July is top 100 season in the NFL as everyone tries to kill the days until training camp and the start of the new season. Unfortunately, the official top 100 list from the league is not good. We’re not trying to hate; it’s just a well-accepted fact at this point in time. 

For five years, we’ve been trying to do better. The time has come for the 2026 version of our NFL Trade Rumors Top 100 Players. Instead of using player polls, we aim to better reflect reality with traditional and advanced statistical analysis, evaluations from league personnel, positional value, awards, career trajectory and, of course, the good old-fashioned gut check. Our hope is to give more credit to players who are overlooked, either because they don’t play a glamorous position or because they’re not household names (yet). 

We’ll have updates daily over the next couple of weeks, so keep checking back! 

Previous Entries:

• NFLTR Top 100: 100-91
• NFLTR Top 100: 90-81
• NFLTR Top 100: 80-71
• NFLTR Top 100: 70-61
• NFLTR Top 100: 60-51
• NFLTR Top 100: 50-41
• NFLTR Top 100: 40-31
• NFLTR Top 100: 30-21

Resources: 

• Pro Football Reference
• QB advanced stats
• Win rates from ESPN for OL and DL
• PFF advanced stats (grades, pass rush productivity, blocking efficiency, coverage stats)
• ESPN WR tracking metrics
• Past NFLTR Top 100s

20 – 49ers LT Trent Williams

The gap between Williams and the field narrowed in 2025, but for my money he’s still the top tackle in football even at 38 years old. Wear and tear seemed to catch up with him in 2025, as he surrendered 40 total pressures per PFF’s charting. You have to go all the way back to Williams’ rookie year in 2010 to find a season in which he got beaten more. Still, PFF graded him as just as imposing a run blocker as ever, and he was one of the few tackles to place on both ESPN’s pass block and run block win rate boards. I think a rebound is in store as long as his body cooperates. 

19 – Cowboys WR CeeDee Lamb

Thanks to an injury and the stellar performance of his teammate, fellow WR George Pickens, Lamb has been overshadowed a little bit in Dallas. Scoring just three touchdowns didn’t help, as fantasy football has become an inescapable part of the discourse around skill players. But Lamb still topped 1,000 yards in 14 games on 75 catches. His open score of 80 (via ESPN’s receiver tracking analytics) ranked seventh among all receivers and was the third-best mark of his career. That metric tends to be more stable year over year, too. Lamb also absolutely shredded man coverage, piling up 3.66 yards per route run to rank No. 2 in the league (Pickens was No. 3). 

Drops were an issue again, and there’s still some attention to detail lacking in Lamb’s game that keeps him from being top dog in the receiver pecking order. But Lamb’s still a premier talent, probably still the premier talent in Dallas’ receiver room, as good as Pickens is. Fortunately for the Cowboys, they have both of them, making them a potentially dangerous team in 2026. 

18 – Seahawks WR Jaxon Smith-Njigba

The third-year breakout used to be a huge thing for receivers. These days it feels like there’s drastically less patience top down, from teams to fans and media. Still, we see a classic Year 3 explosion from time to time and Smith-Njigba fits in this category. He was underwhelming as a rookie, took a big step in his second season, then took off as top dog in Seattle’s passing game this past year. Smith-Njigba had a dominant 119 catches for a league-leading 1,793 yards and scored 10 touchdowns. It earned him Offensive Player of the Year honors, beating out intense competition from a pair of other players on this list. 

Every opponent last year knew the Seahawks were going to be feeding Smith-Njigba the ball, but they still couldn’t stop him. In ESPN’s receiver analytics built off player tracking data, Smith-Njigba had a league-leading open score of 86. He also led all receivers with a scintillating 3.84 yards per route run against man coverage. Pegged as a slot receiver, Smith-Njigba actually ran 73.6 percent of his routes from out wide. Not that being primarily a slot receiver is a bad thing — plenty of teams still run their offenses through the slot receiver — but there’s a higher degree of difficulty in beating man coverage as a perimeter receiver, and it’s a bar Smith-Njigba has demonstrated he can clear with ease. 

17 – Texans CB Derek Stingley Jr.

Stingley has put together two straight healthy seasons with a full 17 games, and it’s not a coincidence he’s been a first-team All-Pro both seasons. A top-two corner, Stingley has some of the best ball production of any defensive back over the last three seasons, with 14 interceptions and 46 pass breakups. If you factor in the playoffs, which the NFL doesn’t, it adds another two picks and six pass breakups. 

Often teams have to trade off playmaking for sticky coverage when it comes to cornerbacks, as guys who take more risks to try and get the ball end up allowing more catches and yards. The Texans don’t really have to make that trade-off with Stingley, though. Last season, he was 17th in the NFL in completion percentage allowed, conceding just 52.9 percent of his 68 targets. He also was 14th in snaps per target, so he was maximizing the chances he had when opponents did choose to test him. 

16 – Broncos CB Patrick Surtain II

Surtain versus Stingley is set up to be a phenomenal duel for the title of best cornerback in football. After winning Defensive Player of the Year last season, Surtain was even better in some categories in 2025. He cut his completion percentage allowed from over 70 percent all the way down to 55.2 percent. Surtain conceded just 355 yards on 37 catches, a 9.6 yards per catch that ranked 12th out of 120 qualifying cornerbacks per PFF. His interceptions fell, partially because teams just didn’t want to test him as much, but he had double-digit pass breakups for the fifth year in a row. 

To sum it up, Surtain is the prototype that NFL teams prize at cornerback right now. He’s got size and athleticism, but also exquisite technique, instincts and consistency, especially at a position that can be the most volatile in the game. 

15 – Vikings WR Justin Jefferson

Bad quarterback play, worse than at any point in his time with the Vikings, held down Jefferson’s stats last year. But some perspective is needed. A “down” year for Jefferson still included 84 catches and over 1,000 yards. Jefferson also remains on a record pace, with his 8,480 career receiving yards the most of any NFL player ever in their first six seasons. 

Quarterback quality, or lack thereof, shows up across Jefferson’s statistical profile. He had just two receiving touchdowns. Both his success rate (46.1 percent) and catch rate (59.6 percent) were career lows by a significant amount, reflecting Minnesota’s struggles to get him the ball. 

But it also shows up in more insidious ways. Even the best receivers are only targeted on a fraction of the routes they run. There’s a lot of effort and detail that goes unrewarded, so a receiver must trust that the quarterback will capitalize on that work eventually. When that trust isn’t there, even the best wideouts can check out. Only Jefferson can answer this question, but I don’t think it’s a coincidence that his open score (61) and PFF receiving grade were the worst of his career. If the Vikings get better QB play from Kyler Murray and Jefferson’s numbers rebound, that could be a good test of this hypothesis. 

14 – Patriots QB Drake Maye

In just his second season, Maye came up a single vote short of besting QB Matthew Stafford for MVP. He also took a team that had won four games the season before all the way to the Super Bowl without the benefit of an elite supporting cast. That’s not to say the Patriots had a bad offense but it was Maye that stirred the drink. He fits the robo-quarterback mold teams dream about — big, fast, rocket arm and pinpoint accuracy. 

Maye piled up nearly 4,300 passing yards and 31 touchdowns to just eight interceptions in 2025 while rushing for another 450 yards and four scores. He led the entire NFL in completion percentage at 72 percent and intended air yards per pass attempt at 9.1. That is a rare and lethal combination. He was first in the league in a ton of other important stats, too, including EPA per play, completion percentage over expected, adjusted net yards per attempt and ESPN’s total QBR. 

Most of Maye’s weak points are related to his youth, as he doesn’t turn 24 until August. Maye’s sack rate and pressure-to-sack rate were both higher than most of the other top quarterbacks, which is not uncommon for gifted young passers as they figure out what they can and can’t get away with. The same is true of his turnover-worthy play rate of 3.3 percent, 23rd out of 43 qualifying quarterbacks. Improvement in those categories would cement Maye as a top-10 player and possibly a top-five quarterback. 

13 – Chiefs DT Chris Jones

For many years, it felt like Jones was the only one who could seriously challenge Aaron Donald for the top spot at defensive tackle. Last year, Jones was the one alone out in front of the field, at least in ESPN’s pass rush win rate. His 20 percent mark led all defensive tackles by at least five percentage points, and he had a healthy seven sacks in his age-31 season. 

There’s another defensive tackle I have ranked ahead of Jones because I think he’s more well-rounded, especially as a run stopper. But Jones remains one of the most dangerous and tenured interior pass rushers in the NFL. He had 63 total pressures which ranked fifth among all defensive tackles, per PFF, and the service charted him with the third-best win rate and second-best pass rush grade at the position. Jones is a massive load-bearing wall for the Chiefs’ defense (a theme for their roster honestly) and Kansas City should hope he can keep up his level for a little while longer. 

12 – Chargers QB Justin Herbert

The longer Herbert plays, the tougher it is to get away from the lack of playoff success or truly obscene numbers. In six seasons, he’s made the playoffs three times and been blanked in the win column all three times. He threw 69 touchdowns in his first two seasons, then it took him from 2022 to Week 1 of this past season to get his next 69 passing scores. His pressure-to-sack rate has jumped the last two seasons, and his interception rate in 2025 was the highest of his career. 

But stats can fail to paint the full picture when it comes to Herbert. His biggest selling point has and continues to be the eye test. Watch him play quarterback, especially in a game where he’s really feeling it, and it’s impossible not to come away thinking he’s an elite player. He’s one of the alien athletes playing the position, with ludicrous arm strength, size and mobility, and the accuracy to hit just about any spot on the field. Herbert is also one of the toughest quarterbacks in football, regularly soldiering through injuries and big hits. 

There’s also some context the stats don’t necessarily account for. The Chargers have had major injury issues along the offensive line the last two years, and they’ve leaned on Herbert a lot to try and compensate for that. Los Angeles moved on from OC Greg Roman despite making the playoffs for two years straight because HC Jim Harbaugh recognized they needed to do more for Herbert to set him up for success. So far, the plan from new OC Mike McDaniel to get more out of Herbert seems to be to ask him to do less. 

11 – Rams WR Puka Nacua

Nacua lost out to Smith-Njigba for OPOY honors, but if I had a vote, it would have gone to him. He has developed into a sheer dominant force for the Rams and someone they run their entire offense through. Nacua racked up a league-leading 119 receptions for 1,715 yards and 10 touchdowns. He averaged more yards per game than Smith-Njigba, and if he hadn’t missed a game due to a tweaked ankle, he might have beaten him. 

Nacua has always been a punishing player who’s fearlessness across the middle and after the catch made him a perfect fit for the Rams’ offense. However, he’s added more facets to his game. He notched a career-best open score of 84 in ESPN’s receiver tracking analytics, demonstrating a clear improvement as a route runner and separator. His catch score of 85 was also a career best, reflecting Nacua’s reliability and the trust he holds from Stafford. He’s still a force to bring down, too, leading all receivers with 29 forced missed tackles in 2025. At just 25 years old, Nacua is poised to dominate the NFL for years to come — provided he stays out of his own way and stays healthy.