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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80 – Lions RB Jahmyr Gibbs

It’s probably safe to say Gibbs has vindicated Lions GM Brad Holmes against the criticisms of him for taking a running back in the first round in 2024. Positional value is a factor in this list, which works against some positions like running back and safety where a player’s contributions have to be truly excellent to stand out from his peers. Gibbs reached that bar last season, rushing 250 times for 1,412 yards with a staggering 5.6 YPC and 16 touchdowns. Add in his passing game contributions with another 52 catches for 517 yards and four scores, and Gibbs flirted with 2,000 yards from scrimmage and had 20 total touchdowns.

Gibbs is lightning in a bottle for the Lions, with wiggle and speed to turn any touch into a big play. Even though he was in a committee with fellow Lions RB David Montgomery, that didn’t dilute his impact much. Gibbs ranked fifth in the NFL with 68 missed tackles forced, per PFF, and third with 27 runs of 15-plus yards. He did it with significantly fewer carries than nearly every back ahead of him, however.

79 – Patriots CB Christian Gonzalez

Gonzalez was on his way to becoming a Day 1 star in his rookie season before a shoulder injury curtailed things after only four games. He more or less picked things up where he left off in his second season in 2024, though the Patriots’ overall struggles hurt his recognition. Gonzalez started 16 games and picked off two passes, broke up 11 others and returned a fumble 63 yards for a touchdown. He wasn’t voted to the Pro Bowl but he did earn second-team AP All Pro honors.

Per PFF, Gonzalez went from allowing a 66.7 completion percentage as a rookie, albeit on a small sample size, to 54.8 percent in Year 2, surrendering 46 catches on 84 targets for 499 yards. That ranked 17th out of 127 qualifying corners last year, and Gonzalez’s passer rating allowed of 70.5 was even better at sixth-best. With prototypical length and speed, it’s becoming harder and harder to see as time goes on how the league allowed him to slide to New England at No. 16 overall in 2023.

78 – Bears CB Jaylon Johnson

Outside of quarterback, cornerback has a compelling argument with offensive tackle as the second-hardest position to play in the sport, particularly because the rules are so engineered to favor the offense. That, combined with the supreme athleticism and confidence required to play the position at a high level, means that it’s incredibly volatile to project year to year. Even the game’s best corners can have significant swings in their performance.

Johnson is a good example. In 2023, there might not have been a corner who played better. He was targeted 50 times and let up just 25 catches for a meager 195 yards. PFF credited him with only one touchdown allowed the whole year, and it all added up to a passer rating allowed of 33.3 — tops in the league. After snaring just one interception in his first three years, Johnson picked off four passes and returned one of them for a touchdown.

He was still good in 2024, but not at those stratospheric heights. He faced an almost identical number of targets (51) but let up 32 catches for 424 yards and two touchdowns while adding another two interceptions. His passer rating allowed sagged to 85.7 and his completion percentage allowed was 62.7. However, those numbers still ranked 38th and 50th out of 127 qualifying corners, meaning Johnson remained an upper-tier corner. A repeat of his 2023 season might not be in the cards but Johnson should remain a high-end player in 2025.

77 – Bills OT Spencer Brown

Brown has proven to be one of Bills GM Brandon Beane’s best draft picks in his tenure, overcoming a rocky start to his career to develop into a quality starting tackle. A third-round pick out of Northern Iowa in 2021, Brown needed time to adjust to the leap in competition, but he did a lot of learning as he played, starting 24 games over his first two seasons. He made a clear leap in 2023 before taking another stride forward in 2024, finishing with a career-high 98 percent efficiency in pass protection. That ranked ninth in the NFL, per PFF, and the service charted him with just 22 pressures conceded and two sacks.

ESPN has charted Brown with pass block win rates of 91 and 92 percent the past two seasons, good enough for a spot on its top 20 leaderboard, and Brown has also harnessed his natural edginess to become a quality run blocker on the right side. If he can clean up his penalties — 17 in 2024, fourth-most among all tackles — he could climb even higher on this list.

76 – Packers OT Zach Tom

Few teams have the Packers’ track record of finding successful offensive linemen in the middle rounds, and Tom is the latest hit discovered by Green Bay. Known for his five-tool versatility as a prospect out of Wake Forest, Tom has taken snaps at all five positions for the Packers since being drafted in the fourth round in 2022. But he’s found a home at right tackle, where he’s had nearly 2,300 snaps the past two seasons and has developed into a stalwart for the Packers’ front.

Tom debuted on ESPN’s leaderboard in 2023 with a 91 percent pass block win rate, then bumped that up to 92 percent in 2024. The Packers passed less in 2024 which helped Tom cut down his total pressures allowed, and he finished with identical 97.1 pass pro efficiency ratings from PFF. The service ranked Tom as the sixth-highest graded tackle after charting him with major improvements in both run and pass blocking. He might not have prototypical dimensions at just 6-4 and a little over 300 pounds, but Tom is one of the league’s more effective tackles nonetheless.

75 – Eagles OL Landon Dickerson

ESPN and PFF have become two of the better mainstream resources for evaluating offensive line play the past several years, and both have had conflicting verdicts on Dickerson. The fifth-year pro has been championed by ESPN, consistently finishing near the top on their pass block and run block win rate leaderboards — up until this season. Conversely, PFF has been bearish on Dickerson during that span, dinging him for more pressures and worse grades — up until this season which the service graded as Dickerson’s best output yet, particularly as a run blocker.

The success of Eagles RB Saquon Barkley is a testament to Dickerson’s prowess as a run blocker, and his 96.8 pass pro efficiency rating from PFF was better than in 2023. He was selected to his third-straight Pro Bowl, became the NFL’s highest-paid guard last summer and was fifth in ESPN’s poll of league decision-makers to determine the top interior offensive linemen. Overall, it’s clear he’s one of the NFL’s top guards.

74 – Bears G Joe Thuney

A perfect model of reliability, Thuney has missed just two starts in his nine-year career and has been a stabilizing force for two dynasties — the Patriots and the Chiefs. He has four rings between his stints for both teams and his ability to play left tackle in a pinch has come in handy for both squads. Still, he’s best at guard where he’s one of the league’s best, finishing with the top pass block win rate among all interior offensive linemen on ESPN’s leaderboard with 98 percent. For the second year in a row, PFF charted him with a 97.6 percent efficiency rating in pass pro, which in some ways was more impressive because he had nearly 400 snaps at left tackle in the toughest stretch of Kansas City’s schedule.

Financial reasons led the Chiefs to trade Thuney to the Bears this offseason, as facing an expiring contract for G Trey Smith and a need to improve the offensive line as a whole, they elected to move on from the 32-year-old Thuney instead of a younger player. He was snapped up by the Bears who are hoping his reliability and championship pedigree can have a similar impact for a young Chicago team that it did for two other franchises.

73 – Seahawks DT Leonard Williams

Williams has played in the NFL for 10 years and has always been a quality starter even if he hasn’t consistently put up gaudy sack totals. He’s a terrific example of why underlying disruption numbers can be more predictive than just raw sack totals, and every few years Williams has a season where it all comes together. Last year was one of those. The veteran hit double-digit sacks for the second time in his career and got to the opposing quarterback 11 times. It earned him the second Pro Bowl nod of his career.

Overall, Williams notched 55 total pressures, per PFF, and ranked ninth among all interior defenders. (As an interesting sidenote about pressures vs sacks, Williams had 54 pressures in 2023, one fewer than in 2024, but literally half the number of sacks.) He also recorded 41 stops to rank third among all DTs and added a 92-yard pick-six for good measure. Seattle paid a premium to land him between the midseason trade in 2023 and the big-money deal in the offseason, and so far, Williams is living up to that massive investment.

72 – Packers QB Jordan Love

After 2023 was a tale of two seasons for Love, with the torrid run in the second half of the year pushing Green Bay into the playoffs and ultimately leading to a gargantuan contract extension, there were a lot of eyes on the quarterback in 2024 to see where along that wide range of outcomes he’d settle. A knee injury in Week 1 proved to be a major complication. Love only missed two games but the injury lingered for a while. It wasn’t the only factor in the Packers becoming far more run-heavy as an offense than they were the previous season, but it did contribute.

Love had over 150 fewer attempts in 2024 compared to 2023 and it clearly impacted his counting stats. He had 3,389 yards after crossing the 4,000 mark the year before and 25 passing touchdowns compared to 32. On the surface, it’s a clear regression but some of the other numbers paint a more complicated picture. For instance, he did do a slightly worse job taking care of the football in 2024. His interception percentage was up and PFF charted him with a notably higher turnover-worthy play rate despite the overall decrease in attempts.

In other areas, Love made notable strides or continued to perform at a high level. There were clear improvements in efficiency stats like adjusted net yards per attempt, ESPN’s QBR and EPA-CPOE composite (completion percentage over expected). Love was top 10 in all three categories, top five in the first two. His adjusted completion percentage rose from 72.7 to 74.4 percent, which accounts for the drops that plagued the Packers’ offense last year.

The most eye-popping improvement was in his sack rate, however. He went from a 4.93 percent sack rate in 2023 to just 3.19 percent in 2024, third-best in the league. His pressure to sack rate of 9.3 percent was markedly higher than 13.7 percent the year before and also was third in the NFL. Simply put, Love was a maddening player to try and sack.

Love likely will always have moments where he makes head-scratching decisions or falls into a cold spell with his mechanics. However, the body of work he’s put up over the past two years and his high-end playmaking ability make it clear he should belong in the conversation with the upper crust of the position.

71 – Texans QB C.J. Stroud

Stroud debuted at No. 17 on this list last year after a stellar rookie season in which he caught the NFL by storm. We were hardly out on an island on Stroud. He was 20th on NFL Media’s list, the No. 7 quarterback in ESPN’s poll of decision makers and No. 8 on Mike Sando’s QB Tiers column that also polls NFL decision-makers. But in our write-up on Stroud last year, you could see the seeds of what would ultimately prove to be a disappointing sophomore campaign:

“I was actually surprised when putting together the stats for this blurb at how ordinary some of Stroud’s other numbers were:

57.5 QBR, 16th in the league
46.7 success rate, 13th
TD percentage of 4.6 percent, 14th
Sack rate of 7.1 percent, 23rd
EPA per play of 0.135, completion percentage over expected of 0.2. Composite was 12th in the NFL.
PFF grade of 83.1, 13th
26 big-time throws per PFF, 4.4 BTT percentage, ranked 14th and 18th respectively
2.8 percent of throws were turnover-worthy plays, 18th in the NFL
17.4 percent pressure-to-sack rate, 15th
Responsible for 16.1 percent of his total pressures, 32nd out of 41 qualifying quarterbacks (also worse than Sam Howell, Zach Wilson and Tommy DeVito)

None of these are bad numbers, except for the QB allowed pressure. Outside of that, the rest range around the middle of the pack. They’re not bad, they just don’t quite line up with the narrative about how great Stroud was as a rookie.”

Stroud performed worse in nearly every single one of those categories in 2024 as the entire Texans offense took a massive step back. After leading the league in passing yardage per game, he failed to crack 4,000 yards passing despite starting all 17 games. After throwing just five interceptions as a rookie, his interception rate more than doubled and he tossed 12 picks in 2024. And after ranking third in the league in adjusted net yards per attempt, Stroud slipped all the way to 27th in Year 2.

Of course, there’s some context to all this. Stroud was under pressure more than any other QB in the league, per PFF, and while his pressure-to-sack rate jumped from 17.4 percent to 23 percent, one of the few numbers he did improve was the percentage of pressure he was responsible for. PFF also charted him with similar rates of big-time throws and turnover-worthy plays, which suggests that Stroud has been close to the same player through both his first two seasons. He just happened to be in a healthier offensive environment as a rookie.

Stroud drew comparisons to Bengals QB Joe Burrow after his rookie season. Year 2 suggests a player closer to Cowboys QB Dak Prescott — not a Tier 1, elite starter but still an outstanding quarterback.

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