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🏈 10 NFL Players Set to Step Up in 2026

Plus: Introducing PFF Pro, most and least-hit QBs since 2006, big time throw to turnover-worthy play ratio, and more.

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September 7, 2026 4:05pm EDT

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10 NFL Players Set to Step up in 2026

Kerby Joseph and Brian Branch are both starting the year on PUP, so Avonte Maddox — a former reserve who quietly posted a 79.1 PFF grade over 342 snaps last year — becomes one of the most important names on the Lions' defense.

He's not the only one. From Micah Parsons' ACL to Laremy Tunsil's triceps to Josh Jacobs' Commissioner's Exempt status, injuries and suspensions have created 10 major openings across the league. Here are their 10 replacements being asked to step up in their absence.

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10 Interesting Charts You Can Build With PFF's New Data Viz Builder

Ten NFL offenses finished above league average in both EPA per pass play and EPA per run play last season, and only Buffalo and the Rams cleared +0.20 through the air while staying positive on the ground. That's the kind of insight a single ranking hides, and it's one of 10 charts we built with PFF's brand-new Scatter Builder. Explore how every team and player stacks up visually, in seconds, with PFF Pro.

VIEW ALL 10 CHARTS

For more data you can only find in PFF Pro, checkout our analysis on another exclusive Premium Stats Pro metric: big time throw to turnover worthy play ratio.

The Most (and Least) Hit QBs in PFF History

Justin Herbert absorbed 149 contact events on 691 dropbacks last season — 8.76 per game, the highest rate of any full-season starter. It was his sixth straight year above 13%. Only Andrew Luck's most punishing seasons compare. We dug into 20 years of PFF data to find the most-hit and least-hit quarterbacks of the era — and to explain why 2025 saw the highest league-wide contact rate ever recorded.

VIEW THE FULL 20-YEAR BREAKDOWN

Introducing PFF Pro: A New Subscription Tier Featuring More Data & API Access

PFF Pro is officially live: every stat, every story, for people who build their own numbers off ours.

Pro sits at the top of the PFF+ lineup, built for the deepest level of research:

📊 Premium Stats Pro with deeper splits, custom filters, full-season exports and custom data visualizations – all inside a fresh, faster interface

🧠 PFF Guru AI at our highest usage tier

🔄 API access to pull PFF data straight into your own models

Need more reasons to go Pro? We've got them. In Premium Stat Pro, we added 50+ new data points, including pressure and sack rates for offensive and defensive linemen, rebuilt and visualized our proprietary strength of schedule metric, and offer the deepest advanced data on college football out there.

UPGRADE NOW

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Tua wins the job in Atlanta 1️⃣

The Falcons have a new Week 1 starter for the fifth straight year as Tua Tagovailoa beat out Michael Penix Jr. Here's how.

The 10 best pass rush duos of the PFF era 🐴

Von Miller and DeMarcus Ware set the standard in 2015. See the 10 best pass-rushing duos of the PFF era, ranked.

CFB: Sayin and Manning put up elite grades in Week 1 🏈

Arch Manning put up a 90.7 PFF passing grade. Julian Sayin was even better. They meet Saturday.

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🏈 10 NFL Players Set to Step Up in 2026

Plus: Introducing PFF Pro, most and least-hit QBs since 2006, big time throw to turnover-worthy play ratio, and more.

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