Ranking the top 10 NFL players at every position, plus best training camp battles and red flags for contenders

Hello football friends, and welcome to the Thursday edition of the Pick Six newsletter!

>This is your final newsletter of the week, so I'm going to remind you now to please hug your family this weekend. Why? Because football comes back next week, so you might not see your family until February.

>We have the Hall of Fame Game next Thursday (Aug. 6), and one week after that, the rest of the NFL preseason kicks off. Then the regular season will be here, then the playoffs, and before you know it, I'll be writing this newsletter while hanging upside down from the HOLLYWOOD sign as I prepare to cover Super Bowl 61 in Los Angeles. But let's not get ahead of ourselves.

>Before I cover the Super Bowl, I'll be busy covering training camp in Cincinnati, and that starts today with the Bengals' second practice of the week (you can follow my coverage on social media here). Speaking of training camp, we'll be ranking the top camp battles in today's newsletter, and we'll also rank the top 10 players at EVERY POSITION, so this is a big day. Let's get to the rundown.

>As always, here's your daily reminder to tell all your friends to sign up for the newsletter. To get them signed up, all you have to do is click here.

>This is our final newsletter of July, and we're going to go out with a bang by ranking the top 10 players at every offensive position in the NFL. Zach Pereles rounded up 12 of our experts here at CBS Sports, and they all voted on the best players at each position.

>We're going to check out the top five quarterbacks before taking a look at the top five running backs.

>Top 5 QB ranking 1. Josh Allen 2. Patrick Mahomes 3. Matthew Stafford 4. Joe Burrow  5. Lamar Jackson

>That's right, Patrick Mahomes is not at the top of this list. If this ranking were based purely on postseason success, Allen wouldn't be No. 1, but the Bills QB has been nearly unstoppable during the regular season throughout his career, including in 2024, when he won NFL MVP, so he gets the top spot.

>Top 5 RB ranking 1. Bijan Robinson 2. Jahmyr Gibbs 3. Jonathan Taylor 4. Derrick Henry 5. Christian McCaffrey

>The top two players on this list both sat out practice Wednesday, and it appears they're both staging hold-ins. Both guys want to get contract extensions done, and we likely won't see them on the practice field until that happens.

>Earlier this week, Ryan Wilson broke down why the Falcons and Lions should be looking to get a deal done as quickly as possible. The guy who signs first is likely going to land a record-breaking contract, only to watch the other guy break that record when he signs his deal. Basically, you want to be the guy who signs second in this situation.

>As for all of our other top-10 lists, you can check out our rankings for every offensive position here.

>Now that we've ranked the best players on the offensive side of the ball, let's flip things over to the defense. For this part, we're going to check out the top five EDGE rushers and top five cornerbacks as voted on by our panel.

>Top 5 EDGE rushers 1. Myles Garrett 2. Micah Parsons 3. Will Anderson Jr. 4. Aidan Hutchinson 5. Maxx Crosby

>Although we didn't have a single player on the offensive side of the ball who was unanimously ranked first at his position, it happened four times on defense. Myles Garrett, DT Jeffrey Simmons, LB Fred Warner and S Kyle Hamilton each received all 12 first-place votes at their position.

>Top 5 cornerbacks 1. Patrick Surtain II 2. Derek Stingley Jr.  3. Devon Witherspoon 4. Christian Gonzalez 5. Quinyon Mitchell

>If you want to see how the rest of the rankings broke down on the defensive side of the ball, we've got them here.

>We opened the week by breaking down some of the biggest training camp storylines in the NFC, and since we don't want the AFC to feel left out, we're turning our attention to that conference today.

>Tyler Sullivan came up with one key storyline for each of the AFC's 16 teams. Let's check out what he had to say about three of them:

>There are 16 teams in the AFC, and we've got one big training camp storyline for each of them here.

>When it comes to training camp, QB battles seem to get all the headlines around the NFL, but there are plenty of other position battles worth watching. Jordan Dajani came up with a list of the five most important non-QB battles to keep an eye on. Let's check out three of them:

>If you want to know which training camp battles to watch, Dajani has the full list here.

>The Rams are the heavy favorite to win the Super Bowl this year, but as we all know, the NFL is unpredictable and being the favorite guarantees nothing. Every Super Bowl contender has at least one red flag that could keep it from winning the Lombardi Trophy.

>Jared Dubin was kind enough to go through each contender and identify its biggest concern. The top three Super Bowl favorites are the Rams, Bills and Ravens, so let's check out their red flags.

>It's been a busy few days around the NFL, and since it's nearly impossible to keep track of everything, I put together a quick roundup for you.