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NFL players launch Players' All-Pro team, where they — not the media — determine best players in the league

Chris Cwik
Staff writer
·3 min read
482

NFL players are sick and tired of having other people judge and define them. As a way of taking some power back, the players announced a Players' All-Pro team Tuesday, in which active NFL players vote to determine the best players in the NFL.

The first Players' All-Pro team was announced Wednesday, featuring a first-team offense, defense and special-teams unit. It turns out the players are a pretty good judge of their colleagues.

Here's a list of the players who made the first-ever Players' All-Pro team offense:

Here's the Players' All-Pro team defense:

And finally, the Players' All-Pro special-teams unit:

All in all, that's a pretty strong list. It's tough to quibble with many of the selections.

If you disagree with one of the selections or think a player from your favorite team was snubbed, maybe that was due to the voting rules. NFLPA president J.C. Tretter laid out the rules in a post, explaining that players had to be active, could not vote for teammates or themselves, could not vote for players who missed five games before Week 15 and could only vote for their position or positions they face off against. Tretter explained that last point, saying centers could vote on other centers, nose tackles, interior defensive linemen and off-ball linebackers.

Tretter also outlined why the players decided they needed to vote for their own All-Pro team.

"We compete against each other all season long, watching hours and hours of film week after week after week, and yet we have never had an opportunity to truly use our expertise to select the best of us. We think it is important that players take the time to define ourselves, because so far, we have allowed everyone else to either pick or dilute our voices."

The statement that announced the team echoed that point, stating, "For too long, we have allowed everyone else to define the best of us as players. That ends now."

Overall, it's a strong attempt at something the players hope to continue moving forward and something that could provide fans with even more insight on players who might get overlooked by the more established awards.