ESPN’s senior NFL national reporter Jeremy Fowler takes on a tough task every offseason: Getting NFL evaluators to tell him who they believe are the top 10 players in the league at each of the sport’s positions. According to Fowler, he polls 80 different executives, coaches and scouts to land on these consensus top 10 lists, which also include “honorable mention” and “also receiving votes” subcategories.
On Sunday, Fowler dropped the offensive tackle list, which somehow didn’t feature the Green Bay Packers’ Zach Tom at all. Tom, now a third-year former fourth-round pick, has started 22 games at the NFL level and has played in 26 over his first two years in the league. Last season, he made all 17 starts and played 1,067 offensive snaps — good for 97 percent of the Packers’ total offensive snaps.
The tackle tandem of Tom (right tackle) and fellow 2022 draft pick Rasheed Walker (left tackle) was graded with the second-highest “Pass Block Win Rate” of any duo in the NFL last season. Tom also was given an 80.3 grade for the 2023 season — including the postseason — by Pro Football Focus. He was even PFF’s highest-graded tackle in the first round of the playoffs in 2023.
Despite all of that, Tom didn’t even receive a single vote from these NFL evaluators. In total, 26 tackles were featured on Fowler’s list. Figuring in retirements and the new draft class into the feverish roster churn of the NFL, you’d have to think that at best the league believes Tom is an average tackle — based on their selections.
Maybe some of this is evaluators coping with the fact that they allowed Tom to slip into Day 3 of the draft just two years ago. Maybe they truly don’t feel like he’s anything special, despite his consistency in the pass-blocking department. Either way, this was a shocking result to me, as I would have assumed that the league viewed him as one of the young star offensive linemen in the NFL.
If you’re wondering which tackles did receive a vote, unlike Tom, here’s Fowler’s rankings, split by his top 10, the “honorable mention” subcategory and the “also receiving votes” subcategory:
Top 10
- Trent Williams, San Francisco
- Penei Sewell, Detroit
- Laremy Tunsil, Houston
- Tristan Wirfs, Tampa Bay
- Lane Johnson, Philadelphia
- Christian Darrisaw, Minnesota
- Jordan Mailata, Philadelphia
- Andrew Thomas, Giants
- Rashawn Slater, Chargers
- Ronnie Stanley, Baltimore
Honorable Mentions
- Tyron Smith, Jets
- Dion Sawkins, Buffalo
- Terron Armstead, Miami
- Kolton Miller, Las Vegas
- Taylor Decker, Detroit
- Charles Cross, Seattle
Also Receiving Votes
- Spencer Brown, Buffalo
- Darnell Wright, Chicago
- Orlando Brown Jr., Cincinnati
- Jake Matthews, Atlanta
- Paris Johnson, Arizona
- Ryan Ramczyk, New Orleans
- Tytus Howard, Houston
- Taylor Moton, Carolina
- Garett Bolles, Denver
- Bernhard Raimann, Indianapolis
Not one evaluator thought that Tom, with all those accolades, was better than even one of those players? Give me a break.