With the 2017 NFL Draft in the books there is growing anticipation and excitement with the 2017 NFL regular season just around the corner. Part of that is stemming from eager fans wanting a new pro football season to arrive, but it’s also from incoming players looking to leave a lasting mark on a storied league.카지노사이트
Part of the process will be the best first-year NFL players vying for rookie of the year honors, which will be handed out at the end of the year via the 2017 NFL Rookie of the Year award.
New Jacksonville Jaguars star running back Leonard Fournette opens up the year with the best Rookie of the Year odds. He’s set to take over as the team’s every down back as the Jags try to make a serious playoff run.
Whether the Jaguars make a run at the playoffs or not, Fournette is an understandable threat to the ROY award. He has a tantalizing blend of size, power and speed and was a tough runner to stop at LSU. Is Fournette a lock to live up to his NFL Rookie of the Year odds, or can another talented rookie dethrone him by the end of the 2017 NFL season? Let’s take a look at the latest odds at Bovada and see who Fournette’s top threats might be:
2017 NFL ROY – Odds to Win
- Leonard Fournette, RB, Jaguars (+350)
- Christian McCaffrey, RB, Panthers (+500)
- Deshaun Watson, QB, Texans (+600)
- Corey Davis, WR, Titans (+800)
- Dalvin Cook, RB, Vikings (+800)
- Mike Williams, WR, Chargers (+1200)
- Jamaal Williams, RB, Packers (+1200)
- Joe Mixon, RB, Bengals (+1200)
- Deshone Kizer, QB, Browns (+1200)
- Mitchell Trubisky, QB, Bears (+1400)
- J. Howard, TE, Buccaneers (+1600)
- Curtis Samuel, RB/WR, Panthers (+2000)
- Kareem Hunt, RB, Chiefs (+2000)
- Patrick Mahomes, QB, Chiefs (+2000)
- Evan Engram, TE, Giants (+2500)
- Zay Jones, WR, Bills (+2500)
Fournette is the easy Rookie of the Year frontrunner for a lot of obvious reasons. The Jaguars made a huge splash by taking him with the #4 overall pick, expecting this move to balance out a shaky offense and help them win right now.
With Jacksonville’s running game hopefully stabilized and possibly even elite, a talented defense can chip in to help make up for a volatile Blake Bortles. That’s the plan but even if that doesn’t pan out as desired Fournette will shoulder a monster workload and could put up huge numbers. As the key cog to this team’s offense now he’ll naturally be the most obvious threat to winning ROY honors.
That doesn’t mean he’s the only one, of course, while we should also consider past results. For instance, sometimes a shocking development clears things up. Dallas Cowboys star rookie running back Ezekiel Elliott could have (and possibly should have) easily won last year’s Rookie of the Year award. It was instead rookie dual threat passer Dak Prescott who won after coming out of nowhere to effectively replace an injured Tony Romo.
We need to prepare for that kind of randomness while quarterbacks, running backs and wide receivers are all pretty much fair game. After all, we’ve seen 7 quarterbacks win the award since 2000, but have also seen the award go to 7 running backs and 3 wide receivers during the last 17 years.
The position we can safely refrain from getting too caught up in remains tight end. Tight ends tend to take the longest to adjust to the next level and we haven’t seen one win ROY honors since Jeremy Shockey won the first Pepsi ROY award back in 2002. The league has never seen a tight end win the Offensive Rookie of the Year trophy since they’ve been handing it out since 1967.
Bovada’s Rookie of the Year honors only profiles offensive players, but even if we wanted to include players from the defensive side of the ball, their odds wouldn’t be promising. For the Pepsi Rookie of the Year award we’ve seen a defensive player win just once in the past 15 years – Ndamukong Suh in 2010.
Top Threats
Odds are one thing, but we need to consider the obvious; there are not a lot of truly realistic threats to Fournette in this race. That doesn’t mean some sleepers can’t rise up or that this field lacks talent. The former is always possible (Prescott proved that last year) and there is a lot of talent coming into the league this year.
There are only so many viable threats listed among the latest NFL Rookie of the Year odds, however. Here’s our favorite and why:
Christian McCaffrey, RB, Panthers (+500)
McCaffrey is probably the best bet to challenge Fournette, but it’s unclear if he’ll have nearly the role Fournette will to start his career. Early signs suggest he won’t, as solid veteran rusher Jonathan Stewart is still ahead of him on the depth chart.
Even if McCaffrey has a big role as a rookie the Panthers will surely use Stewart a lot and also incorporate fellow rookie Curtis Samuel (+2000) into the offense. On top of that, star quarterback Cam Newton tends to provide value as a runner, as well. With so many other viable options keeping McCaffrey from dominating in year one, it’s looking unlikely he’ll put up better numbers than his main competition.바카라사이트
Deshaun Watson, QB, Texans (+600)
An interesting option could be former Clemson product Deshaun Watson, who probably will end up under center for the Texans by week one. Watson doesn’t have all of the physical attributes you crave in a quarterback, but he offers dual threat upside and won at a very high level in college.
We know Watson can ball and will probably start ahead of Tom Savage, but we can’t know for sure yet when he’ll start or just how good he’ll be in his first season. He has that Dak Prescott upside, however, and for a team otherwise ready to make a Super Bowl run, he might not have to do a whole lot to come off as successful.
The kicker is if Watson just shreds up the league and makes amazing use of explosive weapons in Lamar Miller, DeAndre Hopkins and Will Fuller. If so, he could quickly heat up as the top ROY threat and suddenly these +600 odds would feel quite appealing.
Corey Davis, WR, Titans (+800)
Our next best bet probably has us shifting to wide receiver, as the Titans just traded up to nab big-play threat, Corey Davis. Davis didn’t face high level competition on a regular basis in college and wide receivers can take some time to transition in the NFL, but this guy has everything you want in a deep threat.
Davis is going to make plays from the very beginning and with a weak WR crops in Tennessee, he’s a realistic option in this race behind Fournette. I’m not sold his numbers will be staggering enough in a more run-balanced offense, but if he can score enough big plays he’ll be in the running.
Mike Williams, WR, Chargers (+1200)
If you’re gunning for a wide receiver to win the NFL Rookie of the Year, however, former Clemson star Mike Williams makes for the better bet. Williams is landing in a more stable setting with a solid Chargers offense and has a more reliable passer in Philip Rivers slinging him darts.
Williams is just as NFL-ready as Davis, and a lot of draft experts would argue he’s the far better wide receiver. Either way, it’s a close call and he sports way more playable odds. If you’re betting on a wide receiver here, he’s the call.
Jamaal Williams, RB, Packers (+1200)
Lastly, we have the next tier of running backs with Williams possibly leading the likes of Joe Mixon, Kareem Hunt and others. Mixon and other backs face more difficult depth charts than Williams, who was a highly underrated rusher coming out of BYU and really just has former wide receiver Ty Montgomery standing in his way.
None of that means Jamaal Williams is for sure a viable Rookie of the Year target, but if he finds himself getting touches in a potent Green Bay offense, it will be hard to ignore him. Any quality rushing talent in Green Bay tends to fare pretty well, while the Packers saw last year they can’t go full speed ahead with a blatantly pass-happy offense.
That could lead to Williams starting early, and if his college skill-set translates like some think it can, he could be a special weapon for an already dangerous Packers offense.
Who Will Be the 2017 NFL Rookie of the Year?
All roads undeniably lead to Leonard Fournette. There was nothing about this guy in college that really suggested he’d be a bust and he’s physically a total stud. The only two things that could possibly hold him back are injury or the fact that playing for the Jaguars hasn’t been a good thing for running backs in quite some time.
Fournette packs a serious punch as a bruising, physical runner that can make defenders miss, run through them or blow by them. He’s far beyond what Jacksonville has been rolling with in Chris Ivory or T.J. Yeldon and chances are we’re going to get a taste of that pretty early in his career.
Fournette could be a monster much like Ezekiel Elliott was for Dallas last year, but unlike Zeke, he doesn’t have any one clear threat to keep him from the promised land. A stud wide receiver like Davis or Williams could shine bright in their first years, but wide receivers tend to take a little more time to develop. Deshaun Watson is pretty NFL-ready and could thrive as Houston’s starter, but he’d need some big numbers and a really successful season to come close to what Fournette is capable of putting on tape.
Ultimately, the field just isn’t that strong and without a clear contender for Fournette, he remains the best overall bet to win the 2017 NFL Rookie of the Year award. That being said, if you’re looking for a high upside flier, Deshaun Watson stands out the most.온라인카지노