2023 NFLTR Top 100 Players: 50-41

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: 

50: 49ers RB Christian McCaffrey

You can use McCaffrey’s 2022 season on either side of the running back value argument. On the one hand, the Panthers were willing to trade him midseason for a haul of draft picks and didn’t really skip a beat on the ground. The relatively anonymous duo of D’Onta Foreman and Chuba Hubbard were equally productive, if limited to just rushing. On the other hand, McCaffrey’s arrival juiced a 49ers squad that was kind of floundering at 3-3. San Francisco dropped McCaffrey’s first game where he played only a bit role, and the fact he played at all was an accomplishment after being traded midweek and needing a crash course on the playbook. After that, they rattled off 10 straight wins despite fielding two different quarterbacks and ended up making it all the way to the NFC title game. 

Ultimately, your eyes will tell you everything you need to know about how elite of a football player McCaffrey. He finished his 11 games with the 49ers with 1,210 total yards and 10 touchdowns. McCaffrey accumulated 746 of those yards and six touchdowns on the ground while adding 52 receptions for 464 yards and four scores through the air. He even threw for a touchdown for good measure. On the season, McCaffrey finished with 1,880 total yards — the third time in his career he’s finished with more than 1,850 yards from scrimmage. Just six other players have done it more and it’s a heck of a list. 

McCaffrey has always had this gravity as a player where he demands attention from opposing defenses wherever he goes on the field. That opened up the field for his offensive teammates in Carolina, and in the hands of a master play-caller like 49ers HC Kyle Shanahan, it was used to devastating effect. The skill and versatility of a group of weapons that includes McCaffrey, TE George Kittle, WR Brandon Aiyuk and WR Deebo Samuel is virtually impossible to stop. But it was McCaffrey’s abilities as both a runner and receiver helped unlock another level from that group. 

49: Dolphins LT Terron Armstead

The catch with Armstead at this point in his career is you know he’s going to be dinged up and miss a couple of games. The 10-year veteran has yet to play a complete season in his career and missed four games in 2022 for the Dolphins. But Miami and just about any team will happily make that tradeoff because Armstead is such a force when he’s in the lineup. 

At 6-5 and 304 pounds, Armstead is an outstanding athlete for the tackle position. His length and mobility made him a perfect fit for the Dolphins as they were installing HC Mike McDaniel‘s offense which features a heavy reliance on outside zone running plays. It’s also helped him become one of the better pass-protecting tackles in the NFL. Last season, Armstead allowed only 16 pressures in total, per PFF. In true pass sets, he had a 96.8 efficiency rating that was tied for seventh-best in the NFL among tackles. He only let defenders touch his quarterback three total times (one sack and two hits) all season out of 483 pass-blocking snaps. PFF wasn’t as big a fan of his run blocking but he had a healthy 75 grade on zone runs which Miami runs at a 2:1 clip compared to gap schemes anyhow. 

https://twitter.com/BrandonThornNFL/status/1655733301183668226?s=20

48: Commanders DT Jonathan Allen

Allen wasn’t able to keep up the pace he set in 2021 as a pass rusher. But it’s less that he regressed and more that he went from ludicrous production to “only” strong production. The veteran still had 7.5 sacks and 17 QB hits a year after notching nine and 30. His total pressures number went from 67 in 2021 per PFF to 47 in 2022 but he was still near the top of the board in most of their pass-rushing statistical categories. He also set a career-high in stops with 43 and had a hand in forcing three turnovers (two forced fumbles, one interception). 

Even if he wasn’t as productive, there are plenty of signs suggesting Allen was as good or better in 2022 than ever. He was No. 9 in ESPN’s pass rush win rate for defensive tackles at 14 percent, better than last year’s 12 percent mark. His stop percentage on running plays of 10.5 percent was tied for 10th best, and Allen’s 312 run defense snaps were second-highest of anyone else in the top 10. Trench Warfare’s Brandon Thorn charted Allen with the best pressure quality rate of any defensive tackle in 2022 in his True Pressure Rate project, meaning Allen was getting his production the hard way by whipping good players. 

Fellow Commanders DT Daron Payne is the buzzy name right now fresh off a double-digit sack season and a brand-new $22.5 million-a-year deal. In ESPN’s poll of NFL evaluators of the top defensive tackles, Payne actually outpaced Allen slightly. He’s a great player (No. 74 on this list) but if I had to pick just one, give me Allen. 

47: Browns G Joel Bitonio

When soon-to-be-inducted Browns Hall of Fame LT Joe Thomas retired after the 2017 season, the mantle of leadership on the offensive line passed on to Bitonio. Since Thomas’ retirement, Bitonio has started every game for Cleveland for five straight seasons. He’s been named to the AP All-Pro team every single season, including first-team honors the past two seasons. Per PFF, his pass-blocking efficiency has been above 98 percent for all five of those years. If you filter to just true pass sets, he’s been above 97 percent. And in that time he’s helped pave the way for one of the league’s most effective rushing attacks. 

His background as a former tackle stands out in pass blocking in particular. ESPN ranked Bitonio No. 6 among all guards in pass block win rate in 2022 at 95 percent. His true pass set success rate of 97.8 percent was sixth among all guards and he allowed only one sack all season. 

Bitonio will turn 32 later this year and is under contract through the 2025 season. If he keeps up his current pace — and the Browns manage to find some postseason success — there’s a chance he’ll be joining Thomas in the Hall of Fame someday. 

46: Chargers OLB Joey Bosa

A major groin injury limited Bosa to just five games in 2022, shattering the Chargers’ dreams of a Bosa/Khalil Mack bookend duo. But if Bosa’s back and fully healthy, this ranking is going to look way too low. Bosa didn’t play enough snaps to qualify for PFF’s cutoff but his 84.2 pass-rushing grade would have ranked 12th among edge rushers. He notched 18 total pressures on 135 pass-rushing snaps for a pass rush productivity rating of 8.5, tied for 20th best among edge rushers. PFF charted him with a 20.2 percent win rate that was the third-best mark for edge rushers. 

Bosa has had some issues staying healthy with just three full seasons out of seven so far in the NFL. He’s gone over double-digit sacks in four of the five seasons he’s played at least 10 games, though, and is still only 28 years old. 

45: Giants DT Dexter Lawrence

The first thing you need to know about Lawrence is that he’s a nose tackle, and that the job description for nose tackles is usually to be big, wide and eat up as many blockers as possible to free up your teammates to go make the play. Lawrence certainly does that as a mountainous 6-4, 340-pound-plus force. But last season, Lawrence was the one going out and making all the plays as one of the most imposing pass-rushing defensive tackles in football, despite lining up primarily as a nose tackle. 

According to PFF, Lawrence was second in the NFL among all defensive tackles with 70 total pressures. Of that sum, a jaw-dropping 26 were QB hits, way ahead of Chiefs DT Chris Jones in second place with 17. In true passing sets, Lawrence had a win percentage of 25.9 percent that led all defensive tackles. ESPN charted him with a 17 percent pass rush win rate on all plays that was fourth in the league at the position. Lawrence did incredibly well in Thorn’s True Pressure Rate, coming in with the seventh-best pressure score of any player and the fourth-best pressure quality ratio. 

A lot of nose tackles are rotational players, and the league in general has trended toward employing more of a rotation on the defensive line as a way to keep players fresh against offensive linemen, who usually are playing the entire game. But Lawrence was too good to take off the field, tying for third in the NFL in snaps for defensive tackles with 977. He didn’t miss a beat against the run either. Lawrence was PFF’s highest-graded interior defender in run defense in 2022 and tied for fourth with 32 stops on running plays. 

If Lawrence can come anywhere near repeating this kind of season, he will quickly become one of the most unique and dominant players in the sport, not just at defensive tackle. 

44: Bills OLB Von Miller

Buffalo signed Miller to be the missing piece for their defense and help push them over the top in crunch time against the murderer’s row of quarterbacks in the AFC. For a little over half the season, it looked like a brilliant move. Miller had eight sacks in 11 games before tearing his ACL, and the Bills went from looking dominant to mortal, running out of steam at the end of the year. 

Miller’s been optimistic about his prognosis but the reality is the Bills will likely be cautious and save him for the second half of the season when they really need him. The injury injects some uncertainty into Miller’s outlook going into his age 34 season, as even with all the improvements in medical technology and rehab outlooks, particularly for ACLs, it’s still a major injury and every person responds differently. 

It didn’t look like Miller had dropped off hardly at all before his injury, though, which is impressive for a 33-year-old 12-year NFL veteran. PFF recorded Miller with 45 total pressures in those 11 games and he finished the season with a pass rush productivity rating of 9.3 that tied for 13th best among all edge rushers at the end of the season. He also already had 10 tackles for loss by the time his season ended, so he was making an impact in more ways than just as a pass rusher. While Miller is probably not a serious defensive player of the year candidate anymore, he could still be a highly effective pass rusher for a few more years if he returns to full health. 

43: Steelers DL Cameron Heyward

Heyward has been a mainstay on the Steelers’ defensive line for well over a decade now and unfortunately for opponents he’s showing no signs of slowing down going into his age-34 season. Last year he stuffed the stat sheet with 74 total tackles, 14 tackles for loss, 10.5 sacks, one forced fumble and four pass deflections. PFF credited him with 58 total pressures and 43 stops. 

Zoom out and look over the past six years, and that’s the type of season Heyward regularly has. He’s been named first-team All-Pro three times since 2017, second-team once and made the Pro Bowl every year. Heyward has racked up 53.5 sacks, 73 tackles for loss, six forced fumbles and 28 pass deflections in that span. He’s played between 800-1,000 snaps in every one of those seasons, a significant load for a defensive lineman, and racked up in the range of 60 pressures and 40 stops a season, per PFF. In 2022, Heyward had the fourth-most pressures, fifth-best pass rush productivity, fifth-best win rate, sixth-most run stops and 14th-best stop percentage among all interior defensive linemen. 

Six years of that consistency in and of itself is a remarkable feat, and a reason why Heyward deserves to rank so highly on a list like this. 

42: Colts DT DeForest Buckner

It’s now been three years since the 49ers traded Buckner to the Colts because they decided they couldn’t pay both him and DL Arik Armstead. Things have worked out decent for San Francisco since then and Armstead is a solid player, but I can’t help but think they might handle that differently if they had a mulligan. I certainly would. 

Buckner continues to be one of the most consistent pass-rushing forces from the interior in the entire NFL. A “good” season for a defensive tackle is four sacks or more. Buckner hit eight in 2022 and it was his fifth-straight season of having at least seven quarterback takedowns. His 56 total pressures as charted by PFF tied for fifth-most in the NFL among interior defenders, and he had a 13.1 percent win rate that was ninth. 

Though it turned into a disaster by the end last season in Indianapolis, Buckner played hard all year and was a bright spot. He set a new career-high with 47 total stops and was third in the league in run defense stops for defensive tackles with 33. He also forced two fumbles, knocked down three passes and notched 22 quarterback hits, per Pro Football Reference, doing everything he could to stem the bleeding for the Colts, even if it wasn’t enough. 

41: Cowboys WR CeeDee Lamb

Though it’s fair to question the Cowboys’ decision to dump WR Amari Cooper for just a fifth-round pick last year, Dallas was correct in believing they still had a star No. 1 receiver on the roster in Lamb. He stepped up to the challenge in 2022 with 156 targets, 107 receptions, 1,359 yards and nine touchdowns. All-Pro honors are particularly notable for receivers because of how much competition there is for only two spots on both the first and second teams, despite the majority of the NFL playing in three-receiver sets now. So Lamb’s second-team All-Pro honors are especially notable too. 

Lamb put up a career year despite largely being the focus of opposing defenses with few other receivers to draw attention away from him. A major factor in that was Dallas moving him primarily to the slot, where he saw around two-thirds of his snaps, but Lamb’s route-running was a big part of his success. His open score of 85 in ESPN’s receiver tracking metrics was tied for the fifth-best in the NFL last year. He also tied for fifth in forced missed tackles, per PFF, with 16. When facing man coverage, Lamb had the ninth-best reception percentage, catching 32 of 45 targets for 458 yards and three touchdowns. 

There are a few places Lamb could clean up, minor details to his game that if addressed could propel him firmly into the discussion for top players at the receiver position. He and the quarterback weren’t on the same page at times with adjustments to defensive coverage, which led to some turnovers. With the move back into the slot, Lamb also saw an increase to 30 contested catches, pulling in 14 for a win rate of 46.7 percent. That’s around the average leaguewide, so not bad, but if he’s going to stay in the slot as often that would be a point of improvement to focus on. 

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