Sports Illustrated ranks the 10 most important Cleveland Browns for 2017

When you think of the most important player of an NFL franchise, you normally immediately envision the starting quarterback. That’s probably true for about 20 teams around the league.

But a quarterback you will not find on a majority of lists ranking the most important Cleveland Browns players.

The writers at Sports Illustrated’s NFL cohort voted on a ranking of the 10 most important players for each team in the league, and a quarterback was unsurprisingly absent from their Browns list’s highest 10 vote getters. Here’s what their aggregate voting scores and final ranks look like for Cleveland:

1. LB Jamie Collins (41 points)

2. LT Joe Thomas (36)

3. DE Myles Garrett (32)

4. WR Corey Coleman (28)

5. CB Joe Haden (23)

6. DE Emmanuel Ogbah (20)

T-7. WR Kenny Britt (15)

T-7. DT Danny Shelton (15)

9. OL Cam Erving (14)

10. RB Isaiah Crowell (10)

Eight other players, including rookies Jabrill Peppers and David Njoku, also received votes, but none of the quarterbacks received a single point. Not one vote for any of the team’s three competing signal-callers.

Now, it’s hard to rank any of those quarterbacks as being an integral part of a team when no one truly knows who will be the team’s Week 1 starter. Maybe this list changes if Brock Osweiler, Cody Kessler or rookie DeShone Kizer emerge in July and seize the top job before training camp kicks off.

We’re not going to get too much more into the weeds right now, because there’s plenty of time to wage that battle. For now, embrace this discussion and live to fight another day.

Before we go, I’ll leave you with my list. Feel free to share yours with us below.

Hoag’s Top 10 most important Browns:

1. LT Joe Thomas
2. DE Myles Garrett
3. LB Jamie Collins
4. DE Emmanuel Ogbah
5. RB Isaiah Crowell
6. WR Corey Coleman
7. DT Danny Shelton
8. LB Chris Kirksey
9. CB Joe Haden
10. OL Kevin Zeitler