Ranking the top 25 Chiefs for the 2026 season

Welcome to list season. Pick your poison.

In one corner, we have the ever-disorienting “NFL Top 100” that serves as a reminder that you — yes, you! — know more about Creed Humphrey than most NFL players.

In another corner, we have the ESPN front-office-surveying exercise that included at least one voter who believes that Patrick Mahomes is the ninth-best quarterback in football. At this point in the offseason, we have more rankings than collective brain cells.

Joshua Brisco@jbbrisco

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12:50 PM · Jul 13, 2026 · 2.25K Views

3 Replies · 2 Reposts · 13 Likes

In an attempt to deliver one of the internet’s only good football-based offseason rankings, Jordan Foote and I completed our list of the top 25 Chiefs players for the 2026 season over on Chiefs On SI. There’s plenty of room to nitpick, but Jordan and I ultimately didn’t have many significant disagreements, and the exercise revealed a few interesting things about the Chiefs’ roster.

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Seven of our top eight players come from the offensive side of the ball, with Chris Jones (ranked No. 3) as the only outlier. I’m not entirely sure what to do with that fact, considering that six of those seven players were part of the Chiefs’ floundering offense last season, with Kenneth Walker (No. 5) as the only noteworthy addition.

This cluster of offensive talent could support the Chiefs’ offseason focus on a defensive rejuvenation (with the idea that the offense was torpedoed by coaching and running back problems in 2025), or it could be a flashing red light to remind us that a very similar unit was not good enough last season.

Players seven through 12 (a cluster including Josh Simmons, Rashee Rice, George Karlaftis and Xavier Worthy) have extremely high ceilings, but most of those players haven’t yet achieved their full potential. If 2026 brings a career year for any of the wide receivers or Karlaftis, the Chiefs are in a solid place. If that group ends the year with more potential than production, it could be another frustrating season.

Players No. 13 (Nick Bolton) through 18 (Chamarri Conner) include five defensive question marks. Bolton is a positive force for Steve Spagnuolo’s defense, but he carries a $19 million cap hit this year (fourth-highest on the team) — a steep number for a player who ranks in the teens.

Alohi Gilman (No. 14) and Khyiris Tonga (No. 15) were the Chiefs’ “big” defensive free agent additions this offseason. Their contracts are reasonable, but their ranking serves as a reminder that the Chiefs made floor-raising signings on defense, not game-changing ones. That’s still understandable — Mansoor Delane, Peter Woods and R Mason Thomas are the players who they hope become long-term foundational game-wreckers — but that leaves significant immediate pressure on the rookie class.

For the full rankings, click here and scroll to the bottom of the page. You can then click player names for full stories detailing why the players landed where they did.

Everything Else with Joshua Brisco is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever you get your podcasts.