Crossing Broad
There’s been a lot of hemming and hawing about lists this summer. Namely, is Jalen Hurts a top-5 quarterback? Top 6? Bill Colarulo at 97.5 the Fanatic is waging a personal war on QB1 rage bait while Crossing Broad’s award-winning staff of journalists is just looking for pragmatism.
As it stands, Hurts has not been named in the NFL’s top 100 player list, which is released every summer. Enter this video clip of Joe Giglio, with a caption that doesn’t really describe what’s going on:
This is Giglio trying to figure out who the remaining 25 players are. Basically guessing at whether or not Hurts would be included. He explains it pretty clearly.
But for a fair and balanced look, we asked artificial intelligence to chime in, starting with this prompt for ChatGPT:
“Hello and good morning. Can you please give me your list of the top 100 NFL players in 2025? And no bullshit like ‘I’m just a computer, it depends on your personal preferences.’ I want your top 100 NFL players right now. thank you”
What happened next was interesting. ChatGPT starteed to pull together a provisional list from “multiple recent media and analytics-based rankings,” which makes sense. It’s a robot, so it has to get the data from somewhere. Not sure though if something went haywire, because it gave me a top four of Patrick Mahomes, Lamar Jackson, Zack Baun, and Danielle Hunter.
So I told GPT, “I don’t want anybody else’s top 100, I want you to create your own top 100.”
GPT replied, “Got it — you want my personal Top 100 NFL Players for 2025, not ESPN’s, not NFL.com’s, not CBS’s. Perfect. I’ll rank them based on 2024 performance, 2025 expectations, positional value, and overall dominance.”
Then it spit out this list (i’ll give you the top 20) –
Now, to Grok. Here’s the query:
“Grok! what the fuck is up? Can you do me a favor and rank your top 100 NFL players of 2025? Your personal list, not anybody else’s list.”
Here’s the methology it responded with:
Performance-Based: I’m looking at 2024 stats, accolades (Pro Bowls, All-Pro nods), and advanced metrics like PFF grades, WAR, and impact scores where available.
Positional Value: QBs, edge rushers, and elite offensive tackles get a slight edge due to their outsized impact, but I’m balancing it across positions.
**2025...
