NFL Draft rankings for top-100 players available in 2026

The 2026 NFL Draft has finally arrived, and it will begin in just a few hours.

So, this is the perfect time to drop our top 100 players.

James Dator and Mark Schofield have poured through the film, looked at all the available testing, and put together this list of the top players in the draft. As we will discuss in a moment, there are factors that could see players come off the board much earlier — or much later — than we have them ranked here. Positional needs, team depth charts, medical testing, and more will all play a role starting later tonight.

For now, the rankings followed by some thoughts on these players, and the class overall.

Fernando Mendoza is going first but is ranked sixth?

Yes, Fernando Mendoza is going first tonight. There is a lot to love about Mendoza the prospect, and the person.

But while he will be the first player picked, that does not make him the top-graded player in the class. Looking at prospects in a vacuum, we have Arvell Reese, Jeremiyah Love, Caleb Downs, Sonny Styles, and cornerback Mansoor Delane graded higher.

Positional value, and a lack of other true top options at quarterback, will see Mendoza go first. And he is a very good prospect!

Just not the top player on our board.

Why is David Bailey at 10?

Opinions are mixed on David Bailey, who may very well go off the board at No. 2 to the New York Jets.

Take what Jon Ledyard, who knows pass rushers as well as anyone, had to say about him on SB Nation recently:

Bailey has the length, size and explosiveness you look for in a top pass rusher, erupting off the ball to win the edge repeatedly at the college level. Things will get harder in the NFL, where better tackles will force him to play with more nuance and consistency as a rusher. If Bailey improves his pass rush plan execution and efficiency against better competition, he’ll be in the conversation for best edge in the class despite his struggles at the point-of-attack in the run game.

Ledyard has Bailey ranked as his fourth-best EDGE in this class, while we have him at EDGE2 behind Rueben Bain Jr. Studying Bailey we saw a bit more promise to his game, and perhaps more from a pass rush plan standpoint. Some of his 14 sacks were due to scheme, and being put in a wide-9 alignment to win with pure speed off the edge, which will get tougher against top-flight offensive tackles in the NFL.

But some of his sacks did see him counter with a second move, or win to the inside with a spin move that he had set up earlier in the game.

We might not be as high on him as the Jets may be, but we still see the potential.

Is Jermod McCoy still a top-15 talent?

The reports coming out about Tennessee cornerback Jermod McCoy, and the status of his knee, are not good. Beyond the surgically repaired ACL is news that doctors used a “bone plug” to repair a cartilage defect in his knee, that will require a second surgery. If this is starting to feel to you like the fall of Will Johnson a year ago, you are not alone.

But based on purely McCoy’s 2024 film … this is a top prospect in the class.

Again, we are not doctors. This is where a team will need to trust their medical personnel and make a tough decision.

Where is the depth of this class?

If you need help in the trenches, whether on offense or on defense, this is a good year.

Of our top 50 players, ten are offensive linemen — seven offensive tackles and three interior tackles. There are also eight EDGE players, along with four defensive tackles, in our top 50. If you expand the trenches a bit to include off-ball linebackers, there are another six players in the top 50 at that position.

We should note that we are including Arvell Reese as a linebacker here for ranking purposes, even though he might be more of an EDGE in the NFL.

That is where the depth is, along the line of scrimmage. If you need a quarterback this year, for example, you might want to kick that decision to next year, unless you are the Las Vegas Raiders.