2023 NFLTR Top 100 Players: 30-21

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: 

30: Cowboys QB Dak Prescott

It’s impossible to talk about Prescott without talking about the interceptions. In just 12 starts, Prescott tossed 15 interceptions, setting an ignominious new career high. His interception percentage of 3.8 was more than twice what it had been in the previous three seasons. A number of those plays weren’t Prescott’s fault, comically so at times. He had multiple interceptions that were all but caught by receivers before caroming into a defender’s hands. 

But in addition to those throws, there were others that just should not have been thrown. You’d see the dichotomy in the same game at times. 

https://twitter.com/ESPNNFL/status/1608654701376978944?s=20

Per PFF, Prescott had 20 total turnover-worthy plays in 2022 for a career-high 3.8 TWP percentage, far higher than his career 3.0 TWP percent. That was tied for the 13th-highest among qualifying quarterbacks last year. So it’s not just that Prescott was getting unlucky, he was putting the ball in danger a fair amount. But that’s also uncharacteristic for Prescott based on how he’s played in the other years of his career. 

Because Prescott plays quarterback for the Dallas Cowboys, that kind of nuance can often get lost. The discussion around him tends to be all or nothing. In reality, Prescott was still a high-level quarterback in a lot of areas despite the turnovers. The bar at quarterback has just been raised ludicrously high. Prescott was No. 8 overall in EPA+CPOE composite, although his ANY/A of 6.08 was 16th and the second-lowest of his career. He was 24th in PFF’s big-time throw percentage, but seventh in avoiding sacks while pressured. Bottom line, he’s good enough for the Cowboys to win the Super Bowl if all the other pieces can align, like supporting cast, coaching and just plain luck honestly. 

29: Cowboys G Zack Martin

A lot of players can put together an elite season, and a few others can even string a couple together. The truly special players, the first-ballot Hall of Famers, are the ones who put in the same elite production year in and year out. Martin fits the bill there as a brick wall since Day 1 for the Cowboys at guard. He’s been so outstanding that he has more All-Pro selections (eight) than holding calls (seven). 

The superlatives go on. Martin didn’t allow any sacks last season and has surrendered only 11 in nine years. His pass blocking efficiency of 98.7 was tied for PFF’s fourth-best mark at guard, and ESPN charted him with a pass block win rate of 96 percent for the third-best figure in the NFL. He started all 17 games and has been remarkably durable, missing only nine starts in nine years. Hands down, he’s the best interior offensive lineman playing right now. 

28: Buccaneers LT Tristan Wirfs

Elite gets thrown around a lot for NFL players, but that’s the only way to describe Wirfs as a pass protector. Elite. The former first-round tackle has been a brick wall on the right side for the Buccaneers since being drafted. In 2022, he let up only six pressures all year. 

Let me say that again just to emphasize how absurd that is. Six. Six. In nearly 700 pass-blocking snaps.

That figure led the league and only a couple of other full-time starters even flirted with single digits. Wirfs’ efficiency rating of 99.3 percent was also top among qualifying tackles, and held up even if filtered to true pass sets which are more difficult assignments. Wirfs didn’t have the same workload with 280 TPS reps which was 25th-most, but his efficiency rating stayed above 99 percent and was still the best in the league. ESPN’s pass block win rate was lower on Wirfs comparatively and still had him with the fifth-best win rate at 93 percent. 

https://twitter.com/BrandonThornNFL/status/1574952740777734144?s=20

Wirfs will transition to the left side starting in 2023 as Tampa Bay looks for a long-term blindside protector. It’ll be a challenge, which is important to remember because the odds are good that Wirfs is so talented he’s going to make it look easy. 

27: Titans DT Jeffery Simmons

Over the past couple of seasons, Simmons has developed into a game-wrecking force on the interior defensive line. When the Titans were bad on defense last year, he was a bright spot, and when they’ve been good in 2021 and 2020 he was a major engine behind their success. Simmons has 16 sacks over the past two seasons, including 7.5 in 2022. He just finds a way to impact the game, as evidenced by the rest of his stat line that includes nine tackles for loss, a forced fumble and seven pass deflections. 

Simmon’s production as a pass rusher is a major reason he was just paid on a four-year, $94 million contract, but he’s a force against the run too. ESPN ranked him as the No. 8 overall defensive tackle in run stop win rate at 41 percent. Per PFF, Simmons had just 17 run defense stops after being far more productive in 2021, but his average depth of tackle of 1.3 yards was tied for 11th best out of 153 qualifying interior defenders. 

And of course, the pass-rushing stats are strong as well. Simmons racked up 53 total pressures to rank seventh among defensive tackles in PFF’s charting. He was less efficient than some of the other top defensive tackles in terms of PFF’s pass rush productivity metric and his win rate, but NFL analyst Brandon Thorn, who analyzes offensive and defensive line play for the Trench Warfare substack, graded Simmons highly in his True Pressure Rate project. Simmons had Thorn’s fourth-best pressure score for defensive tackles and was seventh with a pressure quality ratio of 0.99, which is a terrific number. It means half the time Simmons was causing disruption, he was doing it by winning a tougher-than-average assignment.

https://twitter.com/TitansStats/status/1587492947557236737?s=20

26: Texans LT Laremy Tunsil

Tunsil bounced back in a big way in 2022 after an injury curtailed a successful start to the 2021 season. He asserted himself as one of the top left tackles in the league and perhaps the frontrunner to be the heir to 49ers LT Trent Williams‘ throne as the consensus top left tackle once he eventually decides to hand it up. Per PFF, Tunsil gave up just one sack all year on 638 opportunities with 17 total pressures. The 98.6 efficiency rating was the best of his career and the third-highest among all tackles this season. Tunsil was also the NFL’s No. 3 tackle in true pass set efficiency at 98 percent and PFF’s highest-graded tackle in pass protection. 

Tunsil needs to improve his run blocking to be on Williams’ level as a player but pass protection is the most important skill for tackles these days and Tunsil’s legitimately one of the best in the league at it. It’s no wonder the Texans decided to extend him despite some likely lucrative trade offers from other teams, and reset the tackle market yet again to keep him around for when Houston hopes to be relevant again. 

https://twitter.com/PFN365/status/1590373767192416256?s=20

25: Jaguars QB Trevor Lawrence

There are a million anecdotes to illustrate how much of a disaster the Urban Meyer era was for the Jaguars. But one that’s only going to get better with time is how Meyer created an environment that made Lawrence look like a bad quarterback. In a lot of ways, the 2022 season under HC Doug Pederson was like Lawrence’s rookie season. There were growing pains, particularly during a midseason turnover spree where Lawrence repeatedly found out what he could and could not do against NFL defenses in the red zone. In the first eight games, Lawrence threw 10 touchdowns to six interceptions while losing four fumbles and rushing for three scores. The Jaguars were 2-6 at that point. 

From there, Lawrence hit his stride. He threw 15 touchdowns to just two interceptions as the Jaguars went 7-2 down the stretch to run the table and win the AFC South. Playoff football was another adjustment as Lawrence had five touchdowns to five interceptions in games against the Chargers and Chiefs. The talent for the former generational No. 1 prospect is evident at this point, however. Lawrence has the arm strength and accuracy to put the ball just about wherever he wants to on the football field, and he’s hard to bring down both in the pocket and as a runner. If he takes another stride forward in his game under Pederson, the Jaguars are going to have a force to be reckoned with even in a stacked AFC. 

24: Eagles QB Jalen Hurts

The biggest breakout star of 2022, Hurts added another chapter to what’s becoming a heck of a storybook career by turning into a legitimate superstar quarterback. Hurts improved dramatically from the bit role he had as a rookie to his first season as a starter in 2021, boosting his completion percentage from 52 percent to 61.3 percent and throwing 16 touchdowns to nine interceptions with 3,144 passing yards. He was a much bigger threat as a rusher, tallying 784 yards and 10 touchdowns. 

Entering 2022, Hurts was seen as a currently average quarterback with some growth potential. But instead he took another huge leap in his development. He raised his completion percentage another five points and became a much more accurate and efficient deep ball thrower, hitting 8.0 yards per attempt. Hurts was firmly in the mix for MVP until a late-season injury, and he finished the year with a 14-1 record, 22 passing touchdowns, six interceptions and another 760 yards rushing and 13 touchdowns. He led the Eagles all the way to the Super Bowl and stayed play-for-play with Chiefs QB Patrick Mahomes right up until the end in a game for the ages. 

Now the Eagles have no doubts about Hurts, going all in with him as their franchise quarterback on a deal worth $51 million a year. He’s always been a terrific rushing threat, and with his development as a passer Hurts is now in rare company among NFL quarterbacks. His best trait, however, is his leadership and work ethic. He’s got that relentlessly competitive wiring that all the truly great athletes have, which is why as much as he’s improved and as good as he’s gotten, it still feels quite possible for Hurts to be nowhere near his ceiling. And that’s a scary thought for the rest of the NFL. 

23: Jets CB Sauce Gardner

Cornerback is one of the hardest positions to play in the NFL and often has one of the hardest transitions from college to the pro game. So take the fact that Gardner arrived in New York and started locking down NFL wideouts like he did the AAC in college at Cincinnati and it’s easy to see why the Jets think they landed a special player. 

https://twitter.com/NFL/status/1581730690910941185?s=20

On 74 targets, Gardner allowed a measly 34 receptions for a completion percentage of 45.9 that was the fourth-best among all corners. He only picked off two passes but he led the NFL with 20 pass deflections and had a sterling 27 percent forced incompletion rate per PFF — No. 1 in the league. He allowed a passer rating of just 53.9, the third-best mark out of 136 qualifying players. 

Gardner was the 2022 defensive rookie of the year and it’s tough to really make much of a case for anyone else, as promising as some started their careers. Gardner was probably the best cornerback, period, in the NFL in 2022, and the only reason I don’t have him No. 1 is track record.

22: Broncos CB Patrick Surtain II

Surtain was right behind Gardner in PFF grades last year, finishing No. 2 in overall defensive grade and just behind him in coverage grade. The second-year player wasn’t as dominant as a rookie as Gardner was in his rookie year, but his combined first two seasons are just enough for me to give him the edge over the newcomer. 

Surtain has the size, speed and instincts to be a legitimate lockdown man corner, but the Broncos primarily played a lot of zone defense in 2022. His overall coverage stats, per PFF, were good but not necessarily what you’d expect from someone who graded as well as he did. On 69 targets, Surtain gave up 41 catches for 417 yards. He had two interceptions and 10 pass deflections while PFF dinged him for four receiving touchdowns allowed. 

But when you look at the man coverage splits, a telling number emerges. In 136 snaps of man coverage, Surtain was targeted a only 16 times, which speaks to the respect he already has as a player offenses want to avoid if possible. 

21: Bengals WR Ja’Marr Chase

A hip injury that cost Chase five games limited his total production at the end of the season, but the star Bengals wideout still topped 1,000 yards and scored nine touchdowns in 2022. Otherwise he might have jumped higher up this list instead of ranking 21st for the second consecutive season.

There are a lot of things Chase does at a high level but the two biggest strengths of his game right now are his ability as a deep threat and his effectiveness after the catch. Per PFF, Chase ranked fourth in the NFL among receivers with 18 forced missed tackles and averaged 4.8 YAC/reception to rank 25th out of 102 qualifying players. He had 69 first downs which was fifth for all receivers. Per Reception Perception, his most frequently run route is the go ball which can be a naturally inefficient route but he was still getting open three-quarters of the time. 

https://twitter.com/bleacherreport/status/1619882058808950785?s=46&t=Hgbjpp0DJnAs_6Cev3Z_xw

ESPN’s receiver tracking metrics graded Chase as the No. 15 overall receiver in 2022. He improved his open score seven points to 68 while his catch score and YAC score both fell, though his YAC score was still good enough for second-best in the NFL. PFF highlighted catching as an area of improvement for Chase as well. In contested catch opportunities, the service has charted Chase below 40 percent in each of his first two season, including a 37.5 percent mark in 2022 that was 74th out of 102 qualifiers. 

Chase is the type of all-around talent that should eventually assert himself as a top-three, top-two receiver. For now, he’s just a hair below the platinum standard. 

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