Over the course of last week, the NFL revealed #20-11 on the NFL’s Top 100 Players of 2026 rankings. If you haven’t heard of it before, this list is a ranking of the “best 100 players currently in the NFL as voted on by active players,” and is yet another accolade for these tenaciously talented athletes to covet. All players respect a vote of confidence from their peers, and Houston’s uber-talented roster has received some of the most attention of all teams.
Last Friday, the NFL revealed the final
spots before the top 10, and Texans DE Will Anderson Jr. was #12 on the list!
Anderson, who will turn 25 on on September 2nd and is entering fourth NFL season, has already earned admiration from the vast majority of his peers. Indianapolis Colts TE Mo Alie-Cox despairs at Anderson’s get-off speed as the ball is snapped, and Seahawks guard Grey Label goes as far to say, “I think he’s starting to enter the conversation of, like, a top three, top five pass rusher in the NFL right now.” I guess when you make a weekly habit of flying around blockers like a rogue boomerang and averaging 10.0 sacks a year, people start to notice! Anderson’s final stats of the 2026 season were:
- 19 Games (19 Starts – Incl. Playoffs)
- 54 Combined Tackles
- 17.0 Sacks, 24 QB Hits, 102 Total Pressures (Incl. Playoffs)
- 3 Pass Deflections, 6 Forced Fumbles (Incl. Playoffs), 2 Fumble Recoveries, 1 Fumble Recovered for a Touchdown
- 779 Total Snaps, 93.4 OFF Grade (78.6 RDEF, 51.5 TACK, 92.8 PRSH, 76.9 COV)
- Pro-Bowl, First Team All-Pro
This marks, in all likelihood, the last Texan on the NFL Top 100 players of 2026 list. Anderson’s 12th-place finish is the highest a Houston Texans player has landed on this list since 2019, when WR DeAndre Hopkins ranked 11th following his 1,572-yard. 11-touchdown campaign in 2018. Anderson actually tied DE J.J. Watt at 12th on this same list (both in 2019 and in 2014), making Anderson the highest ranked Texans defender since Watt was ranked 3rd in 2016. It’s still early in his career, but Will Anderson is already surrounding himself with very, very good company.
Anderson is also the fifth Texans player to be named in this Top 100, tying a franchise record of Texans on the list that was made last year. The full list this year includes:
- LB Azeez Al- Shaair (#92 – Was Unranked Last Year)
- WR Nico Collins (#58 – Was #32 Last Year)
- CB Derek Stingley, Jr. (#25 – Was #18 Last Year)
- DE Danielle Hunter (#23 – Was #25 Last Year)
- DE Will Anderson, Jr. (#12 – Was #46 Last Year)
Note: LB Azeez Al-Shaair is making his first appearance in the Top 100 this year, and QB C.J. Stroud has fallen off the list since last year.
Click here to see Houston’s 2025 Rankings
Click here to see Houston’s 2024 Rankings
All three levels of Houston’s swarming defense are represented on the top 100. Many things are difficult when it comes to being a Texans fan, but at this moment in time, we can take solace in bearing witness to one of the most complete defensive rosters to ever grace a professional football field.
Rarely has a group of players so talented, aggressive, smart, and instinctive ever been brought under the same roof to represent one franchise, and it may be years until we ever see something like this again. This Top 100 group represents Houston’s sheer dominance on defense, but it also reflects the lopsided view many hold of the Texans team as of late. WR Nico Collins is the only offensive player on this list, and QB C.J. Stroud has fallen entirely off the Top 100 after being ranked in each of his first two years. Not the trajectory you want your franchise signal-caller to be going, but it’s worth bearing in mind that this is not a “definitive” ranking of players in the NFL. There are pro-bowl, superstar caliber players that miss the Top 100 all the time, and even though Stroud was certainly not either one of those things in 2025, his year was at least comparable to what it was in 2024, if not better. What I believe knocked him off this season’s rankings were his performances in the playoffs against the Pittsburgh Steelers and New England Patriots. Those were arguably his worst two games in his NFL career, and it’ll be hard to wipe those off his record for a long while.
Unfortunately, no Texans players made the top ten this year, so we have seen the last Houston player to make the Top 100. But, there’s still multiple Texans players that I think deserved to appear somewhere on this list, even if they don’t carry the reputation others do. The best Texans players to be snubbed a Top 100 spot are:
- CB Kamari Lassiter
- S Jalen Pitre
- S Calen Bullock
- RG Ed Ingram
- QB C.J. Stroud
Bullock and Ingram missing the ranking is understandable, but I’ve been scratching my head as to how Pitre nor Lassiter missed the cutoff for the last several days. You could argue that Kamari Lassiter had just as good of a season in 2025 as his 25th-ranked counterpart in Derek Stingley, Jr., yet he didn’t even crack the list. Jalen Pitre has virtually personified the phrase, “hard-hitting defender” and has succeeded in making the NFL’s Guardian Cap appear more like a weapon than a piece of protective headgear, and yet, he couldn’t even get enough votes to pass up Saints DE Cameron Jordan? Sounds pretty suspect to me, but hey, they’re the players, and they can vote on themselves however they see fit.
What do you think of where these Texans players landed on the Top 100? Should Will Anderson or some other players been ranked higher? Should C.J. Stroud have appeared on the list? Are there any other Texans that should have landed in the Top 100, like Pitre or Lassiter? Let us know your thoughts on the rankings down in the comments below!
Go Texans!
