The NFL Top 100 started back in 2010 as a list of the 100 greatest players of all time. Jerry Rice was voted No. 1. Hard to argue with that. But the success of that series led NFL Network to start airing a yearly list of the top 100 players for each season starting in 2011. The 2025 edition currently being rolled out is the 15th in the series, believe it or not. Unsurprisingly, fans have issues with the rankings. More specifically and recently, with Dak Prescott’s.
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The outrage over Dak’s No. 79 ranking seems a bit strange. He started only eight games last year, went 3-5, and his Dallas Cowboys missed the playoffs. However, after finishing second in MVP voting and No. 13 on this list a year ago, it’s still a pretty precipitous drop.
And it will only get more frustrating for Dak and Dallas truthers as the rest of the list continues to be revealed over the next month and a half. The first QB to be revealed after Prescott at No. 79 was former Minnesota Vikings QB and current Seattle Seahawks QB Sam Darnold, who checked in at No. 72.
NFL Top 100 Players of 2025:@Seahawks QB Sam Darnold makes the countdown at No. 72! @NFLFilms pic.twitter.com/y6WTGaokvY
— NFL (@NFL) July 18, 2025
The issue a lot of fans seem to have with these lists is that they don’t understand what they are. Many think they are just the top 100 players in the league based on everyone’s entire resume. Not so. This is a list of the top 100 players based only on the previous season. With those parameters, it’s surprising Darnold isn’t a few spots even further ahead of Prescott.
And yet, Darnold’s MVP-caliber 15-win season apparently did not impress some fans as much as it did the actual guys he was playing against during the 2024 campaign. “The NFL list is wack they have Dak at #79. Terrible list,” said one.
However, some were more positive. “I really hope it was a breakout for him and not just coaching. I love when we can get a redemption storyline in sports,” said another hopeful fan. “Coach Koc just holds Sammy back. Sammy is the best player in the NFL,” said another tongue-in-cheek. “It’s tough to drill him down to two games after the season he had. He was legitimately balling out. I know having a good coach is important, but he wasn’t playing for the man. He was out there doing that. Gotta give the man his credit. He was on one,” argued another.
We would tend to agree with the more positive contingent here. Sure, Darnold was about as bad as you could be in the regular season finale and Wild Card game, but for 17 weeks before that, he was nearly peerless. If his last name had been Allen, Mahomes, or Jackson and he’d put up those numbers with 15 wins, he would have been an MVP shoo-in.
It’s also hilarious to see fans questioning these rankings. These are not media rankings, which can always be lambasted. These are rankings done by the players themselves. And who knows better the quality of a player than someone who has had to play against them? This age of social media has warped so many fan minds that they think they know better than the guys playing the actual game. Adorable.
