Top 5 non-quarterbacks in the NFL

GronkThere are a number of transcendent players in the NFL at the moment. These are players that the opposition must specifically game-plan to try and stop, and they still fail. Here are five who have been doing it for years, and show little signs of slowing down.

#5 Calvin Johnson, WR, Detroit Lions

Calvin Johnson

The 6 foot 5 inch, 240lb wide receiver has been the most consistently dominant offensive player in the NFL for almost a decade. He is now on pace for his 6th straight season with 1,000 or more receiving yards. In 2012, Johnson broke Jerry Rice’s single season record for receiving yards, finishing with 1,964.

Stuck as the only good weapon on bad Lions teams for almost his entire career, Johnson has seen double and triple coverage as routine from opposing defences. Going past, over or through defenders, Johnson is still one of the most dominant offensive weapons in the NFL.

He isn’t quite putting up the numbers he did 2 years ago, but I attribute that more to bad quarterback play and a number of niggling injuries than a decline in Johnson’s skill set. He is still making it happen every week and at age 30 could have a number of healthy years left.

He currently ranks 30th all-time in receiving yards, after being the fastest player ever to reach 10,000 yards, and is ranked 26th all-time in touchdowns. And at 30 years old he isn’t nearly done.

#4 Darrelle Revis, CB, New York Jets

Darrelle Revis

The ability to effectively shut down half of the field is incredibly rare in the NFL. In the past twenty years, as rules have encouraged a passing attack to the detriment of defenders, only a handful of cornerbacks have been able to shut down half a field for a sustained period of time. Rod Woodson, Deion Sanders and Champ Bailey all did it. And then along came Revis, who might be the best of them all.

The true test of an elite player is performing when it matters the most. As a Patriot in 2014, during the AFC Championship Game and Super Bowl combined, Revis allowed only one completion on passes thrown to receivers he was covering. In fact, he was a huge part of the Patriots’ entire 2014 Super Bowl winning season.

For his career, Revis only has 24 interceptions. That is far below the pace of the NFL’s all-time elite. Rod Woodson had 71. Deion Sanders and Ty Law had 53. Champ Bailey had 52. The reason for this is that nobody throws enough at Revis to allow him to make that many interceptions. He is such a dangerous threat that quarterbacks simply steer clear. That is the ultimate sign of respect.

This season, Revis has 3 interceptions and 3 fumble recoveries through the first seven games, which is the highest number for an individual player in the league and more than Baltimore and Dallas have as an entire team.

He has blanketed the opposing team’s top receiver; Amari Cooper, Julian Edelman and Jarvis Landry all had their worst day of the season so far against Revis, while Pierre Garcon, TY Hilton and Jordan Matthews had their second worst outing against Gang Green’s top corner. Revis hasn’t allowed a 100-yard receiver this season, and is still the stick by which all other NFL cornerbacks are measured.

#3 Luke Kuechly, MLB, Carolina Panthers

Luke Kuechly

Luke Kuechly was the best inside linebacker in the NFL from the moment he entered the league in 2012. In his rookie year, Kuechly led the NFL in tackles and won the Associated Press NFL Defensive Rookie of the Year Award. In 2013, he followed that up by becoming the youngest player ever to win the NFL Defensive Player of the Year Award, after finishing 4th in the league in tackles with 156.

In 2014, he missed out on the NFL Defensive Player of the Year Award because of an amazing season by another player on this list, but managed to find himself leading the league in tackles yet again with 153, which incidentally is the lowest total number of tackles he’s recorded in any of his first three NFL seasons. He also holds the record for the most combined tackles in a single game (26).

Kuechly is the unquestioned leader of one of the elite defences of the NFL. With him entrenched at middle linebacker, Carolina ranked 2nd in both yards and points conceded in 2013 behind Seattle’s Super Bowl winning outfit.

At 24 years old, Kuechly may still be 4 years away from even hitting his prime. Ladies and gentlemen, what we have here is the next dominant middle linebacker of the next decade, cut from the same cloth as Patrick Willis and Ray Lewis before him.

#2 Rob Gronkowski, TE, New England Patriots

Rob Gronkowski

The league’s premier tight end is already a sure-fire Hall-of-Famer. In 2011, Gronkowski set the single-season record for touchdowns by a tight end with 17 and 18 overall (1 rushing), as well as setting the single-season record for receiving yards by a tight end with 1,327. He was also the first tight end in history to lead the league in receiving touchdowns.

In his first three seasons all told, Gronk had 38 receiving touchdowns in 43 games. No other tight end during that span in their career has ever had more than 25. With another 3 touchdowns this season, Gronkowski will be the only tight end in NFL history to record 5 seasons with at least 10 touchdown receptions. This is only his sixth year in the NFL.

At this stage of his career, with 62 touchdowns in 72 games, Gronkowski has already scored more touchdowns than Jason Witten and is tied with Shannon Sharpe, who happens to be in the Hall of Fame. By the end of this season, with the pace he is on, Gronk will have surpassed Michael Irvin, Sterling Sharpe and John Stallworth. Hall of famers, every one of them. Bear in mind that Gronkowski is still only 26 years old, and might have another decade of dominance to add to his legacy.

#1 J.J. Watt, DE, Houston Texans

J.J.Watt

J.J. Watt is a once-in-a-generation talent comparable to Lawrence Taylor and Reggie White. He is an unstoppable force in both the run and the pass, he can make interceptions at the line of scrimmage, he can bat plays down and he can be a devastating offensive weapon as a goal-line tight end.

Watt has 65.5 sacks in 72 games, and 42 passes batted. He is the only player in NFL history to record 20+ sacks in two separate seasons in a career, and he did that in his second and fourth seasons in the NFL. He’s also won the NFL Defensive Player of the Year award twice already.

The only other players in NFL history to have won that award more than once are Joe Greene, Lawrence Taylor, Mike Singletary, Reggie White, Bruce Smith and Ray Lewis. Not bad company to keep. He also holds the Texans franchise records for sacks and forced fumbles, and he has been a first team All-Pro in each of the three seasons since his rookie year.

To put his pass rushing skills into perspective, 65.5 sacks is the same number as Packers’ pass rusher Clay Matthews, who is three years his senior and himself a probable future hall-of-famer, and is only 8 sacks shy of 37 year old James Harrison’s total for his career. Like Gronkowski, it’s worth being reminded that Watt is only 26 years old and could easily show his dominance for another decade-plus.