July is the driest month of the year when it comes to NFL news, which makes it the perfect time for something like a top 100 players list. For the fourth straight year, we’re happy to bring you our 2025 NFLTR Top 100 Players.

We’re not the only outlet that does a top 100 — NFL Media has done one with at least some democratic input from current players since 2011 — but our goal is to give more credit to players and positions that are often easy to overlook, especially in the trenches. We build it using traditional and advanced statistics, awards, positional value, career trajectory and a good old-fashioned dash of the eye test. Our list won’t be perfect but the goal is to give as much credit where it’s due as possible.

We’ll be rolling this list out over the next couple of weeks, so keep checking back for updates to our 2025 NFLTR Top 100 Players list.

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40 – Raiders TE Brock Bowers

Some NFL records stand for so long that they’re viewed as virtually unbeatable. Mike Ditka’s rookie record of 1,076 receiving yards was the platinum standard for tight ends for well over 60 years. That is, until this year, when Bowers blew past him with 1,194 yards to set a new high-water mark. Bowers did it in 17 games instead of 14 but his rookie season remains an impressive accomplishment considering the poor quarterback play that plagued the Raiders last year.

Bowers doesn’t have traditional in-line tight end size but at 6-4 and 230 pounds, he’s got outstanding movement skills, closer to a receiver than a tight end. At 1.87 yards per route run against man coverage, Bowers was 44th in the league and fifth among all tight ends. He was third in PFF’s receiving grade and third overall at the position. The highest honor though was being voted first-team All Pro by the Associated Press — just the fourth in history.

39 – Falcons G Chris Lindstrom

Finishing as PFF’s No. 1-graded guard for three straight years probably won’t headline Lindstrom’s resume when his playing career is eventually done. But it’s still pretty neat and speaks to the consistently high bar he sets in the middle of the Falcons’ offensive line. Lindstrom has missed just one game in the past five years and has been selected to both the Pro Bowl selection and as a second-team AP All Pro each of the past three seasons.

Lindstrom’s calling card remains his work in the run game, where PFF gave him a devastating 94.6 grade that was far and away above the next closest player. Pass protection remains a slightly weaker point — Lindstrom was dinged for 31 pressures in 2024, more than twice what he let up in 2023 and more than his previous two seasons combined. Still, Lindstrom was credited with just one sack allowed and his 96.3 efficiency rating on true pass sets was 22nd out of 80 qualifying players. He’s not as good a pass blocker as he is a run blocker, but the latter is an exceptionally high bar.

38 – Ravens S Kyle Hamilton

If you combined a pterodactyl with an NFL athlete, you’d get Hamilton. The 6-4, 220-pound safety has a unique body type for the position and a unique role in Baltimore’s defense that’s tailored to his strengths to let him impact the game as much as possible. He lines up all over the defense; PFF charted him with 355 snaps as the deep safety, 292 in the slot, 407 in the box, 78 on the defensive line and 18 out at corner. Hamilton can also execute a wide variety of assignments at a high level, from blitzing to taking away a deep half of the field to run support, forcing opposing offenses to be aware of where he is on every snap.

Once again, Hamilton stuffed the stat sheet. He had two sacks and tied for fourth among safeties in total pressures, via PFF. He picked off one pass and had nine pass deflections while ranking fifth out of more than 100 safeties with just 7.5 yards allowed per catch. And he forced two fumbles while accruing 42 total stops, the third-best mark among safeties last year. Hamilton was named to the Pro Bowl for the second straight year, selected as a second-team All Pro by the Associated Press and received votes for Defensive Player of the Year. It’s hard for safeties to win that award, but Hamilton has the good to make a real run at it here in the next few years.

37 – Ravens RB Derrick Henry

In my opinion, last year cemented Henry as a future Hall of Famer. Reasonable people can disagree, for instance Pro Football Reference’s Hall of Fame monitor has Henry well below the cutoff. However, in the context of the modern game where most teams split backfields and the running back position has been de-emphasized, Henry is a unique force of nature. He is — quite literally — built different.

Henry’s 1,921 yards rushing would have led the NFL in most years, and as it were he narrowly finished second to the next player on this list. He did lead the league with 16 rushing touchdowns and another two receiving touchdowns for good measure. Henry moved up to 19th on the NFL’s all-time rushing list and he can climb even higher this upcoming season. Another thousand yards would put him right on the cusp of the top 10, and a massive season could push him above Tony Dorsett for 10th. Henry’s also already tied for sixth in NFL history in rushing touchdowns, equaling Jim Brown at 106. The Ravens’ big extension for Henry this offseason suggests they expect him to keep climbing the list for a few more years to come.

36 – Eagles RB Saquon Barkley

Finding enough superlatives about Barkley’s 2024 season is challenging. He became the ninth player to crack the 2,000-yard mark and rested in Philadelphia’s 17th game with all playoff positioning settled; otherwise he might have made a push for the record. He scored 13 touchdowns on the ground and another two through the air, won Offensive Player of the Year and was the engine to Philadelphia’s Super Bowl triumph with another 499 rushing yards and five touchdowns in the postseason.

If possible, the way in which Barkley put together this remarkable season is even more impressive. The Eagles harnessed his elite athleticism like never before in his career, and Barkley became a big-play force who was a threat to score whenever he touched the football, wherever he was on the field. Of his 15 touchdowns, eight were from 20 yards or further and Barkley had four touchdowns of 60+ yards. It was a special season for a special player.

35 – Colts DT DeForest Buckner

Buckner got banged up last year, missing five games and subsequently missing any postseason recognition like Pro Bowl or All Pro honors. Between that and how steady the veteran has been throughout his career, it feels like Buckner gets taken for granted a bit these days. But even in a down year, Buckner remained one of the best defensive tackles in football.

Buckner hit 6.5 sacks in his 12 games of action, which would be a great number for most defensive tackles from a full season of work. While his raw total of pressures was impacted by time missed from injury, PFF uses a metric called pass rush productivity that weights pressures, hits and sacks against snaps played to highlight more efficient rushers. Buckner tied for 15th out of 120 defensive tackles in pass rush productivity score last year. He was also No. 2 in ESPN’s pass rush win rate among defensive tackles at 16 percent, just a fraction off Chiefs DT Chris Jones for the lead. Buckner also had 33 stops in run defense with was 10th in the NFL despite the missed time, and he did it in fewer snaps than all but one player ahead of him.

34 – Texans DE Danielle Hunter

After spending the first nine years of his career with the Vikings, Hunter joined the Texans as a free agent last offseason on a two-year, $49 million deal, most of which was guaranteed. Houston took a slight risk on the contract, as Hunter was entering his age-30 season and had battled some injuries in the past. But ultimately it turned out to be outstanding value, as Hunter teamed up with Texans DE Will Anderson Jr. to form arguably the best edge rushing duo in football.

Not only did Hunter lead the team in sacks with 12, he also led the entire NFL in ESPN’s pass rush win rate, edging out guys like Trey Hendrickson and Micah Parsons with an incredible 26 percent mark. He also finished sixth in the league with 74 pressures, eighth with 39 stops, added 17 tackles for loss, three batted passes and a forced fumble. The season was so good that the Texans re-did Hunter’s deal with an extra year and a raise this offseason, locking him in as a key piece of the defense for two more years.

33 – Jets DT Quinnen Williams

The Jets defense took a step back in 2024 and unfortunately Williams wasn’t immune to that. He was still an outstanding player, racking up six sacks and earning a Pro Bowl nod, but there were parts of Williams’ game that weren’t up to his usual standard. Opponents had a fair amount of success running up the gut against the Jets and Williams didn’t have a lot of help to try and stop that. He had just 23 stops per PFF, his lowest mark since his rookie season. His overall tackle numbers were down too despite playing a normal load of snaps, and his missed tackle rate was a poor 26.8 percent.

That said, Williams was still 10th in the NFL in total pressures with 54, and seventh among defensive tackles in PFF’s pass rush productivity metric. His pass rush win rate from ESPN ranked fifth in the league, showing that Williams still remained an outstanding pass rusher when given the opportunity. Playing in more competitive games and getting more help around Williams on defense should help his numbers bounce back.

32 – Lions WR Amon-Ra St. Brown

St. Brown might not have the clear physical advantages that some of his peers have, but he’s relentlessly competitive, tough and a master of the smaller details that can be more meaningful to success at wide receiver than just raw size and speed. For the third straight year, he piled up a massive reception total, catching 115 passes for 1,263 yards and 12 touchdowns as the focal point of Detroit’s passing attack. He was fifth in PFF’s receiving grade and 11th in the league in overall score from ESPN’s receiver tracking metrics.

St. Brown was well above average in all three components of ESPN’s metrics, including open score, catch score and yards after catch score. His open score of 63 was 31st in the league, reflecting how St. Brown is more of a power slot than a pure separator, but his catch score of 60 was fifth in the league, statistical proof of just how reliable his hands are. St. Brown saw his snaps in the slot decrease for the fourth straight season as he continues to become a more well-rounded receiver, and he topped 2.0 yards per route run against both man and zone coverage.

31 – Texans WR Nico Collins

The old mantra that it takes three years for receivers to break out has largely fallen by the wayside with how NFL-ready many wideouts are before they get to the league. But Collins was an old-fashioned third-year breakout in 2023 with nearly 1,300 yards receiving and eight touchdowns as the Texans’ top target. He was even better in 2024 despite missing five games due to injury. Collins cracked the 1,000-yard mark in 70 percent of the season and scored another seven touchdowns en route to finishing with PFF’s second-best receiving grade.

What makes Collins so dangerous is his speed and fluidity at his size. He puts cornerbacks on their heels off the line and blazed past plenty last season. He also excelled at snapping those routes off, where he was a big friendly target for Texans QB C.J. Stroud on dig and out routes. Collins had the 14th-best open score of any receiver last year, and had an elite 3.75 yards per route run against man coverage. The 26-year-old has dominated the past two seasons and deserves to be in the conversation among the league’s best.

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