Matthew Judon is an elite defensive player, but is he one of the five best players in the game?
At least one NFL player apparently believes so.
For the 13th consecutive year, the NFL polled players around the league on whom they believe are the 100 best players in football. The results typically are revealed sometime in August, but the NFL on Wednesday shared four anonymous ballots containing players’ top 20 choices.
Judon doesn’t appear on two of the ballots. But the star Patriots edge rusher showed up on two of them, ranking fifth on one and 10th on the other.
Check out all four ballots in the tweet below:
Is fifth too high for Judon? Maybe, maybe not. But there’s no denying he’s emerged as one of the game’s top sack artists since joining New England in 2021.
After racking up 12.5 sacks in his first season with the Patriots, Judon posted a whopping 15.5 sacks last season while flirting with the franchise’s single-season record. Most importantly, the 30-year-old largely avoided the second-half regression that plagued him during his first season with New England.
We won’t know until later this summer whether Judon earned enough votes for a top 10 spot on the final list. But it’s clear at least some players view him as a truly dominant force on defense.
