing to Denver Broncos linebacker Von Miller to prove his point, Schlereth said the pass rusher is a player who deserves to be in the conversation for best “football player” in the league but likely will end up toward the bottom of the top 10.
“I’d like to see Von Miller be in that top-five category. I wouldn’t have any problem whatsoever if Aaron Donald was No.1 and Von Miller was No. 2 or 3,” Schlereth said. “And put the quarterbacks on the back end of that because they don’t get hit, they don’t have to hit anybody. They throw.
“There’s just a difference there to me.”
In any case, Miller will make his second-consecutive top 10 — third overall — after finishing No. 2 in last year’s ranking.
You can watch the final countdown episode for 2018 Monday at 6 p.m. MT on NFL Network.
Follow digital content producer Johnny Hart on Twitter: @JohnnyHart7.