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NFL GOATs: Nine players who could become best at their positions
ESPN PLU $ MATERIALHow many NFL players lining up in 2023 have a
shot at being the best at their positions in league history?
It's a complicated question. Even picking the greatest player in league history at a given position is hard enough. The players with the best chance of chasing down the best at their positions typically are young and productive, which means we have to project a decade or even two into the future to estimate whether they have any realistic hope of making history.
Obviously, this is all subjective, so my feelings won't necessarily be in line with yours or anyone else's. I've leaned on cumulative production and measures of how players were seen in their time, such as first-team All-Pro appearances, with added bonuses for what they did in the postseason. Some observers might want to lean on the numbers and others might focus more heavily on playoff success. There's no right answer here.
After taking a closer look, I found quite a few positions where there just wasn't anybody with a credible case to challenge the greatest player or players of all time. As good as Derrick Henry and Christian McCaffrey are, there's no realistic path for them having a chance at supplanting Jim Brown, Walter Payton or Emmitt Smith to stand as the best running back in league history.
Likewise, I didn't think there was a credible case for any current players at offensive tackle, center, off-ball linebacker, cornerback, safety, punter or punt returner. That isn't to say that players such as Sauce Gardner or Rashawn Slater couldn't get there eventually, but they would need to string together a few dominant seasons to even have a viable path toward challenging the greats, let alone toppling them.
In the end, I found seven active players who have a plausible chance of becoming the greatest of all time at their positions and two who, in my eyes, have already earned that nod. The seven who are on their way have varying amounts of work to do: One needs to make a couple of more All-Pro teams, while others must play at a superstar level for more than a decade to have any chance.
I'll run through the players position-by-position and include projected chances for each to end their career as the best at their role. Let's start with the quarterback everyone expects: Can the reigning MVP eventually become the greatest football player who has ever lived?
Quarterback
Current GOAT: Tom Brady, Patriots/Bucs (NFL career leader in passing yards and passing TDs, three-time NFL MVP, first NFL player to win seven Super Bowls during his on-field career)You knew this one was coming. Assuming Brady isn't persuaded to come out of retirement for a second time, he has set the bar incredibly high. Some of his numbers seem downright impossible to match: Will there ever be another quarterback, for example, who wins 20 division titles? Who wins an MVP award at 40? Who sets his career high for passing yards at age 44? Brady was blindingly consistent as a winner and, with all due respect to George Blanda, has been able to play at the highest level longer than any player in football history.
For all of the debates, there's nobody really in Brady's league. Peyton Manning finished with 16,000 fewer passing yards and won five fewer Super Bowls. Aaron Rodgers has four MVP awards, one more than Brady, but he's more than 30,000 yards short of Brady and has only one Super Bowl title. Joe Montana has four rings and less than half as many passing yards.
Passing yards and Super Bowl wins aren't the only way to judge a quarterback, but nobody can match Brady's résumé on either end, let alone top him in both categories.
Active player who could become the GOAT: Patrick Mahomes, Chiefs
If there's anybody out there who is off to a special start to his career, it has to be Mahomes, right? He already has two Super Bowl titles, three Super Bowl appearances and two regular-season MVP awards after just five seasons as a starter. Mahomes still hasn't played a single road game in the postseason, having dominated the AFC into landing one of the top two seeds in each of his five seasons. He has thrown for 24,241 yards through six years, and that number would be even higher if he hadn't sat behind Alex Smith during his 2017 rookie campaign.
Through six seasons, Mahomes is competitive with Brady, who sat out most of his rookie season in 2000 before famously being forced into the lineup by an injury to Drew Bledsoe. Brady had thrown for only 18,035 yards by the end of Year 6, but that was also in an era in which teams passed less often and with less efficiency than they do today. The difference is what Brady did in the postseason, as he started his career with three Super Bowl wins and finished this six-year stretch with a 9-0 postseason record.
Of course, Brady still had 16 more seasons to go. He lost a playoff game for the first time in 2006 and responded by changing the NFL forever in 2007, as the Pats adopted the spread offense and Brady produced one of the greatest seasons the league will ever see. He was a different player from that point forward; his interception rate dropped and his completion percentage spiked.
Even if we throw out the first six years of Brady's career, the guy who showed up afterward threw for 67,650 yards and 502 touchdowns, won three MVP awards and took home four Super Bowl rings. That guy is a strong candidate for the greatest quarterback ever, although adding three more Super Bowls to the mix obviously helps.
Someone will eventually break Brady's passing yardage record, with Mahomes as the favorite. I don't think that will be enough to topple Brady as the ultimate quarterback. Mahomes will need to add more Super Bowls to the mix to catch up. Asking for him to top Brady and land eight might be unrealistic, but can he get into the ballpark? If Mahomes claims the passing record and wins, say, five Super Bowls, does that supplant Brady? Six titles? Mahomes is off to an incredible start, but there's still so much work to do.
Chances Mahomes will end his career as the GOAT: 15%
Wide receiver
Current GOAT: Jerry Rice, 49ers/Raiders/Seahawks (most receptions and receiving yards in NFL history, one of two players in history with 10 first-team All-Pro appearances)Unless you want to bring Don Hutson's career into the mix from the World War II era, I don't believe there will be many people arguing with Rice as the selection here. He finished his career with 22,895 receiving yards. Larry Fitzgerald is in second place, and he's more than 5,400 yards behind. Nobody else in league history has topped 16,000 receiving yards.
If you judge greatness by pure value, Tom Brady would be the NFL's greatest player by virtue of playing quarterback. If you're judging it by how significantly a player outperformed his peers at his position, you could make a strong case for Rice.
Rice is so far ahead of the pack as to eliminate virtually all competitors. There's no hope of receivers in the prime of their careers, such as Stefon Diggs or Tyreek Hill, catching up. Hill is probably a Hall of Famer and still just 29. If he follows in Rice's footsteps and plays until he's 42, he would need to average more than 1,000 yards for 14 more seasons to top Rice's totals. Getting 17 games and playing in a pass-happy era helps, but the chances of anybody staying at that level while remaining healthy into their 40s are remarkably slim.
Active player who could become the GOAT: Justin Jefferson, Vikings
Instead, you have to look toward players at the beginning of their careers and hope they ride those advantages to glory. With Ja'Marr Chase sidelined by injury for part of the 2022 season, Jefferson is the only player I'm comfortable putting out there as a candidate. The Vikings star has racked up 4,825 receiving yards across his first three seasons, the most of any player in NFL history by more than 600 yards.
The top five in that category illuminate how difficult it will be for Jefferson to stay on Rice's trail. The others just behind Jefferson include Randy Moss, Odell Beckham Jr., A.J. Green and Michael Thomas. (Rice ranks eighth.) Moss went off the boil during his time in Oakland before reigniting in New England, but he was done as an impact receiver after his age-32 season. Rice racked up 9,620 receiving yards after his age-32 campaign. Beckham and Thomas had their primes marred by injuries, while Green faded after his first five seasons.
Jefferson has advantages. He'll get a 17th game and possibly an 18th game in seasons to come. He plays in a more pass-friendly era than Rice and spends a minimum of nine games per season indoors. Of course, he also has started his career with Kirk Cousins at quarterback and likely will be catching passes from a new signal-caller in 2024 given Cousins' uncertain future in Minnesota.
Jefferson, who will be playing his age-24 season in 2023, still has so much more work to do to stay aligned with Rice, let alone surpass the legendary wideout. After an Offensive Player of the Year season a year ago, he now has averaged 1,608 receiving yards a year. If things break right and he is somehow able to both stay healthy and keep up that level of production on an annual basis, he would need to sustain that level of play for 12 more seasons to beat Rice. If he slows down, he'll need to continue playing into his late 30s and possibly even into his 40s to chase down Rice.
Somebody will eventually break Rice's record, but just about everything will have to go right for him to do so. And even then, given how pass rates have changed, there likely would still be a reasonable case for Rice as the greatest wideout who has ever lived.
Chances Jefferson will end his career as the GOAT: 1%
Tight end
Current GOAT: Tony Gonzalez, Chiefs/Falcons (leads all tight ends in receptions, receiving yards and first-team All-Pro appearances)I wrote all about this topic in December, when Travis Kelce became the fifth tight end in league history to put up 10,000 receiving yards across his career. Since then, Kelce has added a second Super Bowl to his résumé and nearly delivered a speech at the White House before he was forcibly ushered from the stage by Patrick Mahomes. He already has earned his trip to Canton.
With apologies to Shannon Sharpe, Jason Witten and Rob Gronkowski, I think Kelce already is the second-best tight end ever. The problem is that it'll be a long way to chase down the guy at No. 1.
Active player who could become the GOAT: Travis Kelce, Chiefs
Kelce has 10,344 receiving yards and 71 touchdowns. Gonzalez amassed a staggering 15,127 receiving yards and 111 touchdowns during his 17-year career with the Chiefs and Falcons.
Does Kelce have time to get there? Gonzalez entered the league as a 21-year-old. Kelce was drafted at 24 and played only one game as a rookie after undergoing microfracture surgery on a knee; his first significant season wasn't until his age-25 campaign. Gonzalez already had more than 3,000 receiving yards and 24 touchdowns by that point.
There are two reasons to be optimistic about Kelce's chances. One is that he shares a rare trait with Gonzalez and Witten relative to other tight ends: health. Even great tight ends struggle to play full seasons without missing chunks of time. Gonzalez somehow missed just one game during his illustrious career. Kelce was sidelined for most of his rookie season, but he has missed three games over the ensuing nine seasons, and those were two weeks off for rest at the end of the year and a game in which he was sidelined by the COVID-19 protocols in 2020.
The other reason is that Kelce already is breaking rules about tight ends aging. The age-33 season is usually a point of no return for even the best tight ends on the planet. Gonzalez's last 1,000-yard season came at age 32, and he topped 900 yards just once over his five remaining seasons. No tight end since the AFL-NFL merger in 1970 had topped 1,000 receiving yards after turning 32 until Kelce did it last season.
I'm not sure Kelce needs to top Gonzalez's totals to be recognized as the greatest tight end of all time, but if he comes close and has multiple Super Bowl rings on his résumé, that should make for a strong case.
Chances Kelce will end his career as the GOAT: 60%
Guard
Current GOAT: One of a few guards -- John Hannah, Bruce Matthews, Randall McDaniel -- who were named first-team All-Pro seven times.The debate for best guard ever could probably be an article in itself; you can make a case for the three players above or a handful of others. I would argue there's no clear-cut favorite and who stands out might depend on what you value. Versatility? Matthews is your man, having started at every single spot up front at one point or another during his 19-year pro career. Consistency? McDaniel made 12 consecutive Pro Bowls. Sheer dominance? You might opt for Larry Allen, who made the impossible look possible and might have had the best physical attributes in league history at any position.
Active player who could become the GOAT: Zack Martin, Cowboys
For all we talk about the Cowboys, we don't often talk about their best player. Martin has been a model of consistency since entering the league, with an injury-hit 2020 season serving as the only time he hasn't made it to a Pro Bowl. Offensive line nominations for the Pro Bowl can be, shall we say, curious, but he also held up his own in making six first-team All-Pro appearances.
Since Martin entered the league in 2014, the Cowboys have generated 0.07 expected points added (EPA) per play with him on the field and 0.01 EPA per play without him. For context, the Cowboys have played like the 2023 Bengals when Martin has been on the field and the 2023 Browns or Steelers when he has been unavailable or taking a breather. Some of that is not having quarterback Dak Prescott on the field for most of that 2020 campaign, but you get the idea: Martin is a difference-maker.
Right now, it feels like he's toward the bottom end of that logjam of candidates who might be considered among the greatest guards of all time. To get to the top, the 32-year-old Martin could start by adding two more first-team All-Pro appearances to his name, which would make him the first player in league history to earn that honor eight times as a guard. He also has failed to advance as far as the NFC Championship Game as a pro, so a deep playoff run or two wouldn't hurt his chances.
Chances Martin will end his career as the GOAT: 35%
Edge rusher
Current GOAT: Lawrence Taylor, Giants (three-time Defensive Player of the Year, NFL MVP, eight-time first-team All-Pro)Let's review the early-career résumé of the greatest defensive player of all time. In Year 1, Taylor won both the Defensive Rookie of the Year and Defensive Player of the Year awards while racking up 9.5 unofficial sacks for the Giants. (The sack wasn't an official statistic until 1982, but Pro Football Reference uses research from John Turney and Nick Webster to locate sacks through 1960.) New York's defense jumped from 27th in the league in points allowed per game to fourth, and the Giants went from 4-12 to 9-7.
Taylor followed up with 7.5 sacks in the nine-game abbreviated season of 1982 and won his second straight Defensive Player of the Year award, giving him 17 (unofficial) sacks in 27 games.
Active player who could become the GOAT: Micah Parsons, Cowboys
Since entering the league and undergoing the quickest transition in recent memory from inside linebacker to star pass-rusher, Parsons has drawn comparisons to Taylor. It has been only two seasons, of course, but Parsons is off to a spectacular start in Dallas.
Parsons isn't yet at Taylor's level, but he isn't far off. Like Taylor, Parsons has been named a first-team All-Pro in each of his first two seasons. Parsons won Defensive Rookie of the Year in a unanimous vote in 2021. He has finished second in Defensive Player of the Year balloting in each of his first two seasons and has a combined 26.5 sacks across 33 games, putting him ahead of Taylor in one key metric for pass-rushers.
Taylor winning Defensive Player of the Year twice puts him ahead, and he has a historical element that Parsons won't be able to match. The perception of Taylor, both at the time and certainly in hindsight, is that he changed the game of football. Parsons is an incredible talent, and spending time as a middle linebacker at school gave him a unique set of skills, but he rushed the quarterback on more than 81% of dropbacks last season, and that number is likely to rise in the years to come.
I don't think Parsons will change the sport as we know it, which means he'll have to beat Taylor with accolades, numbers and playoff success. Parsons doesn't have a Defensive Player of the Year award on his mantel yet, but becoming the first defender in league history to take home four of them would be a good start. His 26.5 sacks place him eighth on the unofficial all-time list and sixth on the official list behind Aldon Smith, Reggie White, Von Miller, Derrick Thomas and Shawne Merriman. Pretty impressive company.
Chances Parsons will end his career as the GOAT: 3%
Active player who could become the GOAT: Nick Bosa, 49ers
T.J. Watt narrowly missed out on this list after tearing his pectoral muscle last year as a 28-year-old. Bosa, who just won his first Defensive Player of the Year award for the 49ers, is a more imposing challenger to Taylor's throne. The only thing that has slowed down Bosa during his first four seasons was a torn ACL, which limited him to two games in 2020.
Otherwise, Bosa has been devastating. He has racked up 43 sacks over his first four seasons, good enough for 17th on the official sack list over Years 1 through 4, even with what amounts to a lost season in the mix. He is the 10th player to win both Defensive Rookie of the Year and Defensive Player of the Year, although Taylor pulled it off in the same season.
Like Parsons, Bosa has a long road ahead. Right now, he's averaging just over 14 sacks per 17 games. If he can keep that up for years to come, stay healthy and win a couple of Super Bowls along the way, he might have a shot at setting the league's sack record and matching up with LT.
Chances Bosa will end his career as the GOAT: 3%
Defensive tackle
Current GOAT: Aaron Donald, Rams (three-time Defensive Player of the Year)
There's reasonable arguments for other legends on the interior. Bob Lilly and Randy White gave the Cowboys a Hall of Fame-caliber defensive tackle for a quarter of a century. Joe Greene was arguably the most devastating player on the Steel Curtain defense during Pittsburgh's dynasty in the 1970s. Merlin Olsen made it to 14 Pro Bowls in 15 years for the Rams from 1962 to 1975; the only player who earned a 15th Pro Bowl nod during his NFL career was Brady, who took 22 years to get there.
Donald's résumé, though, might already beat them all. He is one of three players and the only defensive tackle to win the Defensive Player of the Year award three times, tying him with Lawrence Taylor and J.J. Watt. He missed seven games last season due to an ankle injury, ending a run of seven consecutive first-team All-Pro appearances. Nobody else at any position has done that since the AFL-NFL merger in 1970.
About the only hole you could poke in Donald's career was a relative lack of postseason success, but he played a key role in the victory over the Bengals in Super Bowl LVI. In my opinion, Donald or Von Miller should have been named MVP -- not Cooper Kupp -- for what they did to turn things around against Cincinnati in the second half of that game.
Donald doesn't have quite the longevity of the other legends at his position, but he has been dominant for the entirety of his nine years as a pro. If he declines over the next couple of years and then retires, he'll already have done enough to secure his spot as the greatest defensive tackle ever. If he can add a fourth Defensive Player of the Year award to his résumé and win another Super Bowl, he might challenge Taylor to be considered the best defensive player at any position in league history. Of course, if you ask former teammate Jalen Ramsey, Donald is already there.
Chances Donald will end his career as the GOAT: 100%
Kicker
Current GOAT: Adam Vinatieri, Patriots/Colts (career leader in field goals made, playoff heroics)Some might opt for Morten Andersen or Lou Groza -- and Mark Moseley is the only full-time kicker to win an MVP award -- but Vinatieri's résumé is hard to contest. His incredible staying power saw him spend 24 years in the league, eventually finishing with the most successful field goal conversions in league history.
Vinatieri is also second on the extra point charts, but he's always going to be remembered best for his playoff heroics, most memorably the kicks he hit to help propel the Patriots to a Super Bowl XXXVI title in Brady's first season as a starter.
Active player who could become the GOAT: Justin Tucker, Ravens
Tucker is clearly the greatest kicker of this generation. He's the first full-time kicker in league history to rack up five first-team All-Pro appearances and holds the record for the longest successful field goal in league history. His 90.5% field goal percentage is the best mark for any kicker, but he's also kicking in an era in which success rates are higher than ever before. The six best kickers in league history in terms of field goal rate are all active. The top 70 in league history by that rate have all ended their careers in the 21st century.
There are two things Tucker has to do to leave the game as the league's best-ever kicker without much debate. One is simple enough: keep going. He is about to begin his 12th NFL season, which will have him at the halfway point of Vinatieri's career. Tucker already has converted 365 field goals, leaving him on pace to top Vinatieri's record of 599, but projecting anybody to follow Vinatieri's lead and play until he's 47 years old is impossible.
Along the way, Tucker will need to add to his résumé of memorable kicks in the postseason to compete with Vinatieri. Tucker won a Super Bowl in his rookie season and went 4-for-4 on field goals in the process, but while the Ravens beat the 49ers by 3 points, Tucker's field goal put Baltimore up five before a late intentional safety.
Tucker has gone 11-for-15 on field goals in the playoffs since, including a 1-for-3 performance amid tough winds in a frustrating loss to the Bills at the end of the 2020 campaign. He has shown the ability to convert big kicks in the regular season, but despite the Ravens making regular trips to the postseason, the opportunity to hit memorable game winners hasn't really arisen. Give Tucker another dozen years in the league and he likely will build his playoff résumé, but it's going to be tough to compete with Vinatieri's heroics.
Chances Tucker will end his career as the GOAT: 30%
Kick returner
Current GOAT: Cordarrelle Patterson, Vikings/Raiders/Patriots/Bears/Falcons (nine kickoff returns for TDs)
What, you thought I was going to forget about the returner? I believe Patterson already has established himself as the best kickoff returner in league history by becoming the first player to take nine kickoffs to the house. He had previously been in a tie with Josh Cribbs and Leon Washington, each of whom have strong cases for being considered alongside the Falcons standout as the best ever.
There are other players who have been even more impactful than Patterson in a smaller sample of returns. Percy Harvin returned five kickoffs for touchdowns on just 152 tries, which is in line with Patterson's nine scores across 266 returns. Harvin's trump card, of course, is that he added a sixth in the biggest game of the 2013 season, as the Seahawks blew out the Broncos in Super Bowl XLVIII.
Patterson is the most productive return man in history, but if you had to pick one player to go back and field a single kickoff in the hopes of landing a score, you might go with Gale Sayers. The legendary Bears running back fielded 91 kickoffs during his career and returned six for touchdowns, meaning he converted kickoffs into scores twice as often as Patterson. Around the same time, Packers and Rams back Travis Williams converted six of his 102 kickoff returns into touchdowns.
I'd give the nod to Patterson, though, who has thrived in an era in which nobody else has even come close. He has scored all nine of his kickoff return touchdowns since the league shortened kickoffs in 2012. Jacoby Jones racked up four over that span, and no other player has more than three. Patterson also has averaged 29.5 yards per return in his career, more than any other player with at least 20 kick returns. He has been phenomenal and done so while scoring kickoff return touchdowns for four different organizations, including one for the Falcons in 2022.
Patterson is the best kick returner in history. Is he the best returner in league history, full stop? No. Devin Hester has five kickoff returns for scores to go with his NFL-record 14 punt return touchdowns. Eric Metcalf is the only other returner to hit double-digit punt return scores. Hester and Dante Hall are the only return men with at least five punt and five kick return touchdowns. Patterson is not going to catch up to Hester, but one more kick return touchdown would put some breathing room between him and the rest of his competition.
Chances Patterson will end his career as the GOAT: 100%
