Myles Garrett set the NFL single-season sack record with 23 in 2025, won his second Defensive Player of the Year award in unanimous fashion, then got dealt to a Super Bowl contender. All of it landed him as the No. 1 edge rusher on Pro Football Network’s Top 100 Players of 2026.
“Generational gets used way too often to describe a football player,” PFN’s Jacob Infante said on the Hot List. “I think it’s fair to use with Myles Garrett. He’s that good of a player.” The three-year evaluation window only helps his case. Garrett led the NFL with 33 tackles for loss in 2025, a year after leading it with 22, and he has 125.5 sacks in nine seasons.
Why Myles Garrett Leads PFN’s Top Edge Rushers Entering 2026
The June trade to the Los Angeles Rams changes his uniform, not his standing. Garrett cost Los Angeles pass rusher Jared Verse and a package headlined by a 2027 first-round pick, the price of adding the best defensive player alive to a roster already built to win now.
Behind him sits the most chaotic subplot of the offseason. Maxx Crosby checks in at No. 2, and his spring nearly ended somewhere other than Las Vegas. The Raiders agreed to send him to Baltimore in early March, only for the Ravens to void the deal when he failed his physical, a lingering concern tied to the meniscus surgery he had in January. Crosby stayed put.
“Whenever you have Crosby on your defensive line, that’s a massive thing to have, because Crosby’s just been so good for so long,” Infante said. “He plays like a bat out of hell.” The tape backs it up. Crosby posted 10 sacks and a career-high 28 tackles for loss in 2025, plus a fifth straight Pro Bowl.
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Aidan Hutchinson ranks third, and his 2025 answered the only real question left about him. He fractured his leg midway through 2024 and missed 12 games, then came back for a career-high 14.5 sacks, fourth in the league, and finished as a finalist for both Comeback Player of the Year and Defensive Player of the Year. “The questions were immediately answered, and the answer was he’s going to do just fine,” Infante said. “Hutchinson’s that dude.”
Will Anderson Jr. Is Climbing Toward the Top
The names at Nos. 4 and 5 share a locker room, and Houston paid to keep them there. Will Anderson Jr. lands fourth after a 12-sack, first-team All-Pro season that ended with a runner-up finish in Defensive Player of the Year voting. In April, the Texans made him the highest-paid non-quarterback in league history on a three-year, $150 million extension.
Infante thinks the ranking is only temporary. “This time next year, Anderson’s going to have a top-10 ranking on this list, and I’m not talking just edge rushers, I’m talking the PFN top 100 as a whole,” he said. Anderson is 24, and he has gotten better in each of his three seasons. “It doesn’t matter if an offensive tackle is 320, 330 pounds,” Infante said. “Anderson is so technically sound and he’s so dense. He’s going to find a way around you or through you.”
Danielle Hunter rounds out the five. Hunter piled up 15 sacks in 2025 and earned Second-Team All-Pro honors, though he was snubbed from the Pro Bowl, and he re-signed on a one-year, $40.1 million extension. “If you’re looking for somebody who’s going to get after the quarterback, Danielle Hunter is absolutely your guy,” Infante said. The career five-time Pro Bowler and Anderson give Houston two of the five best edge rushers in football.
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The rankings capture 2025, but the ground has already shifted. Garrett rushes for a new team, Crosby’s exit collapsed on a physical, and Houston bet record money that its tandem holds together. The one constant is Anderson, still climbing, and the only name here young enough to make next year’s list look very different.
