Jason Kelce Cracks NFL Top 100 for First Time in Career

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By Paul Bowman, Sports Talk Philly Editor

On Monday, Carson Wentz was shown a great disrespect when the players dropped him from number 3 to 96 on the NFL Top 100 List.

The team got their second player on the list, though it could be debated whether his ranking is disrespectful or not.

For the first time in his career, Eagles center Jason Kelce was selected to the NFL Top 100. You read that correctly and that is not an error – this is Kelce’s first appearance on the list.

A case could be made that offensive lineman as a whole are underrated on this list, but to put this in perspective, there were 8 players on the NFL Top 100 in 2018 that play on the offensive line. Jason Kelce was ranked as the top lineman by multiple credible outlets in 2017 and was still left off the list.

A counter to that would be that there was not a single center on the list in 2018 and the highest ranked center on the 2017 list was the Cowboys’ Travis Frederick at 87. Getting ranked at 72 as a center might actually be a huge sign of respect from the players based on that.

Kelce is a player who could very well have a case to make the Hall of Fame, especially if he can play a couple more seasons at the level he has the past two years. He has one issue, though – a lack of accolades.

During the offseason, I had a bit of a disagreement with a fan who claimed that, since Kelce was always at the top of the underappreciated players lists, he wasn’t underappreciated. That’s just not true.

The press and writers are appreciating Kelce, but the fans and players are not.

Kelce has two All-Pro selections from the writers, but his two Pro Bowl selections are from 2014 and 2016. He was not selected in 2017, when he was the top lineman in the league, or in 2018, when he was a top three center, no question.

Fans instead voted in a name: Max Unger. Unger was good in his prime years ago, but he was nowhere near as good as Kelce was last year. But Unger is a name that people recognized from his dominance early in his career. Unger retired this offseason.

Meanwhile, this is Kelce’s first selection to the NFL Top 100 and the first time he has received a recognition from his fellow players other than being selected as a captain by his teammates. While the number may not be high, getting these sorts of accolades will be crucial for Kelce’s chances to reach Canton, especially at a position that has no flashy statistics.

With the first 50 players already being announced, the Eagles are surprisingly lacking with just two players in the Top 100 so far. Guys like Malcolm Jenkins, Lane Johnson, Brandon Graham, Zach Ertz and Fletcher Cox have yet to hear their names called. Fans can only hope that that is because they have all been ranked so highly their time is just yet to come.