Over the course of the last four seasons, J.J. Watt has dominated on the defensive side of the ball. He still hasn't been honored with an MVP award, but he has won Defensive Player of the Year three times in the last four years for his awesome play on the Houston Texans. Will Watt become the first man ever to win the award three times in a row in 2016? He's certainly the favorite to do so.
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The biggest question when it comes to betting on Watt is the way that he ended last season. Following the playoff loss to the Chiefs, one of the more embarrassing days in the history of the Texans, Watt admitted that he was having all sorts of injury issues, not the least of which was a torn groin muscle which finally took him out of the game once and for all in the second half of that blowout.
Still, would you bet against the biggest beast in the NFL? Watt led the league in sacks last year with 17.5, and he now has 69 over the course of his last four years to do with 41 pass deflections and a slew of other big time impact plays.
This year though, there is certainly a lot of company for Watt.
Von Miller won the Super Bowl MVP award for the Broncos last season, and after a long contract dispute, he was awarded with the biggest contract in the history of the league for a defensive player. Miller had five sacks in the postseason, and he's now amassed double digits in sacks in four of his first five years in the league.
When you first think of the Raiders and their reclamation project, you have to pay respect to Derek Carr, who is clearly the best quarterback this franchise has had since Rich Gannon. However, Khalil Mack is one of the stalwarts on this team as well, and he almost quietly was second in the league in sacks last season with 15.
Even though the Raiders don't get the same level of publicity as some of the other teams in the league, Mack has had just as much of an impact for Oakland as any defensive player has had on his team in his short time in the NFL. He's become a real terror off the edge for offensive tackles and fullbacks to try to handle, and his 15 sacks last year might be just the beginning of a tremendous career.
If you're going to go outside of the realm of defensive ends and rush linebackers, how about Luke Kuechly? He's the heart and soul for a Carolina defense which was outstanding a year ago. Kuechly won the Defensive Player of the Year award back in 2013, and he's really only gotten better with time from that point on.
The reason Kuechly hasn't won this award again since that point (aside from the fact that Watt has been doing things we've never seen done before in the NFL) is because Cam Newton has been stealing the show. Most didn't associate the Panthers with their defense last season, though anyone who has been a hard core follower of this team for the past several seasons knows that it's that side of the ball which this team was built upon.
There's a very real chance that Carolina isn't going to average anywhere near the 31.2 points per game it averaged last season. If that turns out to be true and the Panthers are still good enough to win the NFC South as many expect, Kuechly is sure to have his name in the mix as the Defensive Player of the Year.
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