NFL Rookie Predictions: Offensive and Defensive Rookie of the Year

Last Updated on August 25, 2026 9:21 pm by Erwin Noguera

Both favorites for Offensive Rookie of the Year in the NFL have a problem, and it is the same problem.

Jeremiyah Love is the market leader at +475. He has a high ankle sprain and did not play again after his first preseason outing. Fernando Mendoza is next at +550. He is expected to open the season as Kirk Cousins’s backup.

One cannot get on the field. The other is not being allowed on it. That matters more than usual, because over the last decade the fewest games played by an OROY winner is 15; a mark shared by Justin Herbert in 2020 and C.J. Stroud in 2023. This award goes to players who are available.

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Here is how both races look.

OFFENSIVE ROOKIE OF THE YEAR

The Board

The Case for Jeremiyah Love

The third overall pick arrived with the best statistical résumé in the class. Love ran for 1,372 yards and 18 touchdowns at Notre Dame last season, after 1,125 yards and 17 scores the year before, and scouts spent two years comparing his creativity and breakaway speed to Saquon Barkley and Bijan Robinson.

Arizona did not draft him to develop. Mike LaFleur is a rookie head coach who needed an immediate offensive weapon, and Love was the pick that provided one.

His first preseason appearance was promising rather than spectacular: 11 carries for 58 yards and three catches for 14 against the Raiders, and it ended with the high ankle sprain that has kept him out ever since.

The problem: high ankle sprains linger and running backs need volume. Arizona is optimistic about Week 1 against the Chargers but has offered no long-term prognosis.

The Case for Fernando Mendoza

The first overall pick has the strongest underlying argument on the board.

Mendoza threw 3,535 yards and 41 touchdowns last season, winning both the Heisman and a College Football Playoff title with Indiana. He is a prototypical NFL passer with the pre- and post-snap recognition that usually takes years to develop.

His debut backed it up: 10 of 16 for 97 yards, a touchdown, and a 100.3 passer rating.

The problem: Klint Kubiak has been consistent in the fact that Cousins starts. The counter is that Las Vegas is not good enough for tolerance to pay off, and a team going nowhere in October has no reason to protect a veteran’s job.

Quarterbacks win this award more often than any other position when they play enough games. Mendoza only needs the door to open.

The Injury That Changed Everything

Jordyn Tyson opened at +600, fourth on the board, after New Orleans took him eighth overall. He is now +3500.

A hamstring injury in a joint practice with Jacksonville is expected to cost him around two months. He will likely start the season on injured reserve, with a return around mid-October; possibly Week 6 against the Giants.

He is not eliminated. But a player returning in Week 6 needs a monster finish to beat a 15-game threshold that no winner has fallen below in ten years.

The Longshots Worth Knowing

De’Zhaun Stribling at +1500 is the one with preseason evidence behind him. He caught seven of eight targets for 63 yards for San Francisco against most of Tennessee’s defensive starters; production against first-team competition, which is rare in August.

Makai Lemon at +1400 has the opportunity of anyone on this list. Philadelphia traded A.J. Brown, and Lemon was drafted to absorb that role. He also cannot shake recurring hamstring problems, which is why the price is what it is.

Carson Beck at +2500 is the wild card. He was the best player on the field in the Hall of Fame Game (15 of 19 for 188 yards and a 125.4 rating) and has not played since because of a rib injury. He is behind a veteran in Arizona and would need a mid-season change to have any chance.

OUR PICK: Fernando Mendoza at +550

Love is the better pure prospect and the more likely player to produce a highlight reel. He also has an ankle injury, a rookie head coach protecting him, and a position that requires carries he may not get early.

Mendoza needs one thing to happen, and it is the thing that always happens to bad teams with a first overall pick. Kubiak’s Drake Maye timeline had Maye starting in Week 6. Mendoza has already outperformed expectations in his only live action.

Take the quarterback. The award follows quarterbacks who play.

DEFENSIVE ROOKIE OF THE YEAR

The Board

The Case for David Bailey

The most straightforward argument in either race.

Bailey was a unanimous All-American at Texas Tech with a Division I-best 14.5 sacks and a Big 12-best 19.5 tackles for loss. The Jets took him second overall, and the reason is simple: New York finished dead last in the AFC in sacks.

Opportunity plus need plus the single most award-friendly statistic in football. DROY voting is driven by sack totals more than anything else, and Bailey walks into a team with nobody ahead of him and a defensive coordinator who needs him on the field for every passing down.

FOX Sports analyst Rob Rang called him “a realistic Defensive Rookie of the Year candidate who projects as a 10-plus sack-a-year difference-maker.”

The Ohio State Problem

Three Ohio State defenders went inside the first seven picks, and two of them are directly behind Bailey on this board.

Arvell Reese went fifth to the Giants and gives them what Rang described as “as great a trio of edge rushers as there is in the NFL,” alongside Abdul Carter and Kayvon Thibodeaux. That is the argument for him and, quietly, against him: three elite rushers split the same sacks, and rookies rarely win that competition.

Sonny Styles went seventh to Washington and is the most interesting bet. Dan Quinn coached Bobby Wagner in both Seattle and Washington; Rang’s assessment is that Styles is an even better athlete, with a size and speed combination he compared to Brian Urlacher. Styles also posted the highest vertical jump (43.5 inches) of any combine prospect six-foot-four or taller since at least 2003.

Washington needed an alpha on defense. Styles arrives as one, on a team that will play him every snap.

Caleb Downs is the third Buckeye in Dallas, where the Cowboys also hold Malachi Lawrence at +1800.

The One Nobody Is Discussing

Mansoor Delane at +1000. Kansas City traded up to take him sixth overall, which means he will play more meaningful football than any rookie on this list.

The caveat is real: Delane has spent much of August managing a nagging shoulder problem and was only expected back in the final week of camp. Corners also struggle to win this award unless the interceptions arrive early, because coverage does not generate the counting stats voters reward.

OUR PICK: David Bailey at +450

The case is boring, and it is correct. A pure pass rusher, taken second overall, joining the worst pass-rushing team in the conference, on a defense that will ask him to rush the passer forty times a game.

Sacks win this award. Bailey has the best sack projection in the class and the clearest path to snaps.

The value play: Sonny Styles at +750. If an off-ball linebacker takes it, Styles is the one: an every-down alpha on a Dan Quinn defense, with the athletic profile to produce tackles for loss and coverage plays in volume. At almost twice Bailey’s price, that is worth a position.

What Actually Decides These Awards

Availability, not talent. No OROY winner in a decade has played fewer than 15 games. Love’s ankle and Tyson’s hamstring are not footnotes; they are the whole question.

Position matters more than draft slot. Quarterbacks and running backs win offensive honors; edge rushers win defensive ones. Receivers and corners need extraordinary seasons to break through.

Team needs create opportunities. Bailey is favored because the Jets have nobody else. Mendoza’s case rests entirely on Las Vegas, having no reason to wait.

Watch the first month. Both awards are usually decided by narrative momentum built in September and October. A rookie who starts slowly rarely recovers, and a rookie who starts fast rarely gets caught.

The regular season opens on September 9.