NFL Trade Rumors
Our fifth installment of the top 100 players for the upcoming season is in the books. You can find the full 100 below in 10-player installments.
An eagle-eyed commenter did catch one significant mistake: Lions DE Aidan Hutchinson was overlooked as an inclusion. There’s a lot of shuffling around that goes into this list being built and at some point he was not copy-pasted into the pool of players. He should have been slotted at No. 10 given he had 14.5 sacks and was one of four players to crack 100 total pressures. That bumps everyone else down a slot, effectively making it a top 101 list.
We also thought it would be fun to do a next best 10 to show who just missed the cut for inclusion. This is one of the most painful parts about the process, as we start with a list that has to be whittled down nearly in half. This is a chance to highlight some deserving players, although in no particular order.
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Eyebrows were raised when the Lions took Campbell in the first round back in 2023 but time has proven GM Brad Holmes right in this case. He had a huge season in 2025, recording 176 total tackles, nine tackles for loss, five sacks, three forced fumbles and four pass breakups. Campbell capped it all off by earning first-team honors on the Associated Press’ All-Pro team.
The former Iowa star has throwback size at 6-5 and nearly 250 pounds, but modern-age athleticism and a well-rounded game. He led all linebackers with 68 stops, per PFF, which the service defines as tackles that constitute a failure for the offense. Campbell also had a reliable 7.1 percent missed tackle rate, 14th out of 94 qualifying linebackers in PFF’s stats. He chipped in 17 total pressures and had respectable numbers in coverage, too. Despite some drama with his fifth-year option, the Lions made sure to lock him up long-term on a big deal this offseason to keep him in the center of their defense for years to come.
Oliver played in just three games plus the divisional round loss to the Broncos last year. But he was a force in those handful of games. He had three sacks, seven tackles for loss, 13 total pressures and 10 stops in those four games. PFF has a metric called pass rush productivity score that weights sacks, hits...
