Could Titans rookie Kristian Fulton be the Defensive Rookie of the Year?
By Will Lomas
Who are the real candidates?
After you take that list and filter out DTs, hybrid and safeties, the top-16 looks like this:
1. Chase Young
2. Patrick Queen
3. Kenneth Murray*
4. Jeff Okudah*
5. K’Lavon Chaisson*
6. Jordyn Brooks
7. A.J. Epenesa
8. Willie Gay Jr.
9. C.J. Henderson*
10. Xavier McKinney*
11. Kristian Fulton
12. Yetur Gross-Matos*
13. Jeff Gladney
14. Damon Arnette*
15. Trevon Diggs
16. Jaylon Johnson*
Still a lot of names on that list, but there are some ways to narrow the list of potential winners down even further.
Cornerbacks
Both cornerbacks to win the award over the last two years were great at knocking the ball away and they played on winning teams (both had 11 wins). Focusing on that last part, the Vegas win total on the Chicago Bears, New York Giants, Las Vegas Raiders, and Jacksonville Jaguars knocks out 5 of the 8 corners leaving just Kristian Fulton, Jeff Gladney and Trevon Diggs.
Diggs can also probably be ruled out considering he had just 21 pass breakups over his last two seasons compared to Fulton’s 25 and Gladney’s 30. Pass break ups tend to be more predictive of future interceptions than actual interceptions in college.
Everyone else
For every other position, the name of the games has been sack totals. If you can sack the other team’s QB and/or being on a winning roster. The only players to be on a team with a losing record without an impressive number of sacks are Sheldon Richardson (who probably wouldn’t have won the award any other season) and Luke Keuchly who led the league in tackles as a rookie while also playing like a Hall of Famer.
Using those things as filters, you can probably eliminate Kenneth Murray, K’Lavon Chaisson and Yetur Gross-Matos.