The NFL finally handed out the preordained Defensive Player of the Year Award on Thursday night, crowning the Cleveland Browns’ Myles Garrett. His first comes at the expense of the Pittsburgh Steelers’ T.J. Watt receiving his second, the two earning the most votes.
Garrett received four more first-place votes and 25 more points in total in the second year of this voting format. Previously, voters only selected one winner rather than ranking their top three choices. Watt received 42 votes overall, meaning that three voters did not rank him in their top three.
The Watt versus Garrett debate has raged for years, but rose to another level in 2023. Even their contemporaries are weighing in more frequently. The Dallas Cowboys’ Micah Parsons stook up for Garrett winning over Watt, himself receiving the third-most votes.
Responding to a post defending Watt by Jersey Jerry, Parsons called it a “Horrible take” and argued that Garrett faced more double teams and had a bigger affect on quarterbacks. Statistically, he trailed Watt in every objective statistical category. They each had four forced fumbles as the lone exception to the rule.
Parsons has a vested interest in this era’s “advanced metrics” that have infiltrated the discussion of the era. ESPN ranked Parsons first in double-team rate at 35 percent. Offenses doubled Garrett 29 percent of the time, while doing so to Watt only 14 percent of the time.
Accepting the validity and accuracy of these numbers, what jumps out to me is how stupid offenses are for not doubling Watt more frequently. Given that he has the most sacks every year in which he’s healthy, one might think the idea is sound.
Parsons also had a higher “pass rush win rate”, which is also subjectively determined, at 35 percent. Garret ranked behind him at 30 percent. Defensive Rookie of the Year Award winner Will Anderson’s 26 percent ranked third, ahead of Watt at 25 percent.
Pass rush win rate supposedly determines how often a defender “beats his block” within 2.5 seconds. The 2.5-second standard is roughly the average time from snap to throw. You will not record many sacks without beating your block within 2.5 seconds. But how exactly they determine when a block has been beaten is unclear, and is inevitably subjective. It’s a nice metric in theory, but limited.
That doesn’t stop people from leaning upon it as the basis of their argument. Garrett may have had five fewer actual sacks, but he beat 20 percent more of his pass-rush blocks. I won’t even joke that “that’s got to count for something, right”, because we know it does. He wouldn’t be the Defensive Player of the Year of it didn’t. Even Peter King cited it in his vote, even though I question his understanding of the statistic.
This is the third time since 2018 that Watt has finished in second or third place in the Defensive Player of the Year voting, though the first time he has finished behind Garrett. He won the award in 2021. Injuries during the 2022 season prevented him from being in serious contention. Parsons finished in second, behind Watt in 2021 and Nick Bosa in 2022, during his first two seasons.
