There is daylight between Bontempelli and Cripps. It's not a slight on Cripps, just the reality. Bontempelli is certainly within the best five midfielders in the competition. Martin, Fyfe and Dangerfield are the only midfielders that people would be unanimous if wanting to play for them across the next 21 games alone, without taking the next 10 years into consideration. Bontempelli was already elite in 2015, but probably underrated because it took a while to "realise" how efficient his performances were - AFL Player Ratings Points had him top 10 in the competition in 2015,
and you had me making this thread in May of 2015 alerting people to the fact - I was onto it six rounds into the 2015 season, blowing my own trumpet for a second here. In many ways, and by many measures, Bontempelli played no better than he did in 2016 than he did in 2015, apart from proving consistency across a larger sample size - so his reputation built from the fact we had a two year sample size, not so much he was playing better in 2016 than 2015.
Cripps is a very, very good player no doubt, but until he starts using the ball better on the outside, and/or his clearance work actually has a greater impact on Carlton's clearance ability as a whole (Carlton are neither a dominant clearance differential, or a score from clearance differential team), he's a level below Merrett and Bontempelli. I'd say Merrett's 2016 season was 99.5% of Bontempelli's 2015 season, and similarly to Bontempelli he doesn't have to actually improve on his 2015 performances for his stock to rise - it's more about building reputation and proving his performances over a larger sample size. Until then, there's daylight between Bontempelli to Merrett, then daylight from Merrett to Cripps, although Merrett's catching up to Bontempelli very quickly as he proves his performances over a larget sample size.