Dominate the Super Bowl-Chapter 958 - 957 Top 100 Stars
Every offseason, the NFL must maintain social media engagement, summarize the previous season, and make predictions for the next.
The year-end award ceremony held during the Pro Bowl is an integral part of this process, showcasing a series of honors such as the regular-season MVP, which stands as the highest annual accolades.
Meanwhile, the NFL Top 100 Players list released during the offseason serves as another crucial component.
Whether it’s the evaluation of regular-season awards or the NFL Top 100 Players list, both are organized and announced by the official NFL League, ensuring unquestionable authority.
However, the selection methods and content of the two lists differ slightly.
The regular-season awards, including the regular-season MVP, Offensive/Defensive Player of the Year, Coach of the Year, and the All-America First Team and All-America Second Team rosters, are significant career-defining honors for retired players.
The selection criteria mainly come from votes by journalists and fans, meaning these awards are determined outside the league.
The NFL Top 100 Players list, as the name suggests, ranks the top 100 players based on the league’s over 2,000 active players and compiles them into a list.
More importantly, its selection criteria come from active professional players within the league, providing a contrast to the regular-season awards as an evaluation from within.
Simply put, regular-season awards are judgments by outsiders from a relatively objective standpoint, while the NFL Top 100 Players list represents evaluations by insiders from a relatively subjective perspective.
Feedback from direct competitors on the field, and even fierce division rivals, may seem subjective and biased, but the significance of such evaluations differs.
Unlike the historically established regular-season awards, the NFL Top 100 Players list was specifically created by Goodell to spark offseason interactions—
A creative move by Goodell.
The list was established in 2010, with its inaugural rankings released during the 2011 season, and incorporated into the league’s promotional strategies alongside the regular-season awards ceremony.
Over just eight seasons, its influence has expanded rapidly, as it carries a distinct weight due to peer evaluations. Players might mock journalists and fans for "knowing nothing and just watching for fun," but they cannot ignore the recognition from their fellow professionals.
Now, the Top 100 Players list has even exceeded honors like the Pro Bowl and All-America First Team in some regards, becoming an accolade rivaling the regular-season MVP.
Additionally, while the regular-season MVP has only one winner and is perpetually dominated by quarterbacks, leaving other players to just watch the excitement, the Top 100 Players list offers opportunities for every position—even the Special Duty Group. Making the list signifies being in the top 5% within the league.
A coveted status.
The influence of this list has undoubtedly become a vital benchmark for the league. Players might not care about which quarterback wins the regular-season MVP, but they will undeniably pay attention to the Top 100 Players list—
Examining not only their own ranking but also the standings of competitors in their positions, direct rivals, and who made or missed the list.
No one is exempt.
From this, Goodell once again demonstrates his strategic foresight.
Every year after the Super Bowl, the league begins collecting votes, collating them through official metrics, and producing a dedicated program broadcast on NFLN.
Releasing the list in reverse order, ten players per week, generates a wave of social media discussions and excitement, building anticipation for the new season.
However, the subjective nature of the NFL Top 100 Players list cannot be ignored—it’s a critical factor.
Professional players often tend to overlook the objectivity of game data, relying more on personal impressions and subjective attitudes to vote, inevitably leading to discrepancies in rankings.
For instance, the list is notoriously strict toward young rookies. Veteran players often downplay the newcomers, resulting in lower rankings for rookies even if they deliver outstanding performances.
For example, defensive players generally face harsher criteria, especially linemen and defensive line players, whose rankings may lag behind offensive players despite similar performance levels.
Additionally, the rankings heavily reflect impressions from the latter half of the season, particularly playoff performances. Players who excel in the postseason after an average regular season can see surprising upward shifts in rankings.
Single-season recency bias also plays a significant role. Players who rarely excel in previous years but have stellar performances in contract years might leap ahead of those who have consistently performed well over many seasons.
Moreover, the influence of media and social networks exceeds expectations. Players active on social media and frequently visible in the media can receive disproportionately high rankings, regardless of on-field statistics and season-long performance.
For instance, a viral video with ten million views might only showcase three seconds of a player’s highlight-worthy moment during a regular game, while their average performance elsewhere creates an illusion of game-changing ability. freёweɓnovel.com
This is the power of social media hype.
Furthermore, veterans who have been at the top of the league for years tend to maintain their reputation. Their longstanding excellence naturally embeds their names into voters’ minds, creating a default "safe choice" sentiment.
The league’s elite quarterbacks consistently dominate the top ten or top twenty.
A prime example is Peyton Manning. In the 2012 season, he missed the entire year due to injury and didn’t play a single game, yet he still ranked fifty on the NFL Top 100 Players list.
Although fifty might not seem high, it’s still an incredible ranking for a player who didn’t appear for the entire season.
This—is what the list represents.
As long as a list exists, it will inevitably be influenced by both subjective and objective factors, and the rankings can never satisfy everyone entirely.
Still, such biases have not diminished the immense popularity of the NFL Top 100 Players list—
Unavoidably, players remain curious about their evaluations, reputations, and rankings among their peers.
Even during the offseason, players without exception gather in front of their TVs, eagerly awaiting the announcement of each week’s rankings, searching for their names.
This year, amid a cacophony of attention and controversy, the league unveiled the NFL Top 100 Players list week by week on its official NFLN channel.
The results are highly anticipated.
Whether admired or debated, none can deny that after defending their Super Bowl Champion title, the Kansas City Chiefs exhibit an utterly different level of confidence and status, which directly reflects on the Top 100 Players list.
It seems that despite all the snide remarks, petty criticisms, and constant jabs at the Kansas City Chiefs as a "fraudulent powerhouse," the recognition speaks louder than words.
Before the top 20 rankings were released, the defending champion Kansas City Chiefs had already seen six players make the list, leading all 32 teams as the biggest winners of the NFL Top 100 Players list.
