Who’s Elite, Who’s Not in the NFL?

This morning on ESPN's First Take, a heated debate took place between Jeff Saturday, Will Cain and Domonique Foxworth. The topic of discussion was if any of the hosts considered Cam Newton to be "elite".

Here's the segment, but you can keep reading if you've seen it, because the guy's definitely got it wrong.

This has become a problem in the media and with analysts in every single sport. I'm sorry Panther fans, but I agree with Will Cain: Cam Newton is NOT an elite quarterback. Newton is a top ten quarterback, but he's not an "elite" quarterback in the league.

Jeff Saturday is one my favorite people in the media. So it's hard to disagree with him, but the argument that Newton is elite because he has the biggest workload in the NFL and no one else could do it, is a bad one. If that were the case then Russell Wilson, Matt Stafford and Philip Rivers could be considered elite too.

All of the guys mentioned above have huge workloads on their teams and are normally successful considering the limited weapons surrounding them. But they're not elite quarterbacks, they're good or great, but not elite.

Let me be very clear, there are three quarterbacks that should be considered elite in the entire NFL. Tom Brady, Drew Brees and that baaaaaad man Aaron Rodgers. Elite is not just who's good or great, it's the best of the best and these guys make that cut.

Rodgers and Brady are 1 or 2 no matter how you want to rank them. But I disagree with Will Cain, Drew Brees is definitely an elite quarterback. The numbers and amount of success that he is able to have with an absolutely ghost town of a roster is astonishing.

I think someone needs to draw a line in the sand and the media needs to stop calling players "elite" when they're just good players.

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