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Offensive Rookie of the Year: Trevor Lawrence +300
The last two Offensive Rookie of the Year winners were quarterbacks and three of the past five. Dating back to 2010, six of the previous 11 winners were quarterbacks.
It is the quarterback era, and it’s only fitting to back one to win this award.
Dating back to 2010, Sam Bradford, Cam Newton, Robert Griffin III, Dak Prescott, Kyler Murray and Justin Herbert were the six signal-callers to win Offensive Rookie of the Year.
Only three of them were the No. 1 overall pick (Bradford, Newton, Murray), while five of the six were first-rounders (Prescott), per Pro-Football-Reference. Nine quarterbacks have won since 2000 but only three between 2000-2009, so you can see the past decade was heavily quarterback driven for this award.
With that being said, the No. 1 overall pick creates a ton of hype around the draftee, but most of the time, they can put up numbers on a bad team as a starter.
Lawrence will have every opportunity to post Rookie of the Year numbers as Jacksonville is likely to trail in a majority of their games. The Jaguars won the first game of the season last year and then lost 15 consecutive to finish 1-15. That is how you secure the No. 1 pick.
Jacksonville drafted his former Clemson teammate Travis Etienne in the second round to boost the running game alongside James Robinson. Etienne has also lined up at receiver during camp, so he is versatile enough to be a slot receiver or decoy at the very least -- positive factors in both Lawrence and Etienne’s development and rookie season.
The Jags also signed wide receiver Marvin Jones to boost the 1-2 punch of D.J. Chark and Laviska Shenault.
Jones scored nine touchdowns in three of his last four seasons for 32 total in that span. Over his five-year career with Detroit, Jones scored 36 touchdowns. He spent three seasons prior to that with Cincy and scored 15 for 51 over his eight-year career.
Jones could be a real boost to Lawrence’s arsenal this season and I am expecting him to lead the team in receiving touchdowns moving on from Daniel Jones to Lawrence.
NBC’s future model has followed the Offensive Rookie of the Year odds, and Lawrence’s +300 is the best value we have had all offseason, down from +250 and the +275 just days ago.
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What will Lawrence need to do for a Rookie of the Year season? Well, something the last five quarterbacks have all had in common was mobility.
Herbert ran for 234 yards and five touchdowns as a rookie. Murray recorded 544 yards and four scores on the ground. Prescott totaled 282 rushing yards and six touchdowns.
RG3 posted 815 rushing yards plus seven rushing scores, while Newton had 706 yards and 14 rushing touchdowns.
Lawrence can put his name in the category. In his final season at Clemson, Lawrence posted eight rushing touchdowns on 68 attempts and 203 yards.
In three seasons at Clemson, Lawrence totaled 754 rushing yards and 16 touchdowns. His sophomore campaign was his best, recording 407 rushing yards and seven touchdowns on 77 carries.
His arm is nothing to forget about either.
Lawrence tossed 36 touchdowns and eight interceptions in 2019 and 24 touchdowns and five interceptions in 2020. His numbers dipped because of an injury but in both seasons, he impressed with 3,153 passing yards (2020) and 3,665 (2019) as a sophomore.
As a true freshman, Lawrence shocked everyone with 30 passing touchdowns and four interceptions on 397 passing attempts and 3,280 yards. He is an accurate passer and able to make plays on the run or stand in the pocket and deliver.
For the Offensive ROY winners the previous two seasons, Herbert threw for 4,336 yards, and 31 touchdowns to 11 interceptions with the Chargers compared to Murray’s 3,722 passing yards and 20 touchdowns with 12 interceptions with the Cardinals.
Lawrence’s odds via PointsBet for passing yards are set at 4,150.5 yards, roughly what Herbert did last season. Adding an extra game to the schedule, Lawrence will need 244.1 passing yards per game to hit 4150.
That is a very possible number to hit as Murray averaged 232.6 as a rookie. Lawrence has wheels but should not run the ball 93 times like Murray did his first season. Joe Burrow averaged 268.8 passing yards per game last season, and that is including his injury, so Lawrence should be capable of posting a 4,000-yard season.
However, Burrow threw the ball 40.4 times per game last season. I doubt Lawrence hits that number, but playing a negative game script and losing a majority of your games gives you more garbage time stats, padding Lawrence’s case for ROY even if his team is losing (which they’re expected to).
Lawrence is a winner. Dating back to high school, he is 86-4 as a starter.
He will certainly lose more than four games this season, but Lawrence will put up numbers in doing so.
The Jags open the season against the Texans, then play the Broncos, Cardinals and Bengals for the first four games.
We could see Lawrence excel and knock these odds down to +100 after the first month of the season with at least 250 passing yards and a few scores in two to four of those games.
Back the No. 1 overall pick to win Offensive Rookie of the Year at +300 odds now before you settle for a worse number later.
Pick: Trevor Lawrence to win Rookie of the Year (1u)
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