Detroit Lions well represented in The MMQB’s top 400 players list

The MMQB’s Andy Benoit ranked the top 400 players in the NFL and the Detroit Lions are surprisingly well represented in his list.

It’s that time of year when NFL lists are all the rage and The MMQB’s Andy Benoit is out with a big one today. Benoit took on the task of ranking the top 400 players.

Here is where Detroit Lions players who made the list (special teams and rookies were not included) ranked.

99. Ziggy Ansah
117. Matthew Stafford
128. T.J. Lang
173. Darius Slay
183. Taylor Decker
188. Rick Wagner
238. Eric Ebron
253. Golden Tate
259. Glover Quin
288. Marvin Jones
294. Haloti Ngata
306. Theo Riddick
343. Tahir Whitehead
344. Tavon Wilson
351. Kerry Hyder
382. Armonty Bryant

Eric Edholm went next level with the ranking, showing good results for the Lions. Even though the first Lion doesn’t appear until the top 100 is nearly over, the Lions did manage to place in a tie for third-most players in the top 400.

That puts the Lions in awfully good company with the last two NFC champions and one of the conferences young, up and coming teams.

Bob Quinn had a stated goal of improving the “middle class” of the roster when he took over as the Lions’ general manager and this list could be seen as a proxy measure of success. Of the 16 Lions to make the top 400, six were brought in by Quinn while four others were retained on new contracts since Quinn’s hiring.

With overall team depth starting to solidify under Quinn, the next challenge will be to improve the top-end talent with more star power. The Lions may have tied the Falcons for number of top 400 players, but the Falcons placed six players inside the top 100.

Next: Top 10 Lions receivers in Detroit Lions history

The top ten players in Benoit’s list were Tom Brady, J.J. Watt, Von Miller, Luke Kuechly, Le’Veon Bell, Aaron Rodgers, Rob Gronkowski, Khalil Mack, Julio Jones and Antonio Brown. You can see the full list on TheMMQB.com.