Arizona Cardinals DE Calais Campbell named 71st best player

Arizona Cardinals defensive end Calais Campbell was named the 71st player of the 2016 season.

The first Cardinal has made his appearance on the NFL Top 100 players of the 2016 season list. Calais Campbell, the first Cardinals so far, has now made the top 100 list for the second year in a row, jumping up 28 spots from 99th in 2015 to 71st in 2016.

Campbell had a relatively down year compared to last year but was still able to be a dominant force on the Cardinals defensive line. For the season, Campbell finished with 61 combined tackles, 5 sacks, 1 fumble recovery and 1 pass defended.

Some of the things mentioned about Campbell was his quickness off the snap and ability to stuff running backs in the backfield. Lineman were the ones who spoke about Campbell’s dominance and frequently mentioned his length and his sheer power when it comes to controlling the line of scrimmage.

There were rumors this off season that the Cardinals were looking to move Campbell after his not so productive season, but those rumors ended up being false and was most likely used as a way to light a fire under Campbell to get him to return to his old form.

Personally, I am quite surprised that Campbell made a return to the top 100 list, and especially this high given that he had a much more productive season last year, while only playing 14 games and was ranked 99th.

Los Angeles Rams running back Todd Gurley seems to disagree with my reaction, and feel Campbell should have been rated higher.

However, it is very exciting and long overdue to see Arizona Cardinal players getting recognition for the excellent season that they had. Calais Campbell is expected to be the first of many Cardinals that will appear on the list. We will find out next week as to whether or not there will be more Cardinals in the top 100.