NFL betting, odds: Nick Bosa passes Micah Parsons as betting favorite to win Defensive Player of the Year
Micah Parsons was an NFL rookie last season. He won Defensive Rookie of the Year in runaway fashion. In fact, he even finished second in voting for Defensive Player of the Year, behind only T.J. Watt.
Fast-forward to this past offseason when expectations were high for Parsons. He entered the season tied for the third-best odds to win NFL Defensive Player of the Year. He was tied with Aaron Donald and behind only Watt and Myles Garrett on the odds leaderboard.
Micah Parsons took big lead, but Nick Bosa has caught up
Micah Parsons was among the favorites to win Defensive Player of the Year, and he took that position over early in the season. By the end of Week 2, Parsons was the betting favorite to win the award at BetMGM. Watt was injured, Donald and the Rams were struggling, while Parsons was dominating games.
As the season unfolded, the momentum continued to move in favor of Parsons. He was impacting every game he played, and the Cowboys were winning games despite the fact that they had to turn to Cooper Rush for an extended time. The defense got a lot of that credit and Parsons was the best player on that unit.
Prior to Week 13, Parsons was a -1400 favorite to win the award. That made him an extremely prohibitive favorite and nearly entered the "sure thing" category as far as odds are concerned. You would have had to bet $1,400 on Parsons winning Defensive Player of the Year in order to return a profit of just $100. Those odds imply a probability of over 93% that the Cowboys' do-it-all defender would win the award.
At the same time, Nick Bosa was +1100 to win the award. Hopefully, someone out there placed a bet on Bosa at those odds because he or she would be sitting pretty right now. With Week 15 in the books, it is now Bosa who is the betting favorite to win Defensive Player of the Year at -130. Parsons has the second-best odds at +100. No other player has odds better than 50-to-1.
The two are close, but Nick Bosa has been slightly better
There's not much separating Bosa and Parsons. Both are elite talents at one of the most important positions in the sport. However, a look at their stats would confirm what the odds are saying; Bosa has been slightly better.
Bosa currently leads the NFL in sacks with 15.5. Parsons ranks fourth with 13. Bosa is tied for second in the league when it comes to tackles for loss, racking up 16. Parsons is tied for 10th with 13. Bosa leads the NFL in quarterback hits with 38 while Parsons ranks fifth with 24. Bosa leads the NFL by a wide margin when it comes to pressures, racking up 47. Parsons ranks fourth with 34.
On top of that, Bosa plays on the better overall defense. San Francisco's defense leads the NFL in defensive DVOA, yards per game and points per game. Dallas ranks third, eighth and seventh in those respective categories. Recency bias also probably doesn't hurt. Bosa and the 49ers just shut down the Seattle Seahawks on Thursday night, while the Cowboys blew a 17-point lead by giving up 40 points to the Jacksonville Jaguars.
These two players are both world-class talents and there's certainly not much separating them. However, Bosa has been slightly better. He's the rightful favorite to win the award at this point, but as we've seen, that can change in a week. Nobody would have expected anyone but Parsons to win this award a few weeks ago, but here we are. On the bright side, if you still like Parsons to win the award, you can now bet him at plus-money.
