Cal Has the Most Players on List of Top 101 NFL Players of Decade

PFF used its metrics to produce the list, and former Golden Bears led the way

Jake Curtis | May 16, 2020

Cal Has the Most Players on List of Top 101 NFL Players of Decade /

Pro Football Focus used its metrics to rank the top 101 NFL players of the decade (2010-2019), and guess which college produced the most players on that list.

Alabama? No.

How about Clemson? Sorry.

Oklahoma maybe? Wrong again.

Could it be LSU? Nope.

The school with the most players on PFF’s list of the top 101 players of the decade is none other than (drum roll) – the Cal Golden Bears.

And it wasn’t even close. Cal has six players on the list. No other school has more than four, with Wisconsin, LSU, Oklahoma and Miami tied for second with four apiece.

The Bears could produce a nice little offense with the five offensive players on the top-101 list, with a quarterback (Aaron Rodgers, No. 6 in the rankings), a running back Marshawn Lynch (No. 29), a wide receiver Keenan Allen (No. 83), a center (Alex Mack, No. 44) and an offensive tackle (Mitchell Schwartz, No. 100).

The only Cal defensive player on the list is defensive end Cameron Jordan at No. 65.

In case you are wondering Tom Brady was ranked No. 1, but we digress.

What do all six of the Cal players have in common? All six were recruited by Jeff Tedford and played their entire Cal careers under Tedford.

Rodgers and Lynch both played on Cal’s 2004 team, which was ranked No. 4 in the final regular-season poll before losing to Texas Tech in the Holiday Bowl. Mack redshirted that season, but played on the same team as Jordan in 2008 when the Bears wound up 9-4. Jordan, Allen and Schwartz were teammates on Cal’s 2010 team, which somehow finished with a losing record of 5-7.

Here is what PFF said about each Cal player on its top-101 list:

NO. 6 AARON RODGERS, QB (Seasons at Cal: 2003, 2004)

Aaron Rodgers may be on something of a hot seat now, but there was a time when he was the Patrick Mahomes of the NFL and spoken of as the greatest talent the game and position has ever seen. From the tail end of the 2010 season through the following year, there may not have been another quarterback who could hit such heights, and the best of Rodgers was a phenomenal peak of quarterback play. What holds him back from the very top of this list is that he just couldn’t sustain that level, and over the past few seasons has sunk deeper and deeper into a rut of some bad habits. Rodgers remains a very good NFL quarterback, but he was peerless at his best, and that’s what his position on this list is drawing from.

NO. 29 MARSHAWN LYNCH, RB (Seasons at Cal: 2004, 2005, 2006)

Photo by Bill Streicher - USA TODAY Sports

No running back was harder to take down over the last decade than Marshawn Lynch was. Lynch didn’t just lead the decade in broken tackles (403 on 1,803 regular-season carries), but he also stepped up his game in the playoffs, breaking 75 tackles on just 211 postseason attempts. Adding in receptions gives him an absurd total of 538 broken tackles over 10 years of play, the last two of which saw him play in relatively limited roles. Lynch’s legacy is tied to that of the great Seattle Seahawks teams early in the decade. He was a vital part of their success and a key reason they won games.

NO. 44 ALEX MACK, C (Seasons at Cal: 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008)

Photo by Charles LeClaire - USA TODAY Sports

Few players have had a career so consistently good as Alex Mack. A first-round draft pick out of Cal back in 2009, Mack then posted 11 straight seasons of good PFF grades. At his peak, however, he was arguably the best center in the NFL. While some players have had better or even longer peaks, Mack’s consistency and reliability earn significant points here. Including postseason play, he has played 10,153 snaps over the decade, been flagged just 44 times and surrendered only 26 sacks while never earning even an “average” grade in any facet of the game PFF measures.

NO. 65 CAMERON JORDAN, DE (Seasons at Cal: 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010)

Photo by Derick Hingle - USA TODAY Sports

One of the most underrated players in the league, Jordan has had an incredible career as an edge defender despite playing in a “tweener” body that many would have liked to see on the interior. Even at 287 pounds, Jordan challenges offensive tackles on the edge as a pass-rusher, grading at 82.0 or better in each of the last four seasons while annually ranking as one of the league’s best run defenders. The other impressive part of Jordan’s game is his durability, as he’s played at least 950 snaps every year since 2011 while playing over 1,000 five times when you include the playoffs.

NO. 83 KEENAN ALLEN, WR (Seasons at Cal: 2010, 2011, 2012)

One of the slickest route-runners in the game, Keenan Allen doesn’t have the mind-blowing athletic profile of some other receivers, but he can match anyone from a production standpoint. Allen has reeled in more than 90% of the catchable passes thrown his way since he entered the league and generated more than two yards for every pass pattern he has run. There is no real weakness to his game, and he has consistently shown that he will get open at will with some of the best releases off the line of any receiver in football.

NO. 100 MITCHELL SCHWARTZ, OT (Seasons at Cal: 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011)

Photo by Mark J. Rebilas - USA TODAY Sports

Mitchell Schwartz has been one of the best offensive linemen of the past decade. His run to the Super Bowl last season was one of the greatest postseason performances in NFL history by any player at any position, but it went largely unnoticed because he’s a tackle. Schwartz was a good player in Cleveland to begin his career, but his final season there hinted at how good he could become. In Kansas City, he has kicked on to another level and is able to shut down some of the game’s best pass-rushers in the AFC West. Schwartz has racked up almost 9,000 total snaps over the decade, and it took until last season for him to miss any.

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Published May 16, 2020

JAKE CURTIS

Jake Curtis worked in the San Francisco Chronicle sports department for 27 years, covering virtually every sport, including numerous Final Fours, several college football national championship games, an NBA Finals, world championship boxing matches and a World Cup. He was a Cal beat writer for many of those years, and won awards for his feature stories.