2023 NFLTR Top 100 Players: 90-81

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: 

90: Patriots G Michael Onwenu

Pro Football Focus is not perfect but one way in which they’ve advanced the NFL conversation is in evaluating offensive line play. There are precious few good OL stats available, which makes PFF’s grades a valuable tool for apples-to-apples comparisons, even if those grades contain a level of inherent subjectivity. When a player like Owenu consistently grades well, however, it’s worth paying attention to. 

Since entering the league as an unheralded sixth-round pick in 2020, Onwenu has been one of the best guards in football. He has PFF grades of 84.3, 86.7 and 79.3 which rank eighth, third and fourth respectively among all guards. PFF also credited him with 14 or fewer total pressures allowed in each season, giving him one of the best pass-blocking efficiency ratings of all guards. If you need more confirmation, ESPN had Onwenu eighth among all guards in 2022 with a pass block win rate of 95 percent. 

PFF wasn’t as high on Onwenu’s performance as a run blocker in 2022 but given how well he graded in those areas the previous two seasons and the general struggles New England had on offense last year, I’m inclined to give him a mulligan. At 6-3 and 340 pounds with the nimble feet of a circus bear, Onwenu has all the tools to continue to be an impact player on the Patriots’ offensive line. 

89: Chiefs G Joe Thuney

Thuney has been a very good guard for a long time now but in the past couple of years especially he’s made a name for himself in pass protection — a vital role given how often Kansas City throws the ball. He’s finished as the top guard in ESPN’s pass block win rate each of the past two seasons. Last year was also the fifth consecutive season Thuney graded inside PFF’s overall top ten at the guard position. 

88: Lions RT Penei Sewell

There’s a saying that it’s hard for offensive linemen to make the highlight reel. It’s a lot easier when an offense decides to throw to them. 

And when it comes to Sewell, there are also plenty of actual offensive line highlights to choose from, as the former first-round pick took a big step forward in his second season and is knocking on the door as one of the better tackles in football. 

https://twitter.com/PFF/status/1463964404576305163?s=20

Sewell has great size and athleticism for the position and it helped him make an impact as a run blocker right away as a Day 1 starter for the Lions at right tackle. In 2022, he better leveraged those gifts as a pass blocker and cut his pressures allowed from 35 to 28, per PFF. Quarterbacks deserve at least equal blame for sacks compared to linemen, but Sewell was credited with just two sacks allowed in 2022 compared to five in 2021. Most impressively, in true pass sets (see PFF link at top of page) which are higher difficulty assignments, Sewell cut his pressures from 28 down to 19.

Penalties keep Sewell from ranking higher, as he has 21 in two seasons and those plays are particularly damaging for an offense. If he cleans up that part of his game, however, he has all the makings of a rising star. 

87: Bills LB Matt Milano

Every time I watched the Bills defense play last season, Milano was jumping off the screen with his playmaking ability. The former fifth-round pick has been a solid starter for years and earned a major second contract with Buffalo in 2021. He seemed to take his game to another level in 2022, however, earning first-team All-Pro recognition and his first-ever Pro Bowl berth after a season where he had 12 tackles for loss, 1.5 sacks, two fumble recoveries, three interceptions, including a pick-six, and 11 pass deflections. 

Milano is particularly good in coverage and his range and instincts have been huge for a Bills defense that has consistently ranked at the top of the league for several seasons. According to PFF, Milano led all linebackers in opponent passer rating at 73.1, surrendering 59 receptions on 81 targets for 500 yards and no touchdowns allowed. 

86: Browns RB Nick Chubb

The longer Chubb plays, it seems like the more fans and analysts are appreciating his game and hopping on the bandwagon. As a pure runner, he continues to make a compelling case as the best back in the league. He has never finished a season with a yards per carry below 5.0, and ranks sixth all-time in that stat tied with the great Jim Brown. 

Chubb consistently ranks near the top of the league for forced missed tackles and explosive runs, whether you set the mark at 10 yards, 20 yards or more. Since he entered the league in 2018, Chubb is second only to Derrick Henry in broken tackles and leads all backs in yards after contact per attempt. Per NextGenStats, Chubb also leads all backs in rushing yards over expected, which uses player tracking data to ascertain how much an average NFL RB would gain based on how the blocks unfold and assigns the difference in actual yards gained to the player. 

The thing to know about most running back stats is that they are incredibly hard to maintain year over year. The position is heavily reliant on outside factors, like blocking quality and how many defenders are in the box. There’s a lot of gravity pulling things like yards per carry and rush yards over expected to the average. So that’s why when there’s a back like Chubb who consistently proves he’s special year in and year out, it should demand attention. 

85: Vikings RT Brian O’Neill

A fixture in the lineup for the Vikings at right tackle for the vast majority of the past five seasons, O’Neill has quietly developed into an outstanding player. He arguably had a career year in 2022 and it was even overshadowed by the leap his teammate over on the left side made, which we’ll get into in just a moment. O’Neill finished with a career-high PFF grade of 82.7 and was the No. 8 overall tackle. He put it all together as both a pass and run blocker, finishing No. 3 overall in ESPN’s pass rush win rate for tackles. 

84: Packers LT David Bakhtiari

Based solely on performance when he was on the field, Bakhtiari was back to his elite self in a lot of ways in 2022 after missing nearly the entire 2021 season due to a complicated knee injury rehab. He was No. 2 among all tackles in ESPN’s pass block win rate and tied for third in pressures allowed, per PFF, with just 10. His true pass set efficiency of 96.9 percent was No. 6 among qualifying tackles. 

The catch is that Bakhtiari still had a hard time staying on the field. He missed three games due to an appendectomy, which is more of a freak thing, but he missed three other games and was limited in a handful of others due to his knee, which required a lot of maintenance throughout the season. There were times, especially when the team was playing or scheduled to play on turf, where Bakhtiari’s knee would flare up and Green Bay had to hold him out entirely. 

Both sides seem optimistic about Bakhtiari’s knee not being as much of an issue in 2023 if he gets a full offseason to rebuild strength instead of worrying about rehab. Green Bay could have moved on from Bakhtiari but instead restructured his deal to pay him $15 million upfront, which is a sizable commitment that speaks volumes. It remains to be seen how many games Bakhtiari can play in 2023 but at least it seems the Packers will be getting a high-level tackle whenever Bakhtiari is on the field. 

83: Panthers OLB Brian Burns

After a few years of knocking on the door, Burns broke through with double-digit sacks in 2022, leading a feisty but largely overmatched Carolina defense with 12.5 sacks. The Panthers had opportunities to trade Burns at the deadline last year with the Rams in particular offering a trove of picks, including two future first-rounders. Instead, Carolina held firm and will pay Burns probably in the range of $25 million a year because they believe the 25-year-old pass rusher’s best football is still in front of him. 

I say this next part even as a Panthers fan: if Burns doesn’t take another step or two forward, not taking that offer could go down as a major missed opportunity. That’s an elite trade package for someone who — right now — is not an elite player.

Right now is the operative phrase there, and Burns is still a very good player if nothing else changes. He had 68 total pressures per PFF which ranked 12th in the NFL last season. His pass rush productivity score of 8.2 ranked 25th, which is good but not great. More concerning was his win rate of just 10.5 percent which was 59th, indicating that Burns could go long stretches without having a major impact on the game (I should point out ESPN doesn’t make their full pass-rush win rate boards available to the public and a recent article mentioned Burns’ win rate of 16.4 percent ranked 25th among edge rushers). NFL analyst Brandon Thorn, who runs a Substack analyzing line play on both sides of the ball, also found that Burns had a lower ratio of high-quality pressures from snap to snap than his peers in 2022. 

Burns just turned 25, so there’s still loads of potential for a player who has managed to improve from season to season. He entered the game as a long, bendy rusher and has done a good job of building strength and mass to provide an effective counter to offensive tackles. He’s been a bit of a one-man show as far as pass-rushing talent, so if the Panthers can get him more help, it could also help unlock another level to Burns’ game. 

82: Vikings LT Christian Darrisaw

After a solid rookie year as a first-round pick, Darrisaw took his game to another level for the Vikings as their blindside tackle in 2022. He finished the season as PFF’s No. 2 overall tackle, buoyed by an excellent 90.6 run-blocking grade. ESPN loved Darrisaw’s work in the ground game as well, tracking him for a run block win rate of 81 percent that placed sixth among all tackles. 

Darrisaw was quite good in the passing game as well, though not as dominant. He gave up 23 total pressures which was around the middle of the pack. He was better in true pass sets with an efficiency rating of 96.5, tied for 14th best in the league and just a tick below O’Neill at 96.6 percent. 

https://twitter.com/PFN365/status/1579909706415341569?s=20

81: Jets QB Aaron Rodgers

Rodgers was one of the toughest players for me to rank this year. Obviously he’s one of the greatest quarterbacks to ever play, and the two years before last he won back-to-back MVPs. In 2022, Rodgers was a big bucket of meh, though. The raw stats were ordinary: 64.6 completion percentage, 3,695 yards passing, 26 touchdowns and 12 interceptions.  Green Bay finished with an 8-9 record, struggling for most of the season before mounting a brief comeback playoff push that ended with a dud in a Week 18 loss to the Lions.

It’s hard to find metrics that don’t paint a similar picture. Rodgers had an ANY/A of 5.95, setting a new career low and ranking 20th among 33 qualifying quarterbacks in 2022. He also blew past his previous career low in ESPN’s QBR, going from 52.5 in 2019 to 39.3 in 2022 which was 27th. He was 20th in the NFL in EPA+CPOE composite after finishing first in each of the two previous years. The metric that was kindest to him was PFF passing grade and he was still only 14th with a 77.5 grade, the second-lowest since he took over as the Packers starter. 

Now he’s changing teams and supposed to be the missing ingredient that helps push the Jets into Super Bowl contention in a stacked AFC? If MVP Rodgers shows up to play, that’s a fair expectation, but the version we saw last season had far more in common with Derek Carr who the Jets passed on as a free agent. There are extenuating factors — the team lost Davante Adams, struggled to integrate young receivers who also battled injuries and Rodgers himself also played through a thumb injury. But Rodgers is also 39 years old and at some point the age cliff hits for every player. Rodgers was never a true dual-threat quarterback but it shouldn’t go unnoticed that he also set career lows in rushing yards, touchdowns and first downs in 2022. 

Rodgers has made a living off being doubted his entire career and if I had this job in 2019, I probably would have been writing something similar and ended up with egg on my face. So we’ll see how things go in 2023. Ultimately I left Rodgers in my top 100 because of the importance of the quarterback position and the fact that even if this is the downswing, Rodgers can still probably be an above-average quarterback. I feel much more strongly about other signal callers, however. 

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