An Early Look at Offensive Player of the Year

     With 11 weeks of the 2024 NFL season down, many people are starting to come up with their picks on who will win the 2024 AP Offensive Player of the Year award. There are a handful of players who have been playing at an incredible level, with some on pace for record breaking seasons. While there is still plenty left of the 2024 season, it's definitely worth taking a quick look at how the award is shaking up so we can have an idea of what it might look like right before the award is given out in February. Here are two potential candidates who could win the award, who are the leading favorites.

    Firstly, it appears as though one of the current favorites is Ravens RB Derrick Henry (@last_king_2) who currently has the second highest betting odds on Draft Kings to win the award (+140) as of Week 11. Henry is having a historic season, currently posting 1,185 rushing yards on 197 carries with 13 rushing touchdowns and 2 receiving touchdowns (ESPN). That's just about 6 yards per carry. What's especially impressive about this is that he reached over 1,000 rushing yards in just 9 weeks. These past two weeks he has struggled to reach over 70 rushing yards in each game, but regardless he has still scored a touchdown (rushing or receiving) at least once in every week since the beginning of the season. With consistent production like this, Henry has earned plenty of consideration for this award.

    The second candidate, who is the current favorite to win the award on Draft Kings with +105 odds to win, would be Eagles RB Saquon Barkley (@saquon). After spending the first five seasons of his career in New York with the Giants, Barkley signed with their division rival, the Philadelphia Eagles, to join a talented offense led by QB Jalen Hurts (@jalenhurts). Since their first week Barkley has found plenty of success, notching an impressive stat line consisting of 1,137 yards on 197 carries with 8 rushing touchdowns to pair with 23 receptions for 210 receiving yards and 2 receiving touchdowns (ESPN). That is about 5.8 yards per carry. It's also worth mentioning that Saquon has already had his bye week while Derrick Henry has not, so Barkley is quite close to Derrick Henry who still has his bye week upcoming.

    This is an impressive year for offensive player of the year candidates as both of these players are having great seasons in just their first year with the team. There was a lot of discourse this past offseason about the true value of the runningback, especially with many of them hitting free agency. But these two - Derrick Henry and Saquon Barkley - have proved their doubters wrong and have provided incredible value and importance in each of their respective offenses. They are winning games for their football teams.

YouTube: Derrick Henry's 180 yard game against Tampa Bay in Week 7

YouTube: Saquon Barkley's 198 yard game against Washington in Week 11

    Let me know in the comments if there are other candidates worth mentioning that I did not indicate in this post! I'm happy to discuss. We are especially spoiled this season with some great offensive play.

    P.S. - This will be my last blog post I make on this site. I currently do not plan to keep updating this blog but I am keeping it open in the future. I had a lot of fun covering the NFL and writing different stories and perspectives on the games and its players. Thank you for reading!

-- Justin


Comments

  1. David BurnsNovember 20, 2024 at 9:53 AM

    Thank you for sharing your ideas throughout the semester.

    ReplyDelete

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