Last week, we debuted the EssentiallySports NFL Top-100 list, where Daniel Rios, Tim Wood and I collaborated to rank the 100 best players in the league.

Every year, the NFL releases their own top-100 players list for the past season, which is voted on by current players. While ours is similar, we are doing the top-100 players in the league, not just based on last year. And on top of that, no offense to the players, but they don’t get to watch every game, so sometimes they’re a bit off (like putting Bryce Young in the top-100 after a mediocre season at best).

So we’re here to give you the fan’s perspective. As three guys who watch every single game every single week, we’re here to give you a list of the 100 best players in football, and today, we’re going to be counting down No. 90 through No. 81.

Jaycee Horn is coming off the two worst seasons of his career, which prompted Tim and I to leave him off our rankings, but because Mr. Daniel Rios had him all the way up at No. 66, he still slips into the top-100 and lands at No. 90.

Over the first three years of his career, Horn allowed a 60 percent completion rate, 469 yards and two touchdowns with four interceptions and seven pass breakups, earning him the title of one of the best corners in football. But over the last two years, while his completion rate allowed has gone down (57 percent), he’s given up 975 yards and 11 touchdowns with six interceptions and 11 pass breakups.

Horn still has the traits of being one of the best cornerbacks in football, but the last two years haven’t been the best for him. We’ll see if he can bounce back and shoot back up this list next year.

Zach Allen spent pretty much all of time lining up on the interior of Denver’s defense line, but still managed to finish in a tie for ninth in pressures this past season. Do you know how crazy that is for an interior defensive lineman? Even Jeffery Simmons, who many consider to be the best defensive tackle in football and just signed a three-year, $105 million extension, only had 64 pressures this year.

Allen’s 73 pressures were more than Abdul Carter, Byron Young, Brian Burns and Maxx Crosby this past year. And this wasn’t a fluke. In 2024, Allen finished with 75 pressures, which ranked fifth in the league.

It’s hard to find a more underrated player in all of football, because when we talk about the best defensive tackles in the league, Allen’s name rarely gets brought up.

Budda Baker may not be the same player he was a few years ago, but he is still a fantastic safety that is great against the run and the pass.

Baker only has one interception in the last three seasons, but he’s playing on the backend of an Arizona defense that has been one of the worst in the league for a few years now. He doesn’t get much help from his pass rush, and he always has to make up for his corner’s mistakes.

Put Baker on a complete defense, and he probably plays like an All-Pro. But even on Arizona’s defense, he’s stood out for nearly a decade now.

Rashee Rice is yet to complete a full season in the NFL, but when he’s on the field, he’s one of the best receivers in the league, no doubt.

As a rookie, Rice caught 79 passes for 932 yards and seven touchdowns in 16 games. He got off to a hot start in 2024, catching 24 passes for 288 yards and two touchdowns through his first three games before Patrick Mahomes caused him to suffer a major knee injury, making him miss the rest of the season. He went through some off the field issues last year and was suspended, but in eight games, he totaled 571 yards and five touchdowns on 53 catches.

Rice is immensely talented, and if he could just play a full season, he’d be towards the top of the league in yards and touchdowns. But he has to learn to stay on the field.

Sam Darnold was probably the hardest player for me to rank. He’s the winningest quarterback in football over the past two seasons, winning 28 out of 34 regular season games and winning a Super Bowl last year, but is he that great, or has he been in two very QB-friendly systems with great defenses?

I’m not trying to take anything away from what Darnold has accomplished over the past two seasons, but his TD to INT ratio is just over 2:1, and he led the league in turnovers last year. But he’s still tossed 60 touchdowns and has topped the 4,000-yard mark both years, so I don’t know.

Darnold has certainly proven he’s worthy of being a starter in the NFL, but I fear he may be a bit overrated heading into next season as a Super Bowl champion.

Andrew Thomas has been one of the best left tackles in football since his second year in the NFL, but in 2025, he took it to a whole new level, giving up just one sack and 13 pressures in 448 pass blocking snaps. The main thing with Thomas is, he hasn’t really been able to stay healthy in recent years.

Over the past three seasons, Thomas has missed 22 of a possible 51 games. That’s nearly 50 percent of the Giants’ games he’s missed since 2023. But it’s hard to deny that when he’s on the field, he’s one of the best tackles in football.

If Thomas was able to stay healthy, he’d probably be at least a top-50 player on this list. But the best ability is availability, so he comes in a bit lower than he probably should.

Baker Mayfield is another quarterback that was extremely hard to rank. He’s been pretty good for the past few years, but he got off to a red-hot start in 2025 and was in the thick of the MVP race before things turned south late in the year.

Through Mayfield’s first six games, he was averaging 282.8 total yards per game with 12 touchdowns and one interception. He was the MVP front runner at one point, but he suffered a shoulder injury in the middle of the season, and he fought through it, but his numbers dropped off drastically. Over his final 11 games, Mayfield averaged just 216 total yards per game with 14 touchdowns and 10 picks.

It was a tale of two seasons for Mayfield, but it was clear that he was playing injured. When he’s healthy, he can be a top-12 quarterback in the NFL, but he needs to remind everyone of that this year.

Jack Campbell has been everything Detroit could’ve asked for an more through his first three seasons. Over his first three years, Campbell has racked up over 400 total tackles, 8.5 sacks and four forced fumbles while being a leader of the Lions’ defense. And he’s only getting better every season.

Campbell has increased his yearly tackle output by roughly 35 tackles a season, so if he can keep that trajectory up, he’s on pace for 210 tackles next year! That’s obviously not realistic, but it shows you just how much potential this kid has. At his current rate of 133 tackles per year, it would take him 12.5 more seasons to reach Ray Lewis’s all-time record of 2,059 career tackles.

Campbell is one of the best young linebackers in football, so expect him to reset the linebacker market next offseason when he’s up for an extension (if not earlier).

Cam Heyward has been doing it for a loooooooong time, and he’s still playing some of the best football of his entire career.

The Pittsburgh Steelers defense tackle may not be putting up 9+ sacks a year anymore, but he still logged 50 pressures, 40 hurries and 3.5 sacks last season while earning an 84.3 run defense grade with 41 stops. Even when his sack numbers aren’t high, he’s still one of the most valuable defensive linemen in the league.

Heyward is entering his age 37 season, but it doesn’t look like he’s slowing down anytime soon.

Rounding out this week’s list of top-100 players is none other than Jessie Bates III.

Like Budda Baker, Bates is coming off one of his worst seasons statistically, giving up a 69 percent completion rate, 362 yards and four touchdowns, but he’s still one of the best safeties in all of football.

While 2025 wasn’t his best year, 2023 and 2024 were two of his best seasons. In those years, he gave up an average completion rate of 66 percent, 546 total yards and six touchdowns with 10 interceptions and 10 pass breakups. On top of that, he earned two of his best run defense grades with an 89.8 and an 80.4.

Can Bates turn it around in 2025 and get back to playing like an All-Pro? We’ll see.