The NFL is a win-now league, now more than ever. Coaches aren't given the time they used to get to rebuild a franchise. Results need to be quick and impressive for coaches to keep their jobs. Just look at the amount of turnover among head coaches -- this season, there are eight new head coaches leading their teams. It sounds simple, but while every NFL coach is qualified, the bottom line is you need talented players to win football games.
ESPN.com recently ran its #NFLRank project, ranking the top 100 players on both offense and defense. I liked the concept, so I decided to do it myself -- only I broke it down by position. Below is a ranking of the top three players in the NFL at every position, with a couple of exceptions. These are the players I'd want on my team if I were trying to win a Super Bowl this season. So while there are some young guys mixed in here, I was looking more for immediate output than potential.
Here are the best players in the NFL by position:
Offense
Quarterback
Rodgers
Aaron Rodgers, Green Bay Packers: I think people have forgotten how mobile Rodgers is because he doesn't get put in the discussion of the new read-option QBs like Colin Kaepernick, Robert Griffin III and Russell Wilson. But Rodgers has the athletic ability to make plays out of nothing, and has the most pure talent of any QB in the game right now. He also has tremendous accuracy and puts up amazing numbers, especially given the conditions in Green Bay.