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

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

60 – 49ers RB Christian McCaffrey

No player carried a heavier load than McCaffrey last season. His 413 touches not only led the league, they were the most of any player since 2014. Excluding quarterbacks, there wasn’t another player who was relied upon more by his team to generate offense — especially because of all the injuries the 49ers navigated in 2025, including to the quarterback position. McCaffrey rushed for 1,202 yards and 10 scores while adding another 102 receptions for 924 yards and seven touchdowns. He was within shouting distance of being the first-ever player to record multiple 1,000-1,000 seasons (rushing and receiving yards).

Given McCaffrey’s injury history, it’s an open question whether the 49ers can keep putting that much on his plate. His efficiency suffered in 2025, perhaps because it was predictable how often the 49ers were going to lean on him. He averaged less than four yards per carry and PFF charted him with the lowest percentage of yards on breakaway runs since an injury-maligned 2020 season. Still, he forced 74 total missed tackles in 2025, so the idea that McCaffrey was just a volume hog doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. 

59 – Patriots WR A.J. Brown

Brown suffered through one of the worst statistical seasons of his career this past season and he didn’t suffer in silence, which is probably why he’s currently in New England instead of Philadelphia. He just turned 29 last month, so it’s natural for questions about a potential decline to come up, especially since Brown has been managing a knee injury for a while now. 

Yet some context is needed. Even in a “down” season, Brown topped 1,000 yards receiving on a run-first offense and scored seven touchdowns. In ESPN’s open score and PFF’s receiving grade — both metrics that seek to evaluate a wide receiver’s performance even if he’s not targeted on a passing play — Brown ranked No. 9 and No. 13 out of over a hundred wideouts. He had an excellent 2.88 yards per route run against man coverage, No. 8 in the NFL. 

The proverbial “lost step” can be hard to spot in the NFL, and there are mixed opinions from film watchers whether Brown slowed down in 2025. His production was down but that’s so heavily impacted by the offensive environment, and let’s just say the Eagles had their challenges last year. The rest of the analytics suggest Brown remains a top-ten receiver, and he has a fresh start with a star quarterback to try and prove that this year. 

58 – Falcons WR Drake London

London was on a tear before a PCL injury blunted his momentum and his statistical finish to the season. He topped 100 yards receiving in five out of nine games to start the season before the injury, then had 109 yards and a touchdown combined over the final three after he returned. He finished with 68 catches, 919 yards and seven touchdowns in 12 games after a breakout 1,200-yard season the year prior. 

Perhaps the injury explains some interesting splits in the advanced stats. London is a big wideout at 6-4 and 215 pounds who moonlighted on the basketball team in college at USC, so he wins more with physicality and positioning than by pure speed. Still, an open score of 47 is below average and drastically worse than his career-high 84 mark the season before. London’s numbers against man coverage were also uninspiring, but he had a superb 89.9 receiving grade from PFF. Look for a bounceback for Atlanta’s No. 1 receiver this year if he can maintain good health. 

57 – Lions QB Jared Goff

The book on Goff has been out for a while. He’s a pocket-only passer, so creating pressure is a recipe for getting him to miss throws and make mistakes. However, that’s easier said than done with Detroit’s offensive line and scheme. And Goff has reached a point where he’s the puncher far more often than the punching bag. Last season was his third straight year of over 30 passing touchdowns, 4,500 yards and at least a 67 percent completion rate. He protected the ball well, too, despite slightly worse protection than prior years. His turnover-worthy play rate of two percent was fourth-best, and PFF charted him with an adjusted completion percentage (accounting for drops and removing throwaways) of over 80 percent, tops among all passers. 

56 – 49ers QB Brock Purdy

Purdy might be the most polarizing player on this list, with legions on either side who will insist this is either far too high a ranking or far too low. Not to take the easy way out, but it feels like reality is somewhere in the middle. There’s no question Purdy benefits from a top-notch supporting offensive infrastructure, from play-caller and architect Kyle Shanahan to quality skill players and protection. 

However, Purdy plays his part in the system exceptionally well. He has just enough quick-twitch athleticism to create on his own from time to time when a teammate busts an assignment or Shanahan hasn’t dialed up the perfect play call. His pressure-to-sack rate of 3.73 percent was the third-lowest of all quarterbacks last season, per PFF. Limited to nine games because of a turf toe injury that he pushed through (another credit to Purdy), the former Mr. Irrelevant still blistered the stat sheet in the games he played. He put up 23 total touchdowns in a little over half a season of work. He led the NFL in success rate, ranked second in completion percentage over expected and finished ninth in adjusted net yards per attempt. 

Plenty of people would have loved to generate a quarterback controversy between Purdy and his injury replacement, former Shanahan draft crush Mac Jones, who kept San Francisco’s season on the rails in seven starts. Shanahan has had success with a lot of different quarterbacks, leading to the idea that Purdy might just be a replaceable cog in the system. Jones did play pretty well — Purdy was just authoritatively better, nipping that narrative in the bud. 

55 – Chargers LT Rashawn Slater

Slater missed the entire 2025 season due to a torn patellar tendon on August 7 last year, one of several major injuries the Chargers absorbed. Athletes say a torn patellar tendon is even more grueling to rehab than a torn ACL, but Slater has had plenty of time and it should be reasonable to project him to pick up roughly where he left off. We ranked him No. 45 last season: 

“Slater returned to the Pro Bowl for the second time in his four years following a slight rough patch the past two years after an outstanding rookie debut. The 26-year-old reasserted himself as one of the top young tackles in football and his all-around game is an excellent fit for the Chargers’ run-heavy offense. Slater finished 10th among all tackles in ESPN’s run block win rate with a mark of 79 percent, and he had PFF’s seventh-highest run blocking grade. He was great as a pass protector too, allowing just 26 total pressures on the year and three sacks.” 

54 – Ravens OLB Trey Hendrickson

Hendrickson played in just seven games in his final season with the Bengals. He tried to push through a sports hernia injury and reinjured it, sidelining him through the rest of the season. He was clearly diminished after the injury, too, so there was a sense in Cincinnati that he wasn’t exactly rushing to get back on the field at less than full strength in a contract year. That’s the downside for teams when a negotiation goes as sour as it did between the two sides last year. 

At 31 years old, Hendrickson now goes to Baltimore, where the big question is what the Ravens will be getting. His 2025 cameo still featured four sacks and a forced fumble, while PFF charted him with a 21.5 percent win rate that would keep him in the company he’s accustomed to at the top of the edge rusher hierarchy. So it seems the odds are good that the Ravens are getting a top-notch pass rusher. Hendrickson’s play against the run has continued to wane, though, and while the Ravens aren’t risking as much as they would have in the Maxx Crosby trade, the Hendrickson signing is still a gamble. 

53 – Steelers OLB T.J. Watt

Watt was mostly healthy this past season outside of a freak accident when his lung was collapsed in a dry needling session. That caused him to miss three games and threw off his conditioning when he returned. But even before the injury, Watt wasn’t his usual prolific self in 2025. He finished with just seven sacks on the season, his first time in double digits in a relatively healthy year since he was a rookie. 

A deeper dive doesn’t reduce the concern. Watt didn’t place on ESPN’s pass rush win rate leaderboard for the first time in a while. PFF charted him with 49 total pressures, 32nd out of 130 qualifying edge rushers and one of his least disruptive outputs since he was a rookie. He ranked 82nd in PFF’s pass rush productivity score. He did still do usual Watt things by stuffing the rest of the stat sheet with big plays, forcing three fumbles, picking off two passes and breaking up eight in total. Still, there’s a reason there’s some concern in Pittsburgh about Watt and why he’s slipped so far on this list. 

52 – Giants LT Andrew Thomas

It wasn’t a completely healthy season for Thomas, who missed four games after losing 18 games to injury over the previous two seasons. But he was on the field enough for the Giants in 2025 to remind the league that he’s one of the top tackles in football when healthy. He was eighth in the NFL in pass block win rate at 94 percent according to ESPN. PFF charted him with just 13 total pressures given up all year and one sack. In true pass sets, which are usually known passing situations when the defense can dial up a blitz or pin its ears back and rush, Thomas turned in an absolutely stellar 98.1 percent efficiency rate — No. 2 among all tackles. Throw in a quality 84.6 run blocking grade from PFF and it was a strong campaign. 

51 – Lions RB Jahmyr Gibbs

Running backs have fought back against the perception that they’re interchangeable and disposable, and slowly the tide is starting to shift. Much of that is due to exciting new players like Gibbs, who made his third straight Pro Bowl in 2025 and asserted his grip on the Detroit backfield. He flirted with 2,000 yards from scrimmage for the second straight season and scored 18 total touchdowns. 

Gibbs is both a talented runner and receiver, and thanks to his game-breaking speed he is a legitimate threat to score a touchdown every time he touches the football. PFF credited him with 87 forced missed tackles between rushes and receptions, and 40.6 percent of his rushing yardage came on his 14 runs of 15 yards or longer. That speed and skill would make it difficult for the Lions to replace him with just anyone, and it’s why Gibbs is likely set to sign a deal that will move the running back market forward at some point this summer.