Detroit Lions: Only Darius Slay, Matthew Stafford place in NFL Top 100
By Rob Kish
Two Detroit Lions made it into the NFL Top 100, Matthew Stafford and Darius Slay. Other Lions players should have made the list.
The NFL Top 100 list is “voted on by the players”. This voting process is flawed. Sure, it’s not middle school class president vote flawed, but it is flawed nonetheless. A 2016 report by Pro Football Talk, explained that “‘roughly half’ of all players voted” that year. Here’s how Mike Florio of PFT describes the voting process:
"The voting process indeed consists of players being given a sheet of paper with a request to list the top 20 players in the league. No. 1 gets 20 points and so on, with No. 20 getting one point. The 100 players with the most total points then make up the full list."
Selecting the top 20 players in the league is hard for anybody. Results are skewed by a lot of things like who players lined up against that season and who they didn’t play. They can also be skewed by position, draft spot, and by pay, among other things.
Darius Slay
At number 49, Darius Slay was ranked infinitely higher than he was last season (he was unranked in 2017). In 2017, Slay tied for the league lead in interceptions with 8 and led the league in passes defended with 26. Teryl Austin often asked him to shadow opposing teams’ top receiver and he almost always seemed to come up big.
Darius Slay's 2017 season flew under the radar. Shadowed 10 times, played big role in holding Odell (4-36-0), Michael Thomas (3-11-0), Antonio Brown (5-70-0) down. QBs had a horrid 55.6 rating when throwing at Slay, 6th-worst in league via PFF.
— Adam Levitan (@adamlevitan) May 22, 2018
Slay was First Team All-Pro for the first time last season. But, here’s the thing about Darius Slay that Lions fans know, he’s been doing this for a while.
Darius Slay owns the top playmaker index among CBs since 2015! pic.twitter.com/XWoxOjl9SA
— PFF (@PFF) June 5, 2018
Matthew Stafford
The number 31 ranked player on the list and the 8th ranked QB, few have more talent than Matt Stafford. He is often lauded for his arm talent, members of the national media love to talk about the way he throws the ball.
Stafford has shown much improvement in his game over the past three seasons, there’s no reason to think that his success and the success of the Lions offense as a whole won’t continue. In 2017, he led them to a top 10 finish in points per game.
Far and away the most impressive thing about Stafford is that he does it without a running game. In 2017, the Lions were dead last in rushing offense.
The Lions are criminally underrated
The Lions have two 1,000 yard receivers who certainly deserve to be on this list, Golden Tate, and Marvin Jones. I wrote about their potential to lead the best wide receiver room in the NFL next year here.
They also have a defensive anchor in the secondary in Glover Quin who rarely gets recognition for being one of the best safeties in the league.
The highest graded ninth year players in the NFL last season! pic.twitter.com/LKootkXC6W
— PFF (@PFF) June 27, 2018
You could make the argument for Rick Wagner as well, who PFF ranked as the 10th best tackle in the league. An interesting stat from the PFF piece:
"Wagner has allowed Matthew Stafford to be sacked or hit just five times on his 444 snaps as a pass protector."
Next: Which Detroit team will be city's next champion?
I bet if you ask a lot most Lions players or their new coach, they’d tell you stuff like this doesn’t matter and will get played out on the field come the fall.