Dallas Cowboys linebacker Micah Parsons. (Kevin Jairaj-USA TODAY Sports)

NFL futures: The case for Micah Parsons winning Defensive Player of the Year

By Griffin Carroll | Last updated 8/7/23

Last week was all about the Offensive Player of the Year market, and we turn now to the defensive side of the football to look into which defenders are in the best spot to bring home the honors this season. The best place to start seems like Dallas, home of Micah Parsons, the DPOY runner-up in each of his first two seasons in the league.

Micah Parsons: +600 to win DPOY (FanDuel)

I can understand if a +600 price on an awards future doesn't move the needle for you, but Micah Parsons is a favorite for good reason. As mentioned above, there's an element of a star player finally getting over the hump with voters at play here. DPOY voters clearly value Parsons and his impact on the Cowboys defense; he's finished in second place in each of the last two years.

Through two years, Parsons has racked up 26.5 sacks, 13.0 and 13.5 respectively, and has recorded three forced fumbles in both seasons to go along with 33 total tackles-for-loss.

Parsons is a bit of a Swiss Army knife for the Dallas defense, though nearly 81% of his defensive snaps were played along the defensive line in 2022. It's not hard to project Parsons winning DPOY. Nine of the last 11 players to win have played on the defensive line in some form, with six of them being edge rushers.

Sacks are the flashy stat that grab people's attention, and it's here we would need to see a jump from Parsons for a reasonable chance at winning DPOY.

When looking back on the past nine defensive linemen who won this award, the average total sacks in their winning seasons was 17.3 sacks per season. Of the six edge rushers we mentioned, only once did a player win without recording at least 17.5 sacks.

Can Parsons hit that mark? He'd need four more than he's yet recorded. There's reason to believe as he enters Year Three that he'll only get better, and as long as he can stay on the field (something that hardly needs to be mentioned in an awards future article), he's as good a bet as any to bring home a massive statistical season.

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