NFL Awards betting preview
The valuable bets to start portfolios for MVP, OPOY, DPOY, OROY, DROY, Comeback Player of the Year, and Coach of the Year
Mainstream (non-gambling) sports media got boring.
Eventually, you realize the hot takes or overreactions go unchecked, and that there are literally no stakes to a radio- or TV-hosts “predictions.” It’s nice work if you can get it.
It’s why things like THE WINDOW exists - for sports fans who want a little more, with bets placed to back it up.
As useless as the standard programming is for picking games and claiming “value” with no analytical backing, when it comes to betting high-profile awards - where we’re actually putting our money where our mouth is - you have to at least listen to what the buzz is around player candidacy.
Why? Because those are the types of people voting on the awards, and therefore deciding who will win. They value stats - but not the ones you and I do - and they also love a good story.
Most importantly, they have next-to-no long-term memory.
We’ve already looked at the counting stats for passers, receivers, and rushers. All markets where the yards and touchdowns accrued in Week 1 count just as much as those in Week 9 or Week 18.
By the time voting is done for NFL Awards, September games might as well not exist for some voters.
Knowing this quirk and how it works is half the battle. We can bide our time, keep an ear to the ground, and try to read the tea leaves as the season goes on.
BUT… it wouldn’t be any fun not to start somewhere with a value pick for each of the NFL Awards, starting a portfolio five months before NFL Honours.
Offensive Player of the Year odds
Best bet: A.J. Brown (+3438, Pinnacle)
We’re trying to deliver takes that are more lukewarm than hot, and in the form of bets that can improve in probability in the first half of the season.
You can think of the Offensive Player of the Year award as the fantasy football MVP. Like last year when we rode Christian McCaffrey, the winner will be a player that will be in the conversation for the first overall pick the following season.
Brown is a borderline first round pick in fantasy football, and roughly the seventh receiver in most rankings, so there’s room for improvement in how he’s perceived. There’s also enough doubt in the Eagles to keep their best offensive player’s odds this long, but it’s heartening to see that he’s as short as +1600 on FanDuel.
The players lower than Brown on the oddsboard are mostly quarterbacks - who rarely win this award anymore - and skill-position players without Brown’s statistical track record. Many above him have very little chance to have the best season at their position.
We would sign up for the same awesome first half of the season that Brown had last year, but with some better injury luck to Jalen Hurts and less internal coaching staff strife.
Odds’ implied win probability: 2.8%1
Estimated win probability: 7.6%2
Units: 0.2 for +7
Defensive Player of the Year odds
Best bet: Fred Warner (+10000, FanDuel)
There’s almost a career achievement award element to the Defensive Player of the Year (DPOY). In most cases, you need to be in the conversation for a year or two before getting celebrated as the league’s best.
While we might use a team defensive-metric like DVOA, voters are often more basic. Here’s a look at past winners, their biggest previous career accolade, and their unit’s yards-per-game allowed stat from the year they won and the year prior:
In some cases, like with Aaron Donald or T.J. Watt’s 22.5-sack season, singular greatness propelled the voting for the winner, but recently, it’s been more of a “MVP of a great defense who’s been on our radar” award.
After first-team All-Pro honours in 2020 and 2022, Fred Warner finally broke into the DPOY voting, finishing sixth in 2023, after racking up 132 tackles, four interceptions and four forced fumbles.
Now that he’s on the DPOY radar, if the 49ers are again in the top-3 in points allowed and top-5 in DVOA, at 27, arguably the best linebacker in the NFL might get awarded for being the 49ers’ defensive MVP. He’s 100-1 at FanDuel but as short as 35-1 elsewhere, so why not start your DPOY betting with $10 on Warner? We’ll worry about which pass rusher separates themselves from the pack later on.
Implied win probability: 1%
Estimated win probability: 7.1%
Units: 0.1 for +10
Most Sacks odds
It’s not an award, but we’ll include the betting market for Most Sacks after the DPOY, even though there’s no politicking necessary. Just get to the quarterback and add up the sacks at the end of the season.
Best best for Most Sacks
T.J. Watt (+500, FanDuel)
Usually, with a favorite in a counting stat market, I’d prefer to wait to see if a viable candidate has a slow start, but T.J. Watt is capable of a 3-sack opener. You know, like last year (against San Francisco). He also opened 2022 by ruining the Bengals, and had two sacks in an upset of the Bills in 2021. When the gun goes off, Watt’s in full sprint.
It’s just a matter of staying healthy for the Steelers’ superstar, as he’s averaged a sack per game after his rookie season, leading the league two of the last three years. With FanDuel dangling a 5-to-1 payout, I’ll buy now, with Watt’s first game happening on Atlanta’s fast track, and an immobile Kirk Cousins happy to stop, drop, and roll, if he smells Watt’s fire pass rush.
Unit: 0.8 for 4
Josh Hines-Allen (+1800, Bet365)
What if Watt misses enough time to open the door for someone else?
Only Watt had more sacks last year than Josh Hines-Allen, who, at 18-to-1, is coming off a 17.5-sack season. His pressure rate could be better, but if that improves - as you’d expect it to midway through the 27-year-old’s prime - with the Jaguars’ addition of Arik Armstead and more late-game leads, then “JHA” could get to 20.
Unit: 0.2 for 3.6
Will Anderson (+6000, FanDuel)
If last year’s Defensive Rookie of the Year is the longshot option, and he’s got a new pass-rusher running-mate on the other side (Danielle Hunter) for a team expected to have more fourth quarter leads, we could do worse.
Anderson’s a little banged-up coming into the season, but we hope an ankle injury isn’t an issue for Week 1, because six of his seven sacks came after the start of November last year. It’s quite possible that it took Anderson two months to figure out what’s required to get to the quarterback in the big league, and a sack-per-game season could be in the offing.
Unit: 0.1 for 6
Rookie of the Year
Full disclosure, rookie of the year markets are my least favorite, and the reason’s obvious - the uncertainty is compounded by the fact that less is needed statistically to beat out your fellow rookies than it is to top the entire league. A late-season surge can have an exponentially greater effect.
Offense Rookie of the Year odds
Best bet: Bo Nix (+1100, FanDuel)
I’ve already mentioned how high I am on the Broncos relative to expectations this season, and I’ll make a bet with a good payout that Sean Payton can pull the strings with Bo Nix - who was a game away from being a Heisman Trophy winner like his rookie-QB cohorts with shorter odds. Payton’s a more reliable teacher than Kliff Kingsbury (for Jayden Daniels), and Caleb Williams might force the issue too much to be lined at almost 50/50 to win.
Unit: 0.4 for 4.4
Longshot worth a look: Brock Bowers (+5000, DraftKings)
Watching on Saturdays, I heard too many times that Brock Bowers was the best player in college football. A tight end’s never going to be drafted all that high, but Daniel Jeremiah was recently on The Ryen Russillo Podcast talking about how Bowers could take camp reps with the receivers or tailbacks and wouldn’t look out of place. If a few things break right, and Gardner Minshew looks his way enough, maybe Bowers is also the best rookie in pro football.
Unit: 0.1 for 5
Defensive Rookie of the Year odds
Tease: I won’t go deeper into it until he’s listed at any sportsbook, but there’s one rookie I’ve got on the radar for when he is.
No defender was taken in the first 14 picks - a sign there’s no supreme standout talent. As a result, we want to combine opportunity with the longest odds possible, for any small bets we want to sprinkle before the season. So, none of our early plays are listed on the oddsboard above.
Here’s a list of longshots worth a couple bucks that were drafted high enough to have expectations, and with a path to significant playing time, particularly late in the season:
Max Melton (+7500, DraftKings)
Darius Robinson (+7500, FanDuel)
Ruke Orhorhoro (+15000, Bet365)
Comeback Player of the Year odds
Last season’s Comeback Player of the Year award discourse had people heated. I stood on the side of Demar Hamlin having little-to-no chance of winning, because he wasn’t going to play a significant role in team success. For the longest time, though, no one was willing to take the award away from a -200 favorite, with a big enough statistical season. Then, Joe Flacco, of all people, swooped in for a magical couple months in Cleveland.
It all forced the NFL to define this award more strictly than it had been before:
”The spirit of the AP Comeback Player of the Year award is to honor a player who has demonstrated resilience in the face of adversity by overcoming illness, physical injury or other circumstances that led him to miss playing time the previous season.”
This definition eliminates some in the middle of the oddsboard.
There’s a cluster of quarterbacks who are all returning from injury, and they’re odds fairly reflect what type of statistical season they’re expected to have.
Best bet: JK Dobbins (+4704, Pinnacle)
With most players “story” all somewhat the same, JK Dobbins is trying to comeback from multiple devastating injuries - hamstring, ACL, Achilles tears - to his right leg, but has a path to playing time as Chargers’ offensive coordinator Greg Roman says they’ll go with the “hot hand” at tailback.
Dobbins is still just 25, so he’s young enough to pull off this comeback, and, as a running back, offers a different perspective on success than the group of quarterbacks coming back from singular injuries.
Unit: 0.3 for 14
Coach of the Year odds
With the influx of talent in Chicago, Matt Eberflus won’t get award-level credit for a potential boost in the Bears’ record, so the wrong coach may be favored here.
We’re looking for coaches who will either get direct credit for turning a part of the team (oftentimes quarterback) from a weakness to a strength - translating that to surprising team success, or be the leader of a team we didn’t expect to have one of the best records in the league, but does.
Kevin O’Connell (+2194, Pinnacle)
If Kevin O’Connell can resurrect Sam Darnold - a tall task - and the Vikings make the playoffs, he’ll get the credit. Darnold wasn’t injured last year, so can’t win Comeback Player of the Year, and I rather bet O’Connell at 21-to-1 than the Vikings’ divisional price at shorter than 10-to-1.
Unit: 0.3 for 6.5
Sean Payton (+2900, Betano)
Sean Payton’s out on a limb with what he thinks Bo Nix can do, but if he calls his shot and Nix is good and Denver makes the playoffs, Payton will be lauded as an offensive mastermind again and a prime candidate for Coach of the Year.
Unit: 0.15 for 4.4
Doug Pederson (+4900, Betano)
You can get the Jaguars at +300 to win the AFC South, but if Jacksonville starts 8-3 again and finishes strong this time, they could be in the hunt for the No. 1 seed. Their odds for that are 22-1, so you’re getting double the payout here with the safety net that if the Jags fall short (of say, the Chiefs), Doug Pederson could still get the nod for getting things back on the rails in a big way in Duval County.
Unit: 0.1 for 4.9
MVP odds
Best bet: Jalen Hurts (+1400, Bet365)
You should have learned two things by now:
The MVP Award goes to the best player on the best team (and that player is going to be a quarterback) and that his stats can actually be kinda “meh” for an MVP.
Even the general discourse around Brock Purdy being a candidate last year shows that a QB is getting always credit over even the Offensive Player of the Year.
Lamar Jackson’s 3678 pass yards, 24:7 touchdown-to-interception ratio, with 847 rushing yards and five touchdowns on the ground were very good, but the Ravens’ also had the top defense in the league (as evidenced by their evisceration of Purdy in the Christmas showdown). Other quarterbacks - like Josh Allen and Dak Prescott - had better stats while carrying weaker rosters to division titles, but were passed over for the face of the league’s best team.
I expect a big bounce-back year for the Eagles.
Jalen Hurts was the hot MVP ticket before last season, but at 10-1 his odds were too short for me, knowing he’d have to deal with some internal adjustments and a Cowboys team with a cozy schedule.
A year later, and there are now as many as SEVEN quarterbacks with shorter odds than Hurts, who, if we’re right, can distribute the ball to A.J. Brown for a career-year, lean on Saquon Barkley near the goal line, while still making key plays for the Eagles on the way to 13-15 wins. Based on branding, if it’s close between Hurts and my second-choice by value, Jared Goff, I think there’s a bigger appetite to vote for Hurts.
There’s an opportunity to vanquish the reigning MVP on December 1 at Baltimore, but even if that doesn’t go well, a 5-game stretch of: Carolina, Pittsburgh, at Washington, Dallas, and the New York Giants, allows for more than enough opportunity to make up for a loss to the Ravens.
Unit: 1 for 14
Hopefully, we don’t have to add to any of these markets, but we’ll be ready if the tides turn away from our selections in the latter half of the season.
This is a translation from the best available odds to the percentage chance those odds give of the bet winning.
This is an average of the percentage number of people I think can win. If only 13 players can win, our pick is 1/13, or 7.6%