Khalil Mack in PFF's Top 10

Pro Football Focus put Khalil Mack among the top 10 players in the game overall but continued to keep Roquan Smith down while playing up a less productive, older player at his position.

The analytical website Pro Football Focus has awarded a compliment of the highest order to Bears edge rusher Khalil Mack.

Considering Mack had just nine sacks last year, it's probably not entirely expected. Still, ranking the 30-year-old former Raider as the sixth best player in the NFL and the second-best defensive player is nothing to question.

Mack is rated just behind Green Bay Packers wide receiver Davante Adams, whose great success in recent years is largely attributable to the 10th-best player on the list, Aaron Rodgers.

Only Rams defensive tackle Aaron Donald is ranked higher than Mack among defenders and he is the No. 1 player on the list.

Mack didn't get a comic book cover attached to his ranking, like many others did. And the player ranked one spot behind him is rather ridiculous—Tom Brady is the seventh best player in the league at 44 this season? He was good but not better than Rodgers was.

PFF pointed out Mack excelled both at the run and pass and graded out at 92.3 last year to lead all edge rushers.

"Only Mack and T.J. Watt finished the year with PFF grades above 90.0 in run defense and as a pass-rusher," PFF's Sam Monson wrote.

The only problem with all of this is PFF's own player rankings on their website gave him a 92.5 and not a 92.3. The 92.5 would rate even with what he scored in his best year with Oakland.

Other than that, it was the type of compliment the Bears rarely get from PFF. Allen Robinson made it onto the list and this was revealed earlier in the week as they released their top 50 in 10-player increments.

Patrick Mahomes was second, Travis Kelce third and Quenton Nelson fourth.

The website listed Seattle inside linebacker Bobby Wagner No. 8. Bears inside linebacker Roquan Smith didn't make the list but last year Smith had one more tackle (139), 11 more tackles for loss (18) and 17 more solo tackles (98) than Wagner did. Smith also had four sacks and he blitzed 33 times, while Wagner got to blitz 100 times and made just three sacks. Smith had a forced fumble and Wagner didn't.

Wagner did have one more pass defensed (8) than Smith, but Smith had two interceptions and Wagner didn't have one. These are based on official NFL statistics and not PFF's.

Other than that, PFF says Wagner, now in his 10th year and age 31 later this week, was much better than Smith.

Perhaps Wagner has better heat vision or telepathic power than Smith, or maybe some other things no one knows about, because there were no other legitimate statistics where he ranked better to the point he should have been eighth and Smith unranked.

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