New York Jets have two players listed as betting options for Offensive Player of the Year; though their odds are long
At FanDuel Sportsbook, the New York Jets have two players listed as betting options to win the NFL’s Offensive Player of the Year award: quarterback Zach Wilson and wide receiver Elijah Moore.
Wilson and Moore each have +15000 odds, which means a $1 bet would yield $150 in winnings if either of them shocked the world and took home the award. Those odds tie Wilson and Moore for 57th-best. They’re tied with 26 other players, including Mac Jones, Kirk Cousins, Justin Fields, Amon-Ra St. Brown, Michael Pittman Jr., Terry McLaurin, and DeVonta Smith among others.
Both players certainly need a lot to go right if they are going to even come close to winning this award.
Wilson’s chances have already been slightly dampened by his preseason knee injury, which may cause him to miss one or two regular season games.
However, Wilson’s status as a second-year highly-drafted quarterback gives him an outside shot of putting up huge numbers this year. Over the last five years, the following six quarterbacks posted a 100.0+ passer rating in their second year after being drafted in the first round: Joe Burrow, Lamar Jackson, Patrick Mahomes, Deshaun Watson, Carson Wentz, and Jared Goff. That’s out of 18 quarterbacks who were drafted in the first round from 2016-20, making up 33.3% of the group.
Moore’s potential is through the roof, but as we saw early in the 2021 season, it takes two to tango when it comes to the wide receiver position. Even if a receiver is getting himself open, he can’t put up numbers if his quarterback isn’t doing a good job of finding him.
Over his first five games of 2021, Moore averaged only 19.6 yards from scrimmage per game despite consistently winning on his routes. Bad quarterback play doomed him.
But over the next six games, New York’s quarterback play improved, and we saw a glimpse of how high Moore’s production ceiling can be when his quarterback is actually rewarding him. Moore averaged 82.3 yards from scrimmage and 0.83 touchdowns over that span (pace for 1,400 yards and 14 touchdowns per 17 games).
Two of the last three OPOY winners were wide receivers: Michael Thomas in 2019 and Cooper Kupp in 2021. This comes after a 25-season drought for the position; Jerry Rice was the last wide receiver to win OPOY, doing so in 1993.
