{"id":18323,"date":"2021-08-04T14:51:15","date_gmt":"2021-08-04T14:51:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/?p=18323"},"modified":"2021-08-04T14:51:17","modified_gmt":"2021-08-04T14:51:17","slug":"predicting-the-defensive-player-of-the-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/nfl\/predicting-the-defensive-player-of-the-year\/","title":{"rendered":"PREDICTING THE DEFENSIVE PLAYER OF THE YEAR"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

BY ADAM GREENE<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our Defensive Player of the Year for 2020, if you went only by your Twitter feed, came down to the wire last season as Los Angeles Rams defensive lineman Aaron Donald eked by Pittsburgh Steelers edge rusher T.J. Watt to claim the award.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of course, that was just Twitter. In actuality, it was never close. Watt ended the season with 15 sacks to lead the league to go with 53 tackles. Donald had 13.5 sacks to go with 45 tackles. Watt did that while getting double teamed around 16 percent of the time with a 23.6 percent pass rush win rate. Donald was double teamed more than 70 percent of the time with a 25.1 percent pass rush win rate<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Watt is playing at an elite level other players at his position have reached before. Donald is doing things only one man has ever done before. And that man is Aaron Donald.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So where does Donald, the guy that\u2019s won the award three out of the last four seasons, land on the odds? It might surprise you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here\u2019s your contenders according to the odds:<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Myles Garrett +300<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Aaron Donald +550<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chase Young +900<\/p>\n\n\n\n

T.J. Watt +1000<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nick Bosa +1200<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Joey Bosa +1600<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Khalil Mack +2000<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Devin White +2200<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Derwin James +2800<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Darius Leonard +3300<\/p>\n\n\n\n

J.J. Watt +3300<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bobby Wagner +3300<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jalen Ramsey +3300<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Minkah Fitzpatrick +3300<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shaquil Barrett +3300<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Von Miller +3300<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Xavien Howard +4000<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chandler Jones +4000<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jamal Adams +4000<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Marcus Peters +4000<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Demarcus Lawrence +4000<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tre\u2019Davious White +4000<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tyrann Mathieu +4000<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Danielle Hunter +4000<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stephon Gilmore +4000<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jason Pierre-Paul +4000<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Za\u2019Darius Smith +5000<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Patrick Peterson +5000<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Leonard Williams +5000<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chris Jones +5000<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jadeveon Clowney +6600<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Devin Bush +6600<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Deforest Buckner +6600<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cameron Jordan +6600<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Richard Sherman +6600<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bud Dupree +6600<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trey Hendrickson +6600<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fletcher Cox +6600<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Montez Sweat +6600<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Brian Burns +6600<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Frank Clark +6600<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Darius Slay +10000<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kyle Van Noy +10000<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Myles Garrett (+300) as the favorite is an interesting choice, as he did not match either Donald or Watt last year statistically or even in his career. Last year, Garrett had 12 sacks, 48 tackles and 10 tackles for a loss. A great one, a Pro Bowl and All Pro season. Still, it\u2019s not in the DPotY league.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Does that make Aaron Donald (+550) the best bet again? Yes, barring injury and even with a new defensive coordinator Raheem Morris taking over for Brandon Staley, Donald is definitely the smart money pick and considering they\u2019re giving you +550, be thankful and jump on it as soon as you can. Frankly, it\u2019s the closest to a sure thing as you\u2019re going to get in any of these postseason awards races and, if Donald somehow doesn\u2019t win it, like he didn\u2019t in 2019, when he had just as good a season as he did last year but the Rams didn\u2019t make the playoffs, you\u2019ll at least know you made the wisest choice with your cash.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Is there anyone else on the list worth looking at? Sure. Regardless of what Donald does on the inside, if a guy like T.J. Watt (+1000) hits 20 or more sacks, he\u2019ll probably take the hardware. Chase Young of the Washington Football Team is third in the odds, but the guy never hit double digits last season. He could have a breakthrough year and still not reach 15 sacks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s interesting that the guys not named Aaron Donald that recently won it, Stephon Gilmore (+4000), J.J. Watt (+3300) and Khalil Mack (+2000) aren\u2019t top contenders, though Mack is seventh in the odds. Mack, with the Chicago Bears, would need a serious bounce back season. He\u2019s not hit double digit sacks since 2018. Gilmore is in a contract impasse with the New England Patriots and is currently on their \u201cinjured\u201d list. Watt hasn\u2019t been fully healthy since 2018 and that was after two nearly lost seasons. He\u2019s played just two full 16-game slates twice since 2015, including last year when he amassed just five sacks, but did have 52 tackles with 14 for a loss.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Richard Sherman (+6600) is still a free agent and not likely to sign anywhere after getting arrested recently with what appears to be some kind of mental health issue<\/a>. Frank Clark (+6600) of the Kansas City Chiefs will probably open the season on the NFL\u2019s Commissioner\u2019s Exempt List as a defacto suspension after getting busted with an illegal firearm in the back of his car<\/a>. You can go ahead and mark through both of those guys.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

WFT\u2019s Montez Sweat (+6600) had nine sacks and 45 tackles last season, not enough to get into the mix if he matches it this year. And he probably won\u2019t, as he\u2019s made his disdain for the COVID-19 vaccine known and Washington is one of the least vaccinated teams in the league. It\u2019ll be a miracle if he plays a full season without catching the plague.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Is there any dark horses worth looking at? I can\u2019t see Jalen Ramsey (+3300) getting the stats required, as teams will just not throw at him in LA\u2019s defense. The best option I have for you is Von Miller (+3300), coming back from injury with the Denver Broncos. A healthy Miller is almost guaranteed to put up a double-digit sack total in 16 games. In his second season he picked up 18.5 sacks, which last year might have won it, regardless of what Donald was able to do. If Miller can hit 20, and he has the capability, there\u2019s no way that can be ignored.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But all this is to just come back to my original thought here and that\u2019s Donald. If he plays a full season, in the Rams\u2019 defense which was ranked No. 1 in the league last year largely because of what he does, it will take a superhuman effort from some other guy to overtake him for Defensive Player of the Year. I don\u2019t see it happening.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The NFL season begins on Thursday, Sep. 9 and the Week 1 Schedule is already up and taking bets at BetOnline.AG<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Follow our BetOnline Twitter accoun<\/a>t for the latest sports news and betting odds, and stay tuned on the Instagram feed<\/a> for more good information too.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BY ADAM GREENE Our Defensive Player of the Year for 2020, if you went only by your Twitter feed, came…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":17750,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[129],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18323","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nfl"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18323","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18323"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18323\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18327,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18323\/revisions\/18327"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17750"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18323"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18323"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18323"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}