Only One Ex-Cal Player on CBS' Ranking of Top 100 NFL Players for 2025

Only Jared Goff made this year's list, and Cal's membership in top-100 rankings has steadily declined in recent years

Detroit Lions quarterback Jared Goff / Junfu Han / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

Cal’s impact in the NFL is dwindling. At least that’s the impression given by rankings of the top players in the NFL in recent years.

CBS Sports recently posted its rankings of the top 100 NFL players for the 2025 season, and only one former Cal player – Lions quarterback Jared Goff – made the list. And Goff was way down the line, coming in at No. 77. Despite placing fifth in the 2024 MVP voting, Goff was only eighth among quarterbacks in CBS Sports rankings, and four quarterbacks were ranked among the top seven.

Not on CBS Sports’ list was former Cal star Aaron Rodgers or defensive end Cameron Jordan or wide receiver Keenan Allen, all of whom were regular members of past top-100 rankings.

CBS Sports and ESPN are two of the several outlets that post top-100 NFL rankings around this time of year, and you can see how the presence of former Cal players in those rankings has progressively declined in recent years. (ESPN has not posted its top-100 list for 2025 yet.)

Heading into the 2019 season, five ex-Cal players made both ESPN and CBS top-100 lists, and only LSU had more former players on that list.  That year ESPN placed four Golden Bears in its top 50, more than any other school in the nation.

Here are the number of former Cal players in the past seven top 100 rankings by CBS Sports and ESPN.

2024

ESPN: TWO (No. 41 Aaron Rodgers, No. 65 Jared Goff).

CBS Sports: TWO (No. 20 Aaron Rodgers, No. 76 Jared Goff)

2023

ESPN: TWO (No. 29 Aaron Rodgers, No. 91 Jared Goff)

CBS Sports: ONE (No. 29 Aaron Rodgers)

2022

ESPN: THREE (No. 3 Aaron Rodgers, No. 45 Keenan Allen, No. 76 Cameron Jordan)

CBS Sports: THREE (No. 2 Aaron Rodgers, No. 39 Cameron Jordan, No. 65 Keenan Allen)

2021

ESPN: THREE (No. 3 Aaron Rodgers, No. 65 Keenan Allen, No. 94 Cameron Jordan)

CBS Sports: THREE (No. 3 Aaron Rodgers, No. 32 Cameron Jordan, No. 76 Keenan Allen)

2020

ESPN: FOUR (No. 23 Aaron Rodgers, No. 30 Cameron Jordan, No. 69 Keenan Allen, No. 72 Mitchell Schwartz)

CBS Sports; FOUR (No. 10 Aaron Rodgers, No. 12 Cameron Jordan, No. 41 Mitchell Schwartz, No. 66 Keenan Allen)

2019

ESPN: FIVE (No. 6 Aaron Rodgers, No. 34 Cameron Jordan, No. 43 Keenan Allen, No. 48 Jared Goff, No. 92 Mitchell Schwartz)

CBS Sports: FIVE (No. 8 Aaron Rodgers, No. 32 Jared Goff, No. 38 Keenan Allen, No. 41 Cameron Jordan, No. 94 Mitchell Schwartz)

2018

ESPN: FOUR (No. 1 Aaron Rodgers, No. 31 Cameron Jordan, No. 53 Keenan Allen, No. 64 Alex Mack)

CBS Sports: FIVE (No. 1 Aaron Rodgers, No. 10 Cameron Jordan, No. 66 Alex Mack, No. 80 Keenan Allen, No. 97 Jared Goff)

PFF ALL-DECADE TOP 101

In 2020, Pro Football Focus ranked the top 101 NFL players of the decade (2010-2019), and six former Cal players were included in that list (No. 6 Aaron Rodgers, No. 29 Marshawn Lynch, No. 44 Alex Mack, No. 85 Cameron Jordan, No. 83 Keenan Allen, No. 100 Mitchell Schwartz).

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