Whenever you ask an NFL player to rank the top five players in their position group, things always seem to get somewhat interesting. We saw it last week when Pittsburgh's Darnell Washington left Travis Kelce off his ranking of the five best tight ends, and this week, we have another interesting ranking.
This newest ranking comes from Davante Adams, who was asked to rank the NFL's top-five receivers during an interview with Brandon Marshall on the "I Am Athlete" podcast this week. The ranking started off normally with Adams putting himself at No. 1 and Justin Jefferson at No. 2, but once we got down to the fourth-ranked receiver, things went a little sideways and that's because Adams decided to rank a receiver who didn't EVEN PLAY in the NFL last season.
Here's a look at his list of the NFL's five best receivers, which actually includes seven receivers because of how he decided to do his ranking:
1. Davante Adams
2. Justin Jefferson
2B. Tyreek Hill
3. Stefon Diggs
4. Calvin Ridley
5A. Mike Evans
5B. CeeDee Lamb (Adams had a lot to say about Lamb, which you can read here)
The fact that Adams has himself in the top spot isn't a surprise. It's also not a surprise to see Justin Jefferson at No. 2. The biggest suprise in the ranking comes at No. 4 with Calvin Ridley. Not only did Ridley miss the 2022 season due to a gambling suspension, but in the four seasons where he has been on the field, he's only topped 870 receiving yards once.
Adams clearly knew that putting Ridley in his ranking would be controversial, but he stood by his pick when he was asked about it.
"I'm going make people mad with this one," Adams said of including Ridley. "You can say whatever you want about [the suspension] last year, that ain't got nothing to do with football and it was silly. He's going to be back this year and he's going to have a really, really good year. At receiver, we don't control everything, we control our tape. Watch the boy's tape, he's out there doing stuff to people consistently with his routes."
Now that he's in Jacksonville, it's possible that Ridley could become a top-five receiver, but right now, it seems like it would make more sense to take him off the list and put A.J. Brown or Ja'Marr Chase there. Adams actually spent a brief period of time talking about Chase while crediting LSU for producing some of the NFL's best receivers over the past few years like Jefferson, Chase and Odell Beckham.
"You got these young dudes coming in from LSU and they're ready coming out of the gate," Adams said.
As for Ridley, he's already turning heads in Jacksonville. Jaguars offensive coordinator Press Taylor has been watching Ridely closely this offseason.
"I've been really impressed with Calvin. I've watched every snap Calvin's played in the NFL, just like a lot of our guys have. So we're very confident in the player we're getting," Taylor said Monday. "You can tell he's peeked ahead of the install or just looking a couple of days ahead as we go on. So he's done a great job, just intermixing with the group and making his own role."
The Jaguars had a top-10 passing attack last season and if Ridley becomes their No. 1 receiver, he could put up some huge numbers in 2023 and if that happens, then Adams might be able to let out a big "I told you so" when all is said and done.
