NFL Trade Rumors Top 100 Players: 50-41

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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 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 50 – Colts CB Sauce Gardner This past season may have been the most turbulent of Gardner’s career, and that’s saying something considering he started his career with the Jets in 2022. Despite signing him to a huge extension in August, New York flipped after the Colts dangled two first-round picks, an offer that seemed too good to turn down. Gardner was traded after a seven-game losing streak to start the season. After he ramped up into the starting lineup in Indianapolis, a calf injury ultimately derailed the rest of his year. He played in 11 games and had no interceptions, the second time in Gardner’s four seasons he didn’t come up with a takeaway. While Gardner has as much raw talent as any cornerback in football, that lack of ball production remains one of the factors keeping him from the top of the pyramid. He has three picks in four seasons, and after a remarkable 20 pass breakups as a rookie, he’s failed to crack double digits in that category the past two seasons. Don’t get me wrong, he’s still a fantastic coverage player. Gardner ranked ninth out of 120 cornerbacks with a sub-50 percent completion percentage allowed, and he had one of the higher snaps per target ratios in the NFL, meaning teams weren’t as keen to test him. Still, the theme of Gardner’s career to this point has been that there’s meat left on the bone. Hopefully with a full offseason and a clean bill of health, he can start to realize that potential with the Colts. After the revelation that nearly the whole league had his age wrong and he’s really 24, it’s almost as if this past year was a mulligan. 49 – Chiefs C Creed Humphrey Humphrey has become a rock in the middle of Kansas City’s offensive line. In the midst of his prime at 27 years old, Humphrey has started 85 of 85 possible games for the Chiefs plus another 13 playoff contests. PFF dinged him for a single sack allowed last year and it was his only one across two seasons and well over 2,000 snaps. He was once again the top interior offensive lineman in ESPN’s pass block win rate at 98 percent, and PFF bestowed an 88.5 run-blocking grade on Humphrey that ranked fifth out of 126 interior offensive linemen. Humphrey was named first-team AP All-Pro for the second straight season, and he’s poised to keep a…