ESPN is gearing up for the 2018 NFL regular season with a ranking of the top 100 players. It’s not exactly the clearest of rankings, but as with any of these “top 100” style rankings, subjectivity is a big part of it. According to ESPN, they, “asked a “panel of ESPN NFL experts to rate players based on how good they will be in 2018, using a scale from 0-100.” The system is based on how they will perform this season, not their past performance or specific positional value. Make of that what you want.
You can sort through the list by player and position. A quick search of the San Francisco 49ers reveals a not so shocking result: quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo is the only Niner included. Nick Wagoner had this to say about Garoppolo:
Garoppolo started the final five games of 2017, leading the 49ers to wins in all of them while setting several franchise records in the process. He has now won his first seven NFL starts and has brought hope and buzz back to Niners football.
I’m not all that surprised, Garoppolo is the only one listed, but it’s still a little off-putting. Reuben Foster and DeForest Buckner are two of the easy choices to potentially end up on a year-in-review version of this list. If Richard Sherman looks legit when he takes the field, he could easily up on this kind of list.
Who are some of the less high profiler 49ers you could see on this kind of list when the season has ended?