Myles Garrett’s new locker room neighbor is the actual reigning NFL MVP, and even he didn’t finish ahead of Garrett in the vote that matters here. Matthew Stafford won the 2025 award outright. Josh Allen, the guy who spent most of the season as the presumptive favorite, finished third. So when NFL Network’s Top 100 Players of 2026 landed with Garrett at No. 1 and Allen at No. 2, the easy read is that Rams hype inflated a defensive end past a quarterback having an MVP-caliber year.
The data says close to the opposite. This is a player-voted list, peers grading peers rather than a media panel, and that distinction changes what the ranking actually measures. It’s not who produced the better box score. It’s who NFL players are least willing to face on a given Sunday. Garrett had the best season by that measure of anyone in the league, and the numbers back the vote up even where the vibes don’t.
What Garrett’s Peers Actually Voted On
Start with the sacks. Garrett finished 2025 with 23, breaking the single-season record that Michael Strahan and T.J. Watt had shared at 22.5 since 2001 and 2021. He also led the league with 33 tackles for loss, which is the stat that actually tells the story: it means an offense’s manageable third down became a long one almost every time he lined up.
Add a second Defensive Player of the Year award, won unanimously, and Garrett became just the ninth player in NFL history to win it twice. That’s the résumé.
None of that happened quietly, either. Garrett got traded from the Browns to the Rams in June for Jared Verse and three draft picks, then walked into a Top 100 rollout that put three of his new teammates in the top 10: Garrett at No. 1, Stafford at No. 4, and Puka Nacua at No. 7, with Bijan Robinson jumping to No. 3 on the same list. NFL Network posted the top of the rankings as they came out:
https://twitter.com/NFL/status/2095530671334736018
My dad has made this exact case about death bowlers in the IPL for years: the number that ends up in a highlight reel matters less than the one hitters are already thinking about before they ever step in. Garrett is that number for every quarterback on the schedule.
Why Isn’t Josh Allen No. 1 on the NFL Top 100?
Josh Allen ranked No. 2 despite 39 total touchdowns, the most rushing scores by any quarterback in the league, because the players who vote on this list weigh game-wrecking impact over raw production. He also wasn’t the top quarterback in real MVP voting. Stafford won that outright, and Allen finished behind Drake Maye too.
That last part is the detail that actually reframes this whole debate. Allen finished third in the 2025 AP MVP vote, with 91 points and two first-place votes, behind Stafford’s 24 and Maye’s 23. That’s the tightest MVP race since 2003. The “the quarterback clearly had the better year” argument, the one Garrett’s doubters keep leaning on, doesn’t survive contact with the actual ballot.
Not every ranking agrees on this, for what it’s worth. CBS Sports’ Pete Prisco list, which isn’t player-voted, has Allen at No. 3 instead of No. 2. That’s a different panel measuring a different question. The NFL Network vote, the one players themselves fill out every year, is the one driving this conversation, and it’s the one that put a pass rusher over a quarterback plenty of outlets spent the fall calling an MVP frontrunner.
The Rams Stacked the Top 10 and Still Ranked Garrett First
If the theory is that Rams players just showed up in force and inflated one of their own, the roster composition argues against it. The same voter pool that ranked Garrett No. 1 also had Stafford, fresh off his own extension and an MVP trophy, sitting right there at No. 4. They had Nacua, one of the most productive receivers in the league, at No. 7. Three chances to reward a teammate they already liked, and the pass rusher still finished ahead of all of them. That includes the guy who actually won the MVP award Allen spent the season chasing.
The Last Defender to Do This Un-Retired to Play Next to Him
Garrett is the first defensive player to top the Top 100 since Aaron Donald did it in 2019. Every year since went to a skill-position player instead: Lamar Jackson in 2020, Patrick Mahomes twice, Tom Brady, Tyreek Hill, Saquon Barkley last year. Six straight seasons where the fear-factor economy ran through quarterbacks and playmakers, until this one broke the pattern.
And Donald isn’t just a historical footnote here. He came out of retirement in August on a one-year, $20 million deal to line up next to Garrett, after Sean McVay reportedly called him for input on the Garrett trade before Donald decided to unretire at all. The only other defender to pull off a No. 1 vote in the last seven years chose to come back specifically to play alongside the guy who just did it again.
That’s the whole case, laid out by the people who actually have to block him or throw over him twice a year. Nobody unseats Garrett at No. 1 until somebody else manufactures that same fear across a full season. Right now, nobody else has.
