AC

Luke Kuechly, the Carolina Panthers' dynamic, sometimes telepathic linebacker, laughed into the phone after a recent weight-lifting session. Still, you could almost hear the gears working in his mind. He had just been congratulated on his significant spot in #NFLRank, ESPN.com's second annual top-100 player rankings. At 23, Kuechly is the youngest among our top 50 defenders (in 2013, only his second season, he was the youngest-ever Associated Press NFL Defensive Player of the Year), but he was just itching to know who the top three were. Turned out, he already knew. In about a minute, Kuechly named the best of the best (along with a brief, complimentary scouting report) and got them in precisely the right order. "There we go," Kuechly said, with impressive gusto, when told he had scored the hat trick. "Those are guys, great athletes, who have put in the hard work. "Hey, now let me try and get the offense." Next year, we might have to add him to our roster of 90...