Eight Bears Crack the Sports Illustrated Top 400 NFL Players

It seems Sports Illustrated is unimpressed with the NFL Network and their Top 100 NFL Players lists the past couple years. So they decided to raise the bar. Through exhaustive research, columnist Andy Benoit forged his list of not the 100 but the 400 best professional football players. That is a massive undertaking in every sense of the word. So inevitably the question comes up. How did the Chicago Bears rankings play out? Not great. Again this shouldn't be a surprise. They're a team coming off a 3-13 season. Why should they get respect on a list like this? Bad teams tend not to have a lot of great players. The defending champion New England Patriots have 20 names on it, including the #1 and #7 choices in Tom Brady and Rob Gronkowski. The Bears? They had eight. To be fair that probably would've been even less back in 2015. The arrival of the 2016 draft class along with a few other notables has at least improved their credibility. Still eight names on a list of 400? It's hard to feel good about that.

Kyle Long headlines the Chicago Bears rankings

At first it was a minor shock to see Kyle Long topping the list. Of course he belongs in the rankings. That much was obvious. However, the best Bears player right now? Some would argue that honor goes to upstart running back Jordan Howard. Especially after Long missed a huge chunk of last season with a bad ankle injury. Then there's Josh Sitton who has made more Pro Bowls including one last year while Long was on the shelf. Benoit was quick to remind people that the list isn't just about past accomplishments. Future potential was also factored in. Long is 28-years old. If his health gets back to normal, he could still have a lengthy good run ahead of him.

"Long is a tremendous athlete who should keep getting better given that he's only been playing offensive line since 2011 (his first year at Oregon) and has been shuffled around various positions in the NFL."

The bigger shock about the list though is the conspicuous absence of center Cody Whitehair. It was generally agreed among several experts that he was one of the five or six best at his position in 2016. Considering he was a rookie and had never played that spot in college, it was beyond impressive. That Howard and Leonard Floyd made the list but he didn't is a pretty big oversight. Perhaps an indication that no rankings like this are perfect. At the end of the day it's all subjective. Nonetheless, hopefully a few more names will appear on it by 2018 after the Bears start stacking more wins.