This year’s NFL Network Top 100 players countdown creates minimal buzz

[KC Wolf]

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For nearly a decade, NFL Network has unveiled during the slow time the top 100 players in the league, as voted on by players. It’s never been clear which players vote or when they vote; at some point, it became clear that those who vote simply list their personal top 20, and the league takes the votes and figures it out from there.

This year, it became clear that the league-owned network had changed the procedure for unveiling the top 100, shifting from one show per week during the slow time, with 10 players per week being unveiled, to 10 players per night on consecutive nights, starting after training camps began to open.

It’s unclear why NFLN changed the approach. If the goal was to generate more interest in the series, it didn’t work. If anything, subsuming the countdown within the launch of training camps pushed the show farther into the background.

Then there’s the question of whether anyone even noticed that the show wasn’t televised during its normal spot on the calender, and whether that was part of a broader effort by the league to assess whether anyone would miss it, if it goes away for good. Or, as the case may be, if it goes away until after a new labor deal is negotiated.

The league already has begun tightening the belt at NFL Network, dumping certain studio shows in anticipation of (or to create the impression of) an eventual work stoppage. By dumping the Top 100 show, the league would be eliminating a series that celebrates the best players, a fairly aggressive passive-aggressive shot at the rank and file.

Whether it continues or not, the voting process continues to be flawed. This year’s list has Aaron Donald at No. 1, Drew Brees at No. 2, Khalil Mack at No. 3, Patrick Mahomes at No. 4, Todd Gurley at No. 5, and Tom Brady at No. 6. It makes sense, when considering that the votes are typically collected during the preceding regular season. But in this specific context — the approach of a new season — it simply makes no sense. Mahomes at No. 4? Gurley, with his arthritic knee, at No. 5?

Brees, who seems to be in the process of losing his footrace with Father Time, at No. 2? Brady, who has stolen Father Time’s giant hourglass and repeately whacked him over the head with it, at No. 6?

As of last November or so, those selections could be justified. By February — and, more importantly, by late July — they simply no longer hold. For 2019, the jury is out on Brees and Gurley, at best. And Mahomes should be no lower than No. 2, given his full body of work in his first year as a starter.

Still, nobody seems to be all that fired up about it, because nobody really seems to care all that much about it. If come next year the NFL decides to lose it from the schedule, it likely won’t be regarded as much of a loss.