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Grantland's top 100 includes four Lions players so far

Only the first 40 spots have been revealed so far, but four Detroit Lions players have already been included in Grantland's top 100 rankings.

Tim Fuller-USA TODAY Sports

NFL Network's annual countdown of the league's top 100 players came to a close earlier this month, and the Detroit Lions ended up having five total players in this year's rankings. Calvin Johnson was unsurprisingly their highest rated player at sixth overall in the countdown.

As a follow-up to this list, Grantland's Bill Barnwell has started counting down his own ranking of the top 100 players in the NFL for 2015. He's only 40 spots into his countdown so far, but there are already four Lions players on the list:

82. S Glover Quin
75. DT Haloti Ngata
68. QB Matthew Stafford
64. LB DeAndre Levy

The main difference between Barnwell's list and the rankings voted on by the players is Stafford's inclusion. Stafford didn't make NFL Network's top 100 at all, but Barnwell put him 68th.

Another difference so far is that Johnson and fellow wide receiver Golden Tate have not been included in Barnwell's rankings to this point. Tate surprisingly didn't make the list at all, but it'll be interesting to see where Johnson ends up when the final 60 spots are revealed.