We're close to wrapping up NFL awards for the 2026 NFL season — today, we get into Offensive Player of the Year (OPOY).
OPOY is a difficult market to attack, effectively asking us to predict a totally unpredictable statistical outlier. That means it's often better to bet OPOY during the season once we get some numbers.
The only OPOY bets I'm making before the start of the season are on long shots — numbers I'm confident I won't have any chance to grab later.
Still, we can always build a historical profile on recent winners, create an OPOY watch list, and start to build a winning position for the 2026 season. Let's get after it.
NFL Offensive Player of the Year Predictions
| Group | Category |
|---|---|
| 1 | Fade Running Backs & Tight Ends |
| 2 | The Elite Receivers Are Priced Out |
| 3 | Anderson's OPOY Picks |
NFL Offensive Player of the Year Odds
| Player | Price |
|---|---|
| Jahmyr Gibbs | 16% |
| Bijan Robinson | 12% |
| Ja'Marr Chase | 10% |
| Puka Nacua | 9% |
| Justin Jefferson | 7% |
| Christian McCaffrey | 5% |
| Derrick Henry | 5% |
| Jaxon Smith-Njigba | 5% |
| Jonathan Taylor | 5% |
| AJ Brown | 4% |
This is the top-10 via Kalshi as of 4:00 p.m. ET on Tuesday, Sept. 1.
Who Wins Offensive Player of the Year?
Let's take a look at the 10 most recent players to win OPOY and the numbers they put up in their winning seasons:
- 2025 – WR Jaxon Smith-Njigba: 119 catches, 1,793 yards, 10 TDs
- 2024 — RB Saquon Barkley: 2,283 scrimmage yards, 15 TDs
- 2023 — RB Christian McCaffrey: 2,023 scrimmage yards, 21 TDs
- 2022 — WR Justin Jefferson: 128 catches, 1,809 yards, 8 TDs
- 2021 — WR Cooper Kupp: 145 catches, 1,947 yards, 16 TDs
- 2020 — RB Derrick Henry: 2,141 scrimmage yards, 17 TDs
- 2019 — WR Michael Thomas: 149 catches, 1,725 yards, 9 TDs
- 2018 — QB Patrick Mahomes: 5,097 yards, 50 TDs
- 2017 — RB Todd Gurley: 2,083 scrimmage yards, 19 TDs
- 2016 — QB Matt Ryan: 4,944 yards, 38 TDs
1) The OPOY needs to put up outrageous, outlier, totally unpredictable stats.
This is the key takeaway, by far.
Just look at the average OPOY production by position over the past 15 years:
- QB: 5,100 yards and 47 TDs
- RB: 2,200 yards from scrimmage and 14 TDs
- WR: 135 catches for 1,800 yards and 11 TDs
That's some truly ridiculous production over a full season — over 100 yards per game for running backs and wide receivers, and 275 yards and 2.5 touchdowns a game for quarterbacks.
And remember, a bunch of those numbers above came in 16-game seasons, so the stats project even higher now.
They might as well just call it the Shockingly Great Stats Award – or maybe just the Fantasy Football League Winner Award.
That's why this award is tough to bet right now — we're just guessing wild outlier stats. But what trends can we find outside all the crazy numbers?
2) OPOY is not an MVP consolation prize.
This is the popular narrative — we just give OPOY to whoever was really good, but not quite the MVP. It's what voters used to do with Drew Brees for years, but that hasn't been the case for a while now.
Actually, five of the past 14 OPOYs also won MVP — Adrian Peterson and all four QB OPOYs. There was only one MVP runner-up and two third-place winners.
You usually get a far better price on OPOY than MVP. If anything, you might consider OPOY as a better-priced MVP proxy for your favorite quarterback, but not a consolation prize.
3) OPOYs aren't just stats — these players also win a lot of games.
This is a statistical award, but it turns out that winning also matters.
Then again, that shouldn't come as a huge surprise. Offense wins, and these guys are putting up monster numbers. If you play well enough to rack up this many yards and TDs, your team will probably win a bunch of games.
Every OPOY over the past decade won 10 games, and all but one won 11. The average OPOY won 12.4 games — and that's closer to 13 with the expanded schedule.
That's not shocking considering a few of these guys won MVP too, but it does help narrow the field a bit because we can't just get empty stats on a bad team.
We'll set our minimum at 11 wins with the extra game on the schedule.
4) It certainly looks like OPOY is no longer a QB award.
Over just the past decade, we've seen three QBs, three RBs and four WRs win this award. Not particularly helpful. But zoom out and there's a clear pattern emerging.
From 1996-2003, running backs swept all eight OPOY awards. From 2007-2016, the award shifted toward quarterbacks as seven QBs won in 10 years.
But no quarterback has won in the last seven seasons, and that makes sense.
The entire national conversation these days is that MVP is a quarterback award, and it feels like OPOY has become an award for the best non-QB statistical season.
And in a passing league, this award may be shifting toward wide receivers even more than running backs. Before Michael Thomas won OPOY in 2019, no wideout had won the award since Jerry Rice in 1993. Now we've had four WRs in seven seasons!
Is this the era of the superstar WR winning OPOY? I believe we're trending in that direction.
So what are we looking for in an Offensive Player of the Year?
We need our OPOY to post crazy, outlier stats and they need to win 11+ games. This is a non-QB award in 2026, and we may be shifting toward the era of wide receivers and should bet accordingly.
Fade Running Backs & Tight Ends
RB Jahmyr Gibbs, Lions
RB Bijan Robinson, Falcons
RB Christian McCaffrey, 49ers
RB Omarion Hampton, Chargers
Running backs have won OPOY three times in the last seven years, and Jahmyr Gibbs (+650) and Bijan Robinson (+900) are sitting at the top of the board. They are the top picks in every fantasy draft for a reason, but I cannot invest in them here.
Detroit's offensive line is slipping closer to league average. David Montgomery is gone, which means more touches for Gibbs, but I question if his body can hold up and maintain that incredible efficiency with a heavier workload.
I actually prefer Robinson now that Tyler Allgeier is out of the picture. Robinson should see a bump in touchdowns and catch a ton of short passes from Tua Tagovailoa. I trust Robinson to handle the bigger offensive load, but I do not trust Atlanta to win enough games.
The one running back I desperately want in fantasy this season is Omarion Hampton. He is a Year 2 back playing for Mike McDaniel in Los Angeles, taking over a role where De'Von Achane just posted 1,840 scrimmage yards and 12 touchdowns on a bad team.
Still, at +4000 I will just draft him in fantasy and pass on the betting market.
TE Brock Bowers, Raiders
TE Trey McBride, Cardinals
What about tight ends?
Brock Bowers is sitting there at +6600 and feels tempting. He is the real WR1 for the Raiders. Kirk Cousins loves throwing to his tight ends, and rookies love security blankets.
But there is basically zero history of a tight end winning any major award. Even if Bowers puts up the greatest tight end season in NFL history — say 125 catches for 1,500 yards and 12 touchdowns — it probably still falls short of the top receivers.
Travis Kelce, Rob Gronkowski, and Jimmy Graham have a combined four OPOY votes in their entire careers.
Tight ends do not win this award. I want wide receivers.
The Elite Receivers Are Priced Out
WR Ja'Marr Chase, Bengals
WR Puka Nacua, Rams
Ja'Marr Chase (+1000, BetMGM) and Puka Nacua (+1400, BetMGM) look like the correct WR favorites, though I'd probably flip their odds.
Chase won the Triple Crown in 2024 and put up three games with at least 10 catches, 175 yards, and two touchdowns. Even so, he finished third in OPOY voting.
That's the problem. Chase already posted an outlier season and didn't win, so now he has to beat his own outlier.
Nacua posted 129 catches for 1,715 yards and 10 scores — and also finished third. His targets are slightly more secure than Chase's, and I would pick Puka between the two.
Both guys can absolutely win this, but I am not assigning a greater than 5% probability to anyone in this unpredictable market.
WR Jaxon Smith-Njigba, Seahawks
WR Justin Jefferson, Vikings
WR Amon-Ra St. Brown, Lions
WR CeeDee Lamb, Cowboys
The same goes for the rest of this top tier.
Jaxon Smith-Njigba (+2000, DraftKings) won this last year, but his numbers fell way off in the second half of the season once teams took away the deep ball.
Amon-Ra St. Brown (+2500) gives you an incredibly high floor, but we already see his peak every year and it doesn't quite win awards.
Justin Jefferson (+1800, FanDuel) has too many mouths to feed alongside Jauan Jennings and T.J. Hockenson, plus the uncertainty of Kyler Murray at quarterback.
CeeDee Lamb (+3000, BetMGM) is the most fairly priced of the bunch, but George Pickens taking targets caps his ultimate ceiling.
All of these guys would be among my top-10 OPOY picks — but there are four WRs with longer odds I'm building my position around.
Offensive Player of the Year Picks
WR Nico Collins (+4000, BetMGM), Texans
Nico Collins absolutely belongs in that elite top tier of receivers talent-wise.
We saw a 10-game Collins stretch last year where he paced for 1,425 yards on over 150 targets. In 2023, he had four games with at least 145 receiving yards. We see these massive spikes from him constantly. He just has not done it for a full, healthy season yet. I want the ticket for the year he finally stays healthy.
Jayden Higgins is hurt, leaving just Kendrick Bourne and some young guys fighting for targets. Collins should be a target monster in an offense that we already know is going to win games.
If Collins plays 17 games, he legitimately has 125-catch, 2,000-yard potential with 10 to 15 touchdowns. He has as much upside as anyone in the top group, but at double the price.
WR Jaylen Waddle (+12500, Caesars)
I genuinely cannot believe this number. Waddle is among my top-five most likely players to win this award, and getting 125-1 is flat-out insane.
Waddle changes everything for the Broncos offense as the pure speed threat they have been missing.
Bo Nix caught a lot of flak last year, but he actually graded out top three in deep passing at PFF. He also led the entire league in pass attempts at 36 per game despite the Broncos winning 14 games and playing from ahead.
What happens if Waddle gets 150 targets like he did as a rookie? We've never seen him paired with a QB who has an arm like this. He could easily catch three or four 75-yard bombs this season, which is a quick 300 yards and four scores padded onto his stats.
With Waddle's speed, an 18 yards-per-catch season is in play, which could put 2,000 yards in reach.
Waddle is being priced at his floor, when his profile is all ceiling. This is easily my favorite OPOY bet on the board.
WR Ladd McConkey (+15000, BetMGM)
Sorry, but I am not passing on Mike McDaniel's clear WR1 at 150-1. I bet Tyreek Hill for years, and he posted two separate seasons with 119 catches and 1,700 yards under McDaniel.
Ladd McConkey does not have Cheetah's speed, and he may not be able to handle a 170-target load. But 10 targets a game makes sense, and we already know the sky's the limit in this McDaniel offense.
Keenan Allen is gone, leaving plenty of Chargers volume to go around. I'll gladly sprinkle on McDaniel's top WR at this number.
WR Parker Washington (+40000, FanDuel)
This is a bet strictly on the Liam Coen power slot role.
Once Jakobi Meyers arrived last year to do the dirty work underneath, Parker Washington settled into this role late in the season. Across his final four games including the playoffs, he paced for 111 catches, 1,930 yards, and 13 scores.
Yes, that is a tiny sample. But look at Coen's history. He loves to pepper his slot target.
Wan'Dale Robinson averaged over 100 yards a game under him at Kentucky. Cooper Kupp was the fantasy WR1 in 2022 pacing for 150 catches and 1,700 yards before getting hurt. Chris Godwin did nearly the same thing in Tampa Bay two years ago for half a season before getting hurt.
Washington looks like the feature guy for Coen in Jacksonville. If you knew for a fact he was the locked-in Coen power slot go-to receiver, you would price him around 40-1.
At 400-1, we only need a 10% chance that he actually assumes that role to hold massive value. I'll throw a quarter-unit on the upside.
Anderson's Offensive Player of the Year Picks
- Nico Collins (+4000, BetMGM) | 0.5u
- Jaylen Waddle (+12500, Caesars) | 0.5u
- Ladd McConkey (+15000, BetMGM) | 0.25u
- Parker Washington (+40000, FanDuel) | 0.25u
