The edge rusher rankings matter for the number. That's the short version, and I'll explain why before training camps open and the market shifts.
Every summer, evaluators around the league go through this exercise, and the result is more than a prestige list. It's a signal about which defenses opposing offensive coordinators are scheming around, which pass-rush situations are genuinely elite, and which teams are overvalued in the futures market because a stud rusher masks real depth problems. When the consensus inside the league puts a guy in the top three, that player's team almost always carries a sack-adjusted defensive edge that the public win totals haven't fully priced.
I don't have the full ranked list in front of me yet. When it publishes I'm going through it position by position against the 2026 defensive efficiency projections and the current win totals. The teams I'm most focused on: any club whose top edge rusher grades into the top five but whose win total is being set like they have a replacement-level pass rush. That gap is where the value lives.
On the other side, I'm watching for teams whose rusher lands outside the top ten despite name recognition. Those are the win totals the market may have built on reputation rather than current evaluator consensus, and that's a fade candidate on the over.
The Rams are adjacent to this conversation through the related QB room news. Ty Simpson competing for the backup job in Los Angeles tells me Matthew Stafford's availability questions haven't fully resolved. If the Rams' edge depth doesn't crack the upper half of this list, their win total looks increasingly fragile from both sides of the ball.
I'll have the confirmed rankings analysis the same day the full list posts. That's when the props and futures adjustments, if any, go to the board.
