Patrick Mahomes, Travis Kelce listed as NFL’s most well-liked players

If the National Football League was nothing more than a popularity contest, the Kansas City Chiefs would be winning that one as well.

A recent poll of the most liked skill position players in the entire league (yes, someone is paid to actually poll these things) was released by Morning Consult, who referred to the exercise as a “player favorability poll.” The idea was to figure out just who exactly is the NFL’s most well-liked player. It turns out the Chiefs have two of the top 10, but only quarterback Patrick Mahomes is popular enough to stand alone at No. 1.

Mahomes is no stranger to this list, since he was ranked at No. 2 last year behind former New Orleans Saints quarterback Drew Brees.

The K.C. Chiefs have two of the NFL’s most well-liked players in 2022.

The process of arriving at a “net favorability”, so to speak, is about taking the popularity of a player and then dissecting that down into whether those who are aware of him have a positive or negative feeling about him. The figures are subtracted and each player is left with a net favorability. For Mahomes, that figure was 34.

Mahomes came in 6 points over Russell Wilson of the Seattle Seahawks, who was next on the list. Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce came in No. 8 overall, second among tight ends behind Rob Gronkowski who was third.

Some players like Tom Brady or Aaron Rodgers come in more popular overall than Mahomes but the opinions of those players more popular than Mahomes were also more polarizing, which created a net favorability lower than that of the Chiefs quarterback.