What will it take for Myles Garrett to finally win the top honor among defenders?
Is this the year that Myles Garrett finally breaks through enough to where voters can’t help but name him the Defensive Player of the Year?
This week, NFL.com’s Adam Schein wrote about ten bold predictions he has for the 2023 NFL season. Schein points out that he correctly predicted that Nick Bosa would earn the honor in 2022, but this year, he says he is “feeling a monster season from Garrett”:
“The trade for Za’Darius Smith and free-agent signing of Ogbo Okoronkwo gave Garrett some much-needed support in the edge-rushing department. Inherently, with opposing offenses facing more pass-blocking challenges, I could see Garrett hitting 20 sacks. Cleveland should be vastly improved in 2023, too, helping the premium QB hunter draw more of the attention he deserves.”
It should be noted that when Schein did his bold predictions in 2021, he predicted that Garrett would break the single-season sack record. Obviously, that didn’t happen, but Garrett still had an impressive 16 sacks.
This year could indeed be different for the Browns’ star-studded defensive end, as he looks to escape the shadows of Bosa and T.J. Watt, winners of the award in the past two seasons. Yes, it’s true that fans hoped the help of DE Jadeveon Clowney the past two seasons would be enough to propel Garrett to new heights, but there were off-and-on issues with Clowney, and the rest of the defense and scheme were called into question. Garrett gets to work under a new defensive coordinator now in Jim Schwartz, and also has more help than he’s ever had in the pass-rushing department with the additions of DE Ogbo Okoronkwo and Za’Darius Smith.