Any time you've got a man who is drafted No. 1 overall in the NFL Draft, the immediate thought is that that man should end up being the Offensive Rookie of the Year. That's a lot of pressure on Jameis Winston to show that he was worth it for the Buccaneers, but we see no reason why he shouldn't be the favorite to claim this honor.
ODDS TO WIN OFFENSIVE ROOKIE OF THE YEAR
Jameis Winston +375
Melvin Gordon +875
Amari Cooper +400
Kevin White +12500
Todd Gurley +1399
Devante Parker +3000
Marcus Mariota +400
Nelson Agholor +850
Dorial Green-Beckham +3531
Phillip Dorsett +3500
T.J. Yeldon +1200
Tevin Coleman +3500
Ameer Abdullah +998
Breshad Perriman +4200
Devin Funchess +3000
Devin Smith +12500
Duke Johnson +5000
Jaelen Strong +6500
Chris Conley +6000
Tyler Lockett +2500
Maxx Williams +2250
David Johnson +7000
Jarryd Hayne +7000
For our money, there are really only a few players who have a legitimate chance to win the Offensive Rookie of the Year award, and none of them are horrible surprises.
Winston has had an up and down preseason to date, but we know that he is a proven winner who is going to make it in this league as long as he keeps his head on straight. He has proven time and time again that, in spite of all of the interceptions he threw in his senior year at Florida State, he has the biggest, NFL ready arm we have seen since Andrew Luck came out of Stanford.
Luck, for good measure, was both the No. 1 overall pick in the NFL Draft and the Offensive Rookie of the Year.
The second pick, Marcus Mariota is going to have a lot of work to do. If Mariota is going to win this honor, he is going to do it by being efficient with the football and not turning it over. He went through a string of well over 100 throws without being picked off in practice, but of course, there's a big difference between playing against friends and foes, just as there is a difference between playing in the preseason and in the regular season.
Mariota's arm isn't as good as Winston's, and we don't see any way he throws for 4,000 yards. It's entirely plausible that Winston does just that, and if he does, it'll be virtually impossible for anyone to wrestle the honor away from him.
If you go away from the two quarterbacks, you've got a couple other legit contenders. We know that everyone is high on Todd Gurley, but we aren't all that sure he is going to play enough in this St. Louis backfield with Tre Mason in the lineup as well. Gurley is still trying to rehab off of that bad knee injury he suffered at the end of his collegiate career, and we can't picture him being a 200-carry guy in 2015.
Melvin Gordon though, is a horse. The backfield in San Diego is going to belong to him for as long as he proves effective in the role in spite of the fact that guys like Danny Woodhead and Branden Oliver are still in this committee, too. Gordon has no problems getting the ball in his gut 20 times a game, and if that's the way this pans out, he could easily exceed 1,000 yards and have double-digits in touchdowns.
At wide receiver, our pick is Nelson Agholor. Chip Kelly runs that wild, wide open offense and Sam Bradford is going to put the ball in the air a ton. Agholor is a known commodity to Kelly having coached against him when they were both in the Pac-12 together, and the Philly coach has made no bones about the fact that he loves what he sees in Agholor.
The price of +850 is a little short from our standpoint, as we just don't know if he has enough stats in him to claim the Offensive Rookie of the Year without getting a lot of help from Winston, Mariota and Gordon not living up to high expectations, but Agholor is definitely going to be in the fight.
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