NFL Trade Rumors
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:
Resources:
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.
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...
