The 100 Greatest NFL Players of All Time Pt. 1
Introduction and Criteria
Last season was the 100th season of the NFL and it seems wild to imagine how far the game has come in a span of just 100 years! Throughout this span, the NFL has been introduced to many legendary players with all different skill sets! These players have changed or enhanced the game in their own unique way!
Nowadays as NFL fans, we are spoiled! We get to enjoy the culmination of the past 100 years, which has brought us the fascinating game that we are witnessing now! The league today is a pass-heavy, quarterback-driven league. Quarterbacks like Patrick Mahomes, Russell Wilson, and Tom Brady are all running the league and encouraging fans to come back week-after-week.
With this being said, we shouldn’t just be grateful for the game we are currently enjoying, but for all of the years, that brought us here. Where would we be without the bright mind of someone like Paul Brown, who co-founded the Cleveland Browns, and helped found the Cincinnati Bengals back in the mid-1900s?
What would our game look like if it weren’t for the disruptive Giants defensive end Lawrence Taylor or the legendary 49ers receiver Jerry Rice back in the 1980s? Even if the game would still look the same today without these figures, it is hard to imagine the game without them.
When thinking about the history of the NFL and all of the defining figures that have left their mark, it has inspired me and got me thinking. What if Otto Graham, who led the Cleveland Browns to a record ten straight championship appearances from 1946–1955, would have gotten the chance to play alongside soon-to-be 2021 Hall of Fame inductee, former-Lions receiver Calvin Johnson. Could they have been stopped?
One of the earliest quarterback pioneers in Otto Graham passing to 6’5’’ 236 pound Calvin Johnson, who can run a 4.35 40-yard dash time, would have been a sight to see! They could have been a dynamic duo that encapsulated the interest of the entire NFL fanbase! Although, there is also an equally likely chance that their partnership could have been a complete disaster.
Would Calvin Johnson even have been utilized as heavily in the 1940s and the 1950s, when the league was primarily a run-first league? Would Otto Graham have been able to translate his skills from the 1940s to the 2010s when Calvin Johnson graced the field? These are big ifs and no one truly knows how a scenario like this would have played out. People may think they know how this would have played out, but the fact is it never happened.
I am about to start a series. It is about the 100 greatest NFL players of all-time. This series will require me to think critically about all of the players who have ever played. It will force me to compare players from different time-periods and lead me to define my own version of greatness. What I determine as greatness will most likely differ from your version of greatness.
However, as mentioned above, there is no correct list or correct ranking of greatness because no one knows how these players would have performed during the same time period. No one knows how to compare players from different positions and even players from the same position are difficult to compare because there are too many different factors and indicators of greatness.
Truthfully, a lot of arguments over greatness aren’t legitimate arguments, to begin with. Some people are arguing “A”, while other people are arguing “B”. I’ll explain.
When arguing whether former Colts and Broncos quarterback Peyton Manning or current Buccaneers quarterback Tom Brady is the better all-time player, some people argue that Tom Brady is the better because he has won more Super Bowls. Brady has six Super Bowl rings, while Peyton Manning only has two. Yet, Peyton Manning supporters argue that he has won two more MVP awards than Brady.
However, what these two people should truly be arguing is the importance of Super Bowls in comparison to the importance of awards. Although, these two reasons also can’t be fully compared to each other. Neither one can be proven as more important than the other due to facts and quantitative data.
For this series, I will be basing each player’s greatness on three main factors: consistency, dominance, and statistics.
For the first factor, consistency, I will be looking at players who have put together a career of steadfastness and contributed to their team year-after-year.
When looking at dominance, I want to find players that performed at a level significantly higher than the medium during their time in the league. I will be finding players, who made major contributions to their teams and who have helped enhance the game.
The third and arguably most important criteria are statistics. Statistics are the most measurable factor of success throughout a player’s playing career and helps take out some bias in determining players’ greatness. Players, who have produced solid numbers throughout their career higher than their peers, are more likely to find themselves on this list.
With all of these factors in mind, I will attempt to rank my top 100 players of all-time. I expect this to be controversial and for great debates to transpire over this list, as any good rankings should inspire discussion. As I embark on this journey to rank these players, I hope you tune in to these rankings. In each article of this series, I will reveal ten players from my list with coinciding reasons. Next article, I will reveal players 100–91! Let the controversy begin!
