Every year, Pro Football Focus releases their Top 101 list, ranking the 101 best players from this past NFL season.
The Eagles earned five spots on that list. Jordan Mailata was the highest ranking Eagle, coming in at 22. Dallas Goedert followed up right behind him at 23. Lane Johnson came in at 52, Darius Slay at 59, and Javon Hargrave closed things out at 98. All of those guys are deserving of their rankings, but Jason Kelce was arguably the most valuable player on the Eagles roster this season and he didn’t even crack the list.
There’s no way around it, PFF just absolutely whiffed on this one.
Six centers made the list, Creed Humphrey (27), Corey Linsley (37), David Andrews (75), J.C. Tretter (89), Brian Allen (97), and Matt Hennessy (101). Based off PFF’s grading system, ranking Humphrey and Linsley before Kelce makes sense, they had higher overall grades this season. As for Andrews, Tretter, Allen, and Hennessy, they all ranked behind Kelce in season grade. Yet, they made the cut and Kelce didn’t.
Even by PFF’s own standards, Kelce should have made this list. To top things off, PFF then released a ’10 players who just missed out on the top 101′ article. Kelce was still nowhere to be found.
A quick look at Kelce’s stats and his exclusion from this list becomes even more head scratching. He allowed one sack, 16 hurries, and 17 pressures on 557 pass blocking reps in 2021. His overall PFF grade (84.5) ranked third among all centers, along with his 89.0 run blocking grade.
It’s hard to determine why Kelce was left off this list, other than chalking it up to an egregious oversight. At the end of the day, these ranking are nothing but motivators for guys like Kelce. Now that he’s committed to at least one more season, I’m sure he’ll use this snub as some extra motivation heading into year 11.