Ray Lewis Still Among the League's Best

Pat Kirwan from NFL.com continued his player rankings with the linebackers and split the group into two categories — inside and outside backers.

The list has 20 players (10 inside and 10 outside), which is only about 18 percent of the approximately 112 starting linebackers in the league. The result is a large number of players will end up in the honorable-mention category or nowhere on the list at all.

Baltimore Ravens inside linebacker Ray Lewis enters his 16th NFL season, but many believe he still is among the best at his position. Include Kirwan in that group, because he lists Lewis first in Group A ahead of New England’s Jerod Mayo, Pittsburgh’s Lawrence Timmons, Chicago’s Brian Urlacher and San Francisco’s Patrick Willis.

“It’s straight to the Hall of Fame for Lewis, who still plays at a high level and has the most commanding presence on an NFL field,” Kirwan writes. “He was in on 139 total tackles in 2010 and had two sacks, two forced fumbles and two interceptions. His pass-coverage skills are not what they used to be, but still good enough to get the job done.”

Jameel McClain enters his fourth season with the Ravens as an inside mate to Lewis, but he is a free agent and needs to be re-signed. He was not ranked.

The second five from Group B, in order, are Carolina’s Jon Beason, Chicago’s Lance Briggs, Washington’s London Fletcher, Minnesota’s Chad Greenway and Jonathan Vilma from the New Orleans Saints.

Pittsburgh’s James Farrior, David Harris from the New York Jets, Buffalo’s Paul Posluszny, James Laurinitis from the St. Louis Rams, Atlanta’s Curtis Lofton, Kansas City’s Derrick Johnson, Tennessee’s Stephen Tulloch and Green Bay’s A.J. Hawk were on the honorable-mention list.

Click here to order Ray Lewis’ proCane Rookie Card.


(footballnewsnow.com)