Pittsburgh Steelers rookie inside linebacker Devin Bush had quite an NFL preseason debut this past Friday night against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers as the first-round draft pick out of Michigan recorded 10 total tackles in the 40 total defensive snaps that he played. Bush has already received great reviews of that performance not only from our site for his great debut Friday night, but from other national media analysts as well. It was such a great debut that even the oddsmakers are now reflecting it in their latest Rookie Defensive of the Year Award winner odds.
According to the recently updated odds on MyBookie.ag, Bush is now listed as their favorite to win the NFL’s 2019 Defensive Rookie of the Year award as he’s odds have dropped to +500. A little more than a month ago the same site had Bush listed at +700. Right after this year’s draft, Bush was listed on the same site at +1800 to win the annual award given by the Associated Press.
Assuming Bush stays healthy the remainder of the preseason and keeps performing at the same level that he did in the team’s opener against the Buccaneers, there’s no reason to think that he won’t be the Week 1 starter against the New England Patriots and thus log quite a bit of playing time in that contest. If that’s indeed what ultimately happens, he’ll certainly be one of the favorites to win the DROTY award for 2019 if he stays healthy all season.
Last season, Indianapolis Colts linebacker Darius Leonard, who was selected 36th overall and in the second-round of the 2018 NFL Draft out of South Carolina State, won the AP Defensive Rookie Player of the Year award after registering a league-high 163 total tackles, 2 interceptions, 4 forced fumbles and 8 passes defensed in the 15 games he played in and started. 7 of Leonard’s 12 total tackles for losses were sacks. Can Bush put up a similar stat line in his 2019 rookie season? It’s sounding more and more possible as we sit here a little less than a month away from the start of the 2019 regular season.
Linebacker Kendrell Bell was the last Steelers player to win the annual AP Defensive Rookie Player of the Year award and that honor came way back in 2001. While Bell only registered 82 total tackles in his rookie season, that included him starting all 16 regular season games, he did have 9 sacks that year. Bush, as many of the fans of the team should know by now, enters the NFL after having a productive college career at Michigan as a blitzer that resulted in him registering 10 career sacks.
Bush will next get show the betting public what all he can do Saturday night in the Steelers second preseason game against the Kansas City Chiefs at Heinz Field. A performance in that contest like the one he had against the Buccaneers might result in his DROTY odds dropping a little bit more.
You can still seemingly get a little longer odds on Bush at a few online sportsbooks with the longest being +900 at BetNow. Links to each are provided below.
MyBookie +500
Bovada +500
BetNow +900
BetOnline +800
Bookmaker +755
