2023 NFLTR Top 100 Players: 10-1

By
Logan Ulrich
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Every summer, the NFL releases a list of the top 100 NFL players as voted on by the players, supposedly. And every summer, the results kick up their fair amount of controversy. 

So we figured we’d chime in with our take again. Last year was the first year of the NFLTR Top 100, using a rigorous process that factored in basic and advanced stats, awards, career trajectory, positional value and of course the highly scientific gut check. This year we’re back with the 2023 NFLTR Top 100 Players.

We’ll be rolling these out over the rest of the summer to pass the time until training camp, so be sure to keep an eye out for the rest of the list!

Also, here are some links to explanations for some of the non-traditional statistics used to assess players: 

10: Steelers OLB T.J. Watt

After leading the NFL in sacks over the past two years and winning the 2021 Defensive Player of the Year award, 2022 was a far rockier season for Watt. Multiple injuries kept him out of seven games and still limited him in the 10 games he did play. he finished with just 5.5 sacks last season. His overall PFF grade of 82.1 was his lowest since his second season in 2018. 

Still, a 65-percent version of Watt remains better than 90 percent of the league, perhaps more. His pass-rush win rate of 22 percent still ranked No. 8 on ESPN’s leaderboard for edge rushers. His pass rush productivity and PFF win rate were both top-51. He had eight tackles for loss and also contributed five pass deflections, a forced fumble and two interceptions.

https://twitter.com/FieldYates/status/1594476542914367488?s=20

Most importantly, none of those injuries should linger into the 2023 season, meaning if Watt can stay healthy he should be back to his dominant ways. 

9: Vikings WR Justin Jefferson

Even with a glut of incredibly talented receivers playing in the NFL right now, Jefferson stands apart. He has the most receiving yards in the NFL over the past three seasons by a decent clip at 4,825. In ESPN’s receiver tracking metrics, he’s finished No. 2, No. 5 and No. 2 in overall score and is tied with Bills WR Stefon Diggs for the best overall score in that three-year frame at 84. He’s topped a 90 overall PFF grade in each of his first three seasons.

Jefferson can do anything you want from the receiver position — shake press and tight man coverage with outstanding routes, deal with physicality at the catch point for contested balls, contort his body to make uncatchable balls catchable, be a friendly target for the quarterback in zone coverage, hold up his end of the bargain in the run game and come up in the biggest moments when everyone knows who the ball is going to. 

We need to zoom out even further beyond just receivers playing right now and put what we’re seeing from Jefferson in historical context. His 4,825 receiving yards aren’t just the most of any active player, they’re the most of any NFL player in the first three years of their career, period. Second place, Randy Moss, is 662 yards away. Longevity matters, and we’ve seen injuries or life derail plenty of promising careers. But if that doesn’t happen, we’re witnessing the start of a legend’s career right now. 

8: Cowboys LB Micah Parsons

In the follow-up to his stellar rookie season in which he finished second in the voting for defensive player of the year while running away with defensive rookie of the year, Parsons saw far more snaps as a true edge rusher. In 2021, 390 of his snaps were at edge with 540 at linebacker. In 2022, that changed to 859 on the edge and 195 at linebacker. 

Considering how dominant Parsons was as a pass rusher and how much value that has for an NFL defense, it’s no surprise the Cowboys made that switch. Parsons’ efficiency dropped a tick, which is no surprise considering how freakishly effective he was on just over 300 pass rushing opportunities. His pass rush productivity fell about four points and his win rate slipped two points per PFF. 

Yet that didn’t matter because Parsons led the NFL with 106 total pressures. His PRP of 10.9 and his win rate of 19.3 percent were each sixth-best among edge rushers in PFF’s charting. ESPN gave him the highest win rate for all edge defenders on a staggering 30 percent of his rushes. His stats in 2022 were virtually identical to his rookie year, with 13.5 sacks, three forced fumbles and three pass deflections. His total tackles and tackles for loss were down, with just 13 TFLs compared to 20 in 2021. But he added three fumble recoveries and a defensive touchdown last year. 

If there’s one small, nagging area of concern that I have, it’s that it seems like being a virtually full-time defensive lineman started to wear Parsons down. He’s listed at about 6-3 and 245 pounds, which is small for an edge player. It hasn’t stopped him from being successful but he was listed on the injury report a few times last season and has acknowledged in some interviews that the grind of being on the line of scrimmage took some adjusting. Parsons is so good at rushing the passer that it’s obviously something the Cowboys want to keep him doing as much as possible, but they might need to find some creative ways to limit the pounding he takes. It’s an enormous shame whenever injuries end up marring a special start to a career. 

7: Browns DE Myles Garrett

Garrett has been no worse than a top-three pass rusher in the league for a couple of seasons now. He had his second-straight season with 16 sacks in 2022 and 35 tackles for loss in the past two seasons and was named to his third-straight All-Pro team, fourth overall (two first-team, two second-team). His 27 percent pass rush win rate ranked third in 2022 and his 28 percent mark in 2021 was first (not counting Parsons). 

Yet the scary thing is it feels like Garrett has only scratched the surface in some ways of his potential. He has alien athleticism at 6-5 and 270 pounds. Half of the active NFL players will tell you they could have gone pro in basketball too, Garrett is one of maybe two or three who could actually back that up. That athleticism shows on the football field in some outstanding seasons but Garrett is capable of some truly transcendent production and just has not broken through yet for whatever reason. 

Garrett has been PFF’s No. 1 edge player both seasons with grades above 92 after three straight years of grades above 86. Last year, he was 10th in total pressures with 73, per PFF, and the year before that he was sixth with 78. Two players have topped 100 total pressures since then and there have been eight additional seasons of 80+ pressures. Garrett’s been double-teamed quite a bit in that timeframe, and a lot of the Browns’ offseason additions were aimed at making it harder for opposing offenses to focus all their attention on stopping Garrett. Perhaps that’s the missing piece for that next leap in 2023. 

6: 49ers DE Nick Bosa

It was tough to split hairs between these three edge rushers in the top 10 but given Bosa led the NFL in sacks and won the 2022 Defensive Player of the Year award, it feels right to give him the slight edge this year. Bosa chased down the quarterback 18.5 times in 2022. Factor in QB hits and you have Bosa getting to the quarterback over 50 times last season even with some variance from the different stat services. He added another 19 tackles for loss (tied for second-most), two forced fumbles and a pass deflection. 

A deeper dive paints Bosa in an even better light, and it also shows he’s far from a one-year wonder. Per PFF, Bosa was second in the NFL with 98 total pressures last year and nearly lapped everyone else with 31 QB hits. He was one of a select few to earn double-digit pass rush productivity numbers, with a 10.4 rating that was seventh. ESPN ranked him ninth among edge rushers with a 22 percent pass rush win rate. 

The wild thing is this is Bosa’s third monster year. He had 102 pressures as a rookie even though he only got official credit for nine sacks. In 2021 when he was coming off a torn ACL, he had 88 pressures and led the NFL with 21 tackles for loss. He has everything you could want from a blue-chip pass rusher — athleticism, effort, technique and a relentless drive to improve. The 49ers are about to make him the NFL’s second $30 million a year-plus defensive player, and he’ll be worth every cent. 

5: 49ers LT Trent Williams

The skill position players and HC Kyle Shanahan get a lot of the love for how dangerous the 49ers have been on offense over the past few seasons. The real secret superstar and a major key to their success, however, is Williams. It all starts with the run game in San Francisco, and Williams is one of the most dominant run-blocking tackles playing right now. PFF has given him grades of 91.8, 97.7 and 91.8 over the past three seasons, and he’s been their No. 1 tackle overall all three years. 

He’s outstanding in pass protection too. Last year, Williams tied his career-high with a 98.1 efficiency rate in pass blocking, per PFF, surrendering 19 total pressures. In true pass sets, Williams had a 96.8 efficiency rating, the seventh-best figure in the NFL. He’s a monster to get around at 6-5 and 320, but he also has quick feet, impeccable technique and heavy hands to punish opposing defenders. 

What makes this level of play even more impressive is that this is arguably the best streak of Williams’ career and it comes at an age where most players are retiring. Williams turned 35 years old this week and remains the best tackle in football. 

4: Rams DT Aaron Donald

Donald wasn’t immune from the bad voodoo that seemed to plague the Rams in 2022, extracting payment from when they traded their soul and a future first for a Super Bowl title. He succumbed to the injury bug after 11 games and a career-low five sacks. Donald’s streak of seven straight first-team All-Pro selections was snapped, and for the first time since his rookie year in 2014 he was not PFF’s top-rated interior defender. His overall grade and his pass-rushing grade were the lowest of his career since 2014 as well. 

Was this a blip in a bad year? Or the beginning of the end for the 32-year-old who in his first eight seasons won three defensive player of the year awards and a Super Bowl, built a compelling case as the best defensive player of all time and mulled retirement with little else to prove? 

For perspective, Donald’s 90.5 grade was still No. 3 at the position, and his pass rush grade of 90.7 was fourth. PFF credited him with 40 total pressures which was still good enough for 19th out of 115 defensive tackles, and charted a win rate of 17.8 percent which was second-best. So I lean toward the blip theory. 

https://twitter.com/PFF/status/1568038449856266243?s=20

3: Bills QB Josh Allen

2: Bengals QB Joe Burrow

I’m going to discuss these two players together because the margin between them for the No. 2 spot on the list was razor tight and one of the toughest decisions I had to make while writing this list. Both are two of the best quarterbacks and football players in the entire league, and more than worthy adversaries for each other and the No. 1 player on the list. If not for the fact that they all have to go through each other each year to get to the Super Bowl, it’d be easy to predict multiple championships for both Allen and Burrow. 

Allen has helped redefine the position in a few ways, changing how the development curve is viewed for quarterbacks in areas like accuracy and decision-making. Over the course of the 2018 through 2020 seasons, he made over a 16-point jump in completion percentage which is practically unheard of in NFL history. He also plays quarterback like an alien sent to Earth from another world. Allen is bigger, stronger and often faster than the defenders trying to tackle him, and his arm is so strong he can pretty much put the ball wherever he wants to on the football field. Over the past three seasons, he has more than 13,000 yards passing and 108 touchdowns through the air while chipping in nearly 2,000 rushing yards and 21 more touchdowns.

Burrow has looked like he belonged from the moment he stepped onto an NFL field, shrugging off a torn ACL during his rookie year that forced him to spend his second offseason rehabbing instead of sharpening his game. He blew past it as if it were just a minor inconvenience, spending a couple of games knocking off the rust in 2021 before leading the Bengals to a Super Bowl. Over the past two seasons, Burrow has over 9,000 passing yards and 69 touchdowns. He’s not as talented a runner as Allen but he’s still chipped in seven more scores on the ground. Burrow also led the Bengals deep in the postseason again, authoring a decisive win over Allen’s Bills in the divisional round and coming up just short against the Chiefs in the AFC championship. 

Trying to create a pecking order between the two is like splitting hairs. Both have plenty of talent on offense to work with, but the Bills put more on Allen’s plate in terms of carrying the whole offense. Burrow also has the benefit of a better starting trio of weapons than Allen. However, Allen tends to be looser with the football and has more turnovers. In 2022 per PFF, Allen led the NFL in big-time throws and was producing them at a 7.6 percent clip. Burrow was seventh in big-time throw percentage at 4.9 percent but his turnover-worthy play percentage was half Allen’s (No. 3 vs No. 33). Burrow has been PFF’s top-rated quarterback the past two years but Allen has been right on his heels. Allen was sixth and Burrow was seventh in ANY/A this past season. Allen was fourth and Burrow was sixth in EPA+CPOE composite, but the difference was less than 0.01. 

Ultimately, what pushed me to give the slightest of edges to Burrow were a couple of factors. He’s capable of making big plays but his more judicious approach leads to fewer turnovers and I think has played a major reason in why Cincinnati has had more postseason success than Buffalo the past two years. Allen has reigned in his worst instincts compared to early on in his career when he tried to hard to make a play. But he still can fall into playing like he has a cinderblock duct-taped to his foot on the gas pedal. Burrow meanwhile has evolved his game, cutting down his sack percentage by 2.6 points in 2022 compared to 2021 when he was the most-sacked quarterback in football. 

1: Chiefs QB Patrick Mahomes

It’s hard to see anyone else but Mahomes holding this spot for the foreseeable future. It goes beyond the Chiefs star winning his second MVP and second Super Bowl while leading the NFL in touchdown passes for the second time in his career, all at the age of 27. It’s how he did it all.

Kansas City was coming off a 2021 season in which opposing defenses had the most success at frustrating Mahomes since he entered the league, deploying deep safeties to take away the explosive plays and forcing the Chiefs and Mahomes to string together a lot of underneath completions to move the football. It tested Mahomes’ patience and knocked the team off-balance for a chunk of the season. Then the Chiefs traded away WR Tyreek Hill in the offseason, who in a lot of ways had been as much of the embodiment of the offense and its aggressive mentality as Mahomes had. They still had TE Travis Kelce, but a lot of people expected the Chiefs to take a slight step back in 2022 with Mahomes throwing to a group of receivers that included JuJu Smith-Schuster, Marquez Valdes-Scantling and Mecole Hardman. 

He did the opposite of course. And in doing so Mahomes took another step in his already brilliant young career, the same one that some of the other greatest players in the history of the sport have done. Players and coaches in the NFL are too good, too relentlessly competitive. They will find and attack any weaknesses and make you win with something other than your best punch. The best players have the craftiness and drive to evolve, to knock you out with their left hand too. 

That’s what makes the 2022 season such a telling one for Mahomes going forward. The NFL threw everything it had at him and only slowed him down for a moment. Mahomes won’t win the Super Bowl every year but he’s entered that rare air, that Tom Brady air where any team he’s on has a great chance to go the distance. 

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