The Top 100: NFL's Greatest Players

• 1. Introduction

  ›

  The Top 100: NFL's Greatest Players launched on the NFL Network in 2010 with a question that had never been put to a formal vote: who are the hundred greatest players in the history of professional football? The series ran ten episodes, airing each Thursday from the 3rd of September to the 4th of November, 2010. Every week, a new group of ten names came off the list, starting from number 100 and climbing toward a single, disputed peak. The people who would answer that question were not fans voting online. They were a panel of current and former coaches, players, executives, and media members, assembled by the NFL Network and given a brief that was as simple as it was contentious. Each player on the list was not just announced but advocated for, with a separate notable figure from the worlds of sport and entertainment making the case for each nominee. Who rose to the top? And which franchises claimed the most spots when the final count was done?

• 2. The Blue-Ribbon Panel

  ›

  The NFL Network called the group a "blue-ribbon" panel, a phrase that signals both credibility and a certain weight of expectation. These were not casual observers. The panelists included people who had coached at the highest level, played on championship rosters, run front offices, and covered the league as journalists. By drawing from all four of those worlds, the network tried to guard against any single perspective dominating the outcome. A pure players-only vote might weight physical dominance differently than a coaches-only ballot. An executives-only panel might lean toward quarterbacks, whose value is easiest to price. Media members bring their own biases shaped by which eras they covered. The blend was deliberate. Each of the hundred players was also given a champion, a noteworthy individual from sport or entertainment who appeared on screen to present and argue for that player's case. That format gave the series a human voice for every name on the list, rather than a simple graphic counting down the slots.

• 3. Jerry Rice at the Summit

  ›

  Jerry Rice, the wide receiver who spent the defining years of his career with the San Francisco 49ers, was chosen as the single greatest player in NFL history by the panel. He was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2010, the same year the series aired. Jim Brown, the fullback who played for the Cleveland Browns and was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1971, was named the second-greatest player of all time. The top ten, revealed in the final episode on the 4th of November, 2010, included a linebacker from the New York Giants at number three, a 49ers quarterback at number four, a running back from the Chicago Bears at number five, a Baltimore Colts quarterback at number six, a defensive end who had played for both the Philadelphia Eagles and the Green Bay Packers at number seven, an Indianapolis Colts quarterback at number eight, a Green Bay Packers end at number nine, and a Chicago Bears linebacker at number ten. The Hall of Fame induction years for those players span from 1963 to 2021, pointing to how widely the panel spread its recognition across different generations of the game.

• 4. Dallas Cowboys Lead the Count

  ›

  When the full list of one hundred players was broken down by franchise, the Dallas Cowboys claimed the most appearances of any single team: nine players. The Chicago Bears and the Green Bay Packers each placed eight players on the list, tying for second. The Los Angeles and St. Louis Rams franchise also placed eight players, matching that total. Just behind them, the Baltimore and Indianapolis Colts combined for seven appearances, as did the Oakland and Los Angeles Raiders and the Pittsburgh Steelers. The San Francisco 49ers, the Cleveland Browns, and the New York Giants each contributed five players. At the other end of the spectrum, several franchises placed exactly one player on the list, including the Atlanta Falcons, the Canton Bulldogs, the Cincinnati Bengals, the Denver Broncos, and the New York Jets. The Canton Bulldogs entry is a reminder of just how far back the panel was willing to look, reaching into the pre-modern era of professional football to fill out the roster of the all-time hundred. The New York Jets' single representative was a quarterback inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1985.

• 5. A Century of Positions

  ›

  Quarterbacks appear more frequently among the highest-ranked positions than any other single role, which reflects how the panel weighed the position's influence on winning. Linebackers, running backs, and defensive ends also place heavily across the list. Offensive tackles, cornerbacks, tight ends, and guards fill out the mid-range rankings. A handful of players are listed with multiple positions, including one player who held down safety and cornerback duties with the San Francisco 49ers, and another who is listed as quarterback, safety, and punter for the Washington Redskins. That kind of positional versatility was common in earlier eras of the sport, and its presence on the list is another sign that the panel ranged across decades rather than favoring any single period. The earliest Hall of Fame induction year among the top hundred belongs to players inducted in 1963, which points toward stars of the 1940s and 1950s whose careers predate the Super Bowl era entirely. The most recent eligibility marker on the list notes one player who will not be eligible for Hall of Fame induction until 2028.