The EssentiallySports NFL Top-100 is slowly coming to a close. With just a couple of weeks left, we’re getting down to the very best players in the league, and today we’re hitting on No. 30 through No. 21.

There are 1,696 active players in the NFL during the regular season, which means if a player ranks inside the top-30, they are in the top 1.77 percent of players in the NFL. This is the cream of the crop, and it doesn’t get much better than these guys.

By the time the season begins in early September, we will have completed this list, but for now, let’s see who cracks the top-30.

Saquon Barkley had a down year in 2025, but so did the entire Philadelphia Eagles’ offense. Kevin Patullo did a horrible job calling plays, and there was drama in the locker room with A.J. Brown. This year, though, the Eagles brought in Sean Mannion and traded Brown, so I expect this offense to get back to its 2024 form.

I don’t think that necessarily means Barkley will rush for 2,000 yards, but 1,500 yards and 13+ touchdowns is not an unreasonable expectation. He’s still one of the best running backs in football, and I’m not going to let one season change my mind on that.

Joe Thuney won the inaugural Protector of the Year award after a stellar season where he gave up 15 pressures and zero sacks in 1,149 offensive snaps while also being exceptional in the run game. He was one of the main reasons Ben Johnson was able to run his offense so efficiently in his first year in Chicago.

Offensive linemen, particularly interior linemen, often fly under the radar. Offensive tackle is the sexier position on the offensive line, but if you don’t have great interior offensive line play, it can really affect your offense. Thuney is certainly one of the best guards in the game right now.

Trey McBride is coming off a historic season where he set the NFL record for the most receptions by a tight end in a single season with 126, and he did that with Kyler Murray and Jacoby Brissett throwing him the football. That’s pretty impressive stuff.

Tight end is another position that doesn’t get a lot of love, but if you have a great one, it can completely transform your offense. Tight ends can create huge mismatches against linebackers, corners and safeties, so having one like McBride that is a threat to go for 1,000+ yards and 10+ touchdowns every year is massive.

Creed Humphrey is the second interior offensive lineman to crack this week’s list, and it’s easy to see why. Ever since Humphrey entered the league, he’s been one of the best centers in football, and 2025 was yet another incredible season for the Kansas City Chiefs star.

Humphrey played nearly 1,100 snaps last season and gave up just nine pressures and one sack while being one of the best run-blocking centers in football. He’s the anchor of Kansas City’s offensive line, and that isn’t going to change anytime soon.

Jahmyr Gibbs and Amon-Ra St. Brown are the two guys that make Detroit’s offense go. When Ben Johnson left last offseason, many expected Detroit’s offense to take a step back, and they really didn’t, and that’s largely due to St. Brown.

St. Brown has been one of the most steady wide receivers in football over the past four seasons. Just look at his numbers since 2022 and tell me he isn’t a top-30 player in the league.

There are receivers who have a higher ceiling than St. Brown, but there are very few who have a higher floor.

Jordan Mailata was a seventh-round selection out of Australia. He was a rugby player before coming to the U.S., and the Philadelphia Eagles took a flier on him in the 2018 draft, and they absolutely nailed it.

Since entering the league, Mailata has given up more than three sacks in a season twice, and one of those years was his rookie season. Over the past three years, he’s played about 3,000 snaps and has allowed just six sacks while posting run-blocking grades of 83.0, 94.9, and 79.9.

Seventh-round franchise tackles are rare, but the Eagles found one in Mailata, who may rank among the franchise’s best linemen.

Derek Stingley may not be the best corner in the league, but if I had to start a franchise today and could pick any corner, it would probably be him. One, Stingley is just 25 years old and already has two All-Pros under his belt. Two, I think he’s the best man coverage corner in the league and is as close to a Derrell Revis as we currently have in the NFL.

A lot of teams sit in zone a lot nowadays, but Stingley is someone you can line up in man-to-man coverage against your opponent’s best receiver every down, and he’s going to win the majority of the time. He has incredible instincts and ball skills, and I don’t know that there are many corners like him in the league right now.

If this ranking was based solely on last season, Drake Maye would easily be in the top-10. However, this isn’t based on 2025, so I’m going to have to see him do it again against a tougher schedule before I’m ready to call Maye a top-10 player in the league.

But that’s not an insult to Maye. He’s a terrific player who had a fantastic 2025 season, and with A.J. Brown and Romeo Doubs getting added to the mix, he could be in the MVP race once again and find himself in the top-10 next year. But again, I just need to see him do it twice before I put him that high.

Kyle Hamilton is one of my favorite players in the league. Do you know how good you have to be to make as big of an impact at safety as he does? Just use this stat, for example. In the four games Hamilton has missed in his career, the Ravens have given up an average of 27 points per game. But when he plays, that number drops to 19.5. Hamilton only missed one game last year, but the Ravens gave up 44 points in that game. In the 16 games he played, they gave up an average of 22.1.

Safety is another position that doesn’t get a whole lot of love, because most of the time their impact on the game is pretty small compared to others, but Hamilton is one of the few safeties that can truly change a defense by himself.

Rounding out our list this week at No. 21 is none other than Joe Burrow. The Cincinnati Bengals star quarterback was incredibly hard to rank because when he’s on the field, he’s incredible, but the best ability is availability, and the truth is he’s just not available that much.

In six seasons in the NFL, Burrow has played 11+ games in three of them, and in each, he has thrown for 4,400+ yards and 34+ touchdowns in each of them. But he also has three seasons where he’s played 10 games or fewer.

When he’s on the field, he has a case for being a top-three quarterback in the league, but you have to be healthy if you want to stay in those conversations.