Back Garrett, beware Anderson Jr. in DPOY futures
Jay Croucher looks at the futures market for NFL DPOY in 2026, explaining how the award correlates with "high pedigree" players and why Micah Parsons won't be a factor before spotlighting Myles Garrett as the favorite.
Video Transcript
Okay, let's talk defensive player of the year.
Myles Garrett is the favorite at plus 450 to go back-to-back after breaking the sack record.
Will Anderson is seven to one.
Aidan Hutchinson is plus 850.
This is an award historically that has heavily weighted to pedigree.
A couple years ago, T.J. Watt almost won with 11, 12 sacks, largely because his name is T.J. Watt and there just weren't enough other high pedigree candidates that year.
I find myself every year in this award betting on Myles Garrett or betting on Micah Parsons, because those are the guys who just, they show up in terms of their underlying stats.
They usually have the sack numbers.
Micah hasn't had huge sack numbers in the past, but the pressures are there.
The PFS-- PFF pass rush grade, pass rush win rate, all of that, it all ties in and it's all linked to pedigree as well.
The best guys tend to have the best underlying numbers naturally.
Micah Parsons is not gonna factor into this award this year, I expect, just given that he's not expected back until week four, week five, week six, and he's going to need, he'll-- he won't get the numbers, I think, because of the time that he's going to miss.
I think Myles Garrett is the clear rightful favorite in this market.
I do think there is a little bit of uncertainty just going from that Jim Schwartz scheme in Cleveland to a Rams team where it might just look different, and we don't know how that is going to lend itself, to Garrett just accumulating stats.
And Garrett now starting to get a little bit older.
He can still- he can decline a little bit and still be the best defensive player in football, but there's enough uncertainty there with Garrett that I don't think he is some absolute shoo-in, though I think he is tier one, the rightful favorite, by himself in this market.
Further down the board, Will Anderson at seven to one.
I worry a little bit about Will Anderson because, one, I think his case is gonna be more tied to team defense than it is to just stat accumulation.
And that can be a little bit difficult with team defenses, which just can fluctuate year to year.
You can just get a little bit unlucky and you end up with the number five defense instead of the number one defense.
That could be the difference between Will Anderson winning or losing this award.
Also, I'm not sure it's great that Danielle Hunter is opposite Will Anderson and has a chance to have more sacks than Anderson, which wouldn't be ideal for Anderson's DPOY case.
And then the other thing too is that Aidan Hutchinson, the third guy on this board, he played 30% more snaps than Will Anderson last year, despite them playing the same amount of games.
So Anderson, he does come off the field, Hutch doesn't.
And the Lions defense isn't going to be great, but Hutch is just gonna be out there every snap, and they have a very easy schedule, so he should have a lot of game script as well in his favor to rush the passer.
So I think those top three, they are the correct three at the top, and I think there's a huge gap.
But the guy who most fascinates me in this market and the guy who I bet at these prices, Abdul Carter is 35 to one.
Now, he had a somewhat inglorious rookie year, on the headline numbers.
He didn't get a ton of sacks, but he got the pressures.
And pressure to sack conversion is very noisy year to year.
Abdul Carter led the NFL in quick pressures, pressures under two and a half seconds.
So I would bet on his talent.
Obviously, third overall pick, generational prospect.
I would bet on him converting more sacks and just the talent coming to the fore as a long shot
