Now that the NFL has unveiled all players who made it onto the list of the league’s top 100, as determined by ballots cast by some but not all players, players omitted from the list are sounding off.
Count Washington receiver DeSean Jackson among the disgruntled.
“They still count me out,” Jackson said on Twitter, via Dan Steinberg of the Washington Post. “What they thought I ain’t Still one of the SiCcest Wideouts In Tha Game?? Jus watch & See They ain’t Neva Love a Real one anyway My Family taken Care of 4 life & Ima continue 2 ball on they ass.”
It’s no surprise Jackson didn’t make the top 100 in the 2016 list. Last year, he missed seven games and finished with only 528 receiving yards. Given the voting process, which requires all players who vote to list off the top of their heads the top 20 players in the league, it’s no surprise that the top 20 (and, in turn, the top 100) will skew toward the “what have you done for me lately?” category.
That’s why Colts quarterback Andrew Luck landed at No. 92. It’s why 2015 league MVP Cam Newton finished at No. 1.
It’s also why Jackson finished at No. 50 in 2015; he had 1,169 receiving yards in 2014, his first year with Washington.
So the list doesn’t reflect the best 100 players of the current year. It identifies the best 100 players of the prior season. And if the NFL were candid about what the list reflects -- that it’s not a prediction of the best players for the year to come but a snapshot of the players that other players regarded as the best during the season that is over and done and gone and by most forgotten -- an inherently meaningless list will have even less meaning.
