NFL Defensive Player of the Year Odds: The Full 2026 Field
Myles Garrett just turned in the most decorated defensive season in modern memory, a unanimous Defensive Player of the Year on an NFL-record 23 sacks, and then got traded to the Los Angeles Rams in June, with Jared Verse and three premium picks going back to Cleveland. Kalshi's 52-contract market on the 2026-27 award prices the encore at 20 cents. We handed the entire field to eight price-blind AI models with a fetched dossier of the award's structure, the reigning winner's file, and both sides of the trade that changed his address. The panel's verdict calls the favorite almost exactly fair, buys one three-cent star, and treats the trade as a two-sided bet the market is only reading one way.
The Quick Answer
The panel blends Myles Garrett at 19.6% against his 20-cent price, the closest market-model agreement on any favorite this week, and keeps the market's order behind him: Will Anderson Jr. 10.2% (13¢) and Aidan Hutchinson 8.9% (12¢). Its one real disagreement is Micah Parsons at 7.9% against a 3-cent price, the board's biggest positive gap. And its most honest number has no contract attached: a 21.2% blend that the winner is someone outside the named tiers, because August favorites lose this award to unforecastable breakouts far more often than they win it. The full 52-name board and every seat's number are below.
These are model estimates, not predictions of fact and not financial advice. Kalshi is a CFTC-regulated event-contract exchange; you must be 18 or older and in an eligible state to participate, and availability varies by state as of August 2026. New to event markets? Start with how sports trade on Kalshi.
Free: The Weekly PM Market Brief — the AI panel's graded record, the week's biggest market-vs-model gaps, and what's spiking next. One email, Sundays. The signup box is at the bottom of this page, or just keep reading: the graded record it promises is printed under the board.
Prices on this page refresh through the season; every figure carries its fetch date, and the board re-scores as the race develops. Prices as of August 7, 2026.
The Market At A Glance
| Venue | Kalshi, a CFTC-regulated event-contract exchange (18+; availability varies by state, as of August 2026) |
| The Event | "Defensive Player of the Year Winner?" (Kalshi event KXNFLDPOTY-27), 52 contracts including Tie/Co-Winners, roughly $433,000 traded |
| The Contract | Each name reads: "If [player] wins the Pro Football AP Defensive Player Of The Year in the 2026-27 season, then the market resolves to Yes." The award is voted by the Associated Press panel of 50 and announced at NFL Honors. |
| Settles | The market settles on the award announcement at NFL Honors (a contract resolves Yes for the AP winner, with a separate Tie/Co-Winners contract covering a shared award); listed expiration March 10, 2027 |
| Prices As Of | August 7, 2026 (candlestick closes; several small contracts sit on one or two lifetime trades) |
Hottest Prediction Markets Right Now
- 2028 Democratic presidential nominee · $168M traded
- 2028 U.S. Presidential Election winner? · $57M traded
- 2027 Pro Football Champion · $54M traded
- Pro Baseball Champion · $45M traded
- More tech layoffs in 2026 than in 2025? · $31M traded
- Bitcoin price at the end of 2026 · $30M traded
Every market above links to our full AI model verdict; browse them all on the OddsShopper prediction markets hub, and see how every settled call actually scored on the full graded scoreboard.
What The Models Were Given
The card carried the award's structure and the verified 2026 facts, dated and sourced: Garrett's 2025-26 season (unanimous, all 50 first-place votes, the 23-sack record, a league-leading 33 tackles for loss, 39 QB hits), and the full June trade, Garrett to the Rams for Jared Verse plus a 2027 first-round pick, a 2028 second, and a 2029 third, meaning Verse now steps into the Garrett-sized lead-edge role in Cleveland while Garrett joins a Rams team chasing a home-stadium Super Bowl at SoFi in February. It carried Will Anderson Jr.'s file, 12 sacks and a 23% pass-rush win rate, fourth in the league, for a rising Houston defense, and noted that the August sportsbook previews name Garrett the favorite with Anderson, Hutchinson, Crosby, Bosa, Bonitto, and Parsons in the contender tier. And it stated the timing plainly: it is preseason, no 2026 stats exist, and no camp or injury reports were fetched, so none could be invented.
The Board
All 52 contracts, sorted by the panel's blend. The blend is the equal-weight mean of the eight models' final numbers; "the field" aggregates each seat's probability on names it judged below an explicit line.
| Outcome | Market Price | AI Blend | Gap (blend% − mkt¢) |
|---|---|---|---|
| The field beyond the named tiers | not a listed contract | 21.2% | — |
| Myles Garrett | 20¢ | 19.6% | -0.4 |
| Will Anderson Jr. | 13¢ | 10.2% | -2.8 |
| Aidan Hutchinson | 12¢ | 8.9% | -3.1 |
| Micah Parsons | 3¢ | 7.9% | +4.9 |
| Maxx Crosby | 5¢ | 5.9% | +0.9 |
| Nick Bosa | 5¢ | 5.4% | +0.4 |
| T.J. Watt | 4¢ | 3.6% | -0.4 |
| Jared Verse | 3¢ | 3.3% | +0.3 |
| Nik Bonitto | 4¢ | 3.0% | -1.0 |
| Abdul Carter | 4¢ | 2.3% | -1.7 |
| Fred Warner | 2¢ | 1.4% | -0.6 |
| Pat Surtain | 3¢ | 1.3% | -1.7 |
| Danielle Hunter | 2¢ | 1.1% | -0.9 |
| Jalen Carter | 3¢ | 0.9% | -2.1 |
| Trey Hendrickson | 2¢ | 0.8% | -1.2 |
| Chris Jones | untraded | 0.7% | — |
| Brian Burns | 2¢ | 0.6% | -1.4 |
| Sauce Gardner | 1¢ | 0.4% | -0.6 |
| Tie/Co-Winners | 1¢ | 0.4% | -0.6 |
| Quinnen Williams | 1¢ | 0.4% | -0.6 |
| Dexter Lawrence II | 1¢ | 0.2% | -0.8 |
| Derek Stingley Jr. | 1¢ | 0.1% | -0.9 |
| Kayvon Thibodeaux | 1¢ | 0.1% | -0.9 |
| Josh Hines-Allen | 1¢ | 0.1% | -0.9 |
| Chop Robinson | 1¢ | 0.1% | -0.9 |
| Ed Oliver | 4¢ | 0.0% | -4.0 |
| Greg Rousseau | 4¢ | 0.0% | -4.0 |
| Kyle Hamilton | 3¢ | 0.0% | -3.0 |
| Devon Witherspoon | 2¢ | 0.0% | -2.0 |
| Christian Gonzalez | 2¢ | 0.0% | -2.0 |
| Quinyon Mitchell | 2¢ | 0.0% | -2.0 |
| Will McDonald IV | 2¢ | 0.0% | -2.0 |
| Xavier McKinney | 1¢ | 0.0% | -1.0 |
| Budda Baker | 1¢ | 0.0% | -1.0 |
| Leonard Williams | 1¢ | 0.0% | -1.0 |
| Travon Walker | 1¢ | 0.0% | -1.0 |
| Zack Baun | 1¢ | 0.0% | -1.0 |
| Christian Wilkins | 1¢ | 0.0% | -1.0 |
| Haason Reddick | 1¢ | 0.0% | -1.0 |
| Jalen Ramsey | 1¢ | 0.0% | -1.0 |
| Jeffery Simmons | 1¢ | 0.0% | -1.0 |
| Trent McDuffie | 1¢ | 0.0% | -1.0 |
| Andrew Van Ginkel | 1¢ | 0.0% | -1.0 |
| Devin Lloyd | 1¢ | 0.0% | -1.0 |
| Montez Sweat | 1¢ | 0.0% | -1.0 |
| Jessie Bates III | 1¢ | 0.0% | -1.0 |
| Zach Allen | 1¢ | 0.0% | -1.0 |
| Josh Sweat | 1¢ | 0.0% | -1.0 |
| Nolan Smith Jr. | untraded | 0.0% | — |
| Rashan Gary | untraded | 0.0% | — |
| Brian Branch | untraded | 0.0% | — |
| Kerby Joseph | untraded | 0.0% | — |
These are model estimates, not predictions of fact and not financial advice. Names missing from the table's top carry blends the panel rounds toward zero; every listed contract remains in the crawlable record above at its blend. Beware the thin-book mirages: Ed Oliver and Greg Rousseau show 4-cent prices on roughly one dollar of lifetime volume each, a single stale print rather than an opinion, and the panel prices both at effectively zero.
Every Seat's Number: The Top Tier
The top sixteen outcomes, seat by seat, from each model's round-two numbers after the anonymized cross-read. An "f" means that seat folded the player into its field allocation rather than pricing him explicitly; all eight seats returned round one, one seat's round-two revision failed to parse and its round-one numbers stand, and every number lands in the graded ledger.
| Outcome | Market | Fable | Opus | Sonnet | GPT | Gemini | Kimi | GLM | DeepSeek | Blend |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| The field | not a listed contract | 15.0 | 18.6 | 39.0 | 18.4 | 22.0 | 18.0 | 28.6 | 10.3 | 21.2% |
| Myles Garrett | 20¢ | 19.0 | 20.1 | 20.0 | 17.5 | 18.0 | 26.0 | 17.3 | 18.5 | 19.6% |
| Will Anderson Jr. | 13¢ | 9.0 | 9.0 | 10.0 | 9.7 | 11.0 | 10.0 | 10.2 | 12.3 | 10.2% |
| Aidan Hutchinson | 12¢ | 8.0 | 8.0 | 9.0 | 8.7 | 9.0 | 9.0 | 9.2 | 10.3 | 8.9% |
| Micah Parsons | 3¢ | 7.0 | 7.0 | 8.0 | 7.8 | 9.0 | 7.0 | 8.2 | 9.2 | 7.9% |
| Maxx Crosby | 5¢ | 5.0 | 5.0 | 6.0 | 6.8 | 6.0 | 6.0 | 6.1 | 6.2 | 5.9% |
| Nick Bosa | 5¢ | 5.0 | 5.0 | 5.0 | 5.8 | 5.0 | 5.0 | 5.1 | 7.2 | 5.4% |
| T.J. Watt | 4¢ | 4.0 | 3.5 | f | 5.8 | 7.0 | 3.0 | f | 5.1 | 3.6% |
| Jared Verse | 3¢ | 3.5 | 3.0 | 3.0 | 2.9 | 4.0 | 4.0 | 3.1 | 3.1 | 3.3% |
| Nik Bonitto | 4¢ | 4.0 | 4.0 | f | 3.9 | 3.0 | 3.0 | 4.1 | 2.1 | 3.0% |
| Abdul Carter | 4¢ | 3.0 | 4.0 | f | 2.4 | 2.0 | 3.0 | 3.1 | 1.0 | 2.3% |
| Fred Warner | 2¢ | 2.5 | 1.5 | f | f | 2.0 | 2.0 | 2.0 | 1.0 | 1.4% |
| Pat Surtain | 3¢ | 2.5 | 1.5 | f | 1.9 | f | 2.0 | f | 2.6 | 1.3% |
| Danielle Hunter | 2¢ | 2.0 | 1.5 | f | 2.9 | f | f | f | 2.1 | 1.1% |
| Jalen Carter | 3¢ | 3.0 | 2.5 | f | f | f | f | f | 2.1 | 0.9% |
| Trey Hendrickson | 2¢ | 3.0 | 2.5 | f | f | f | f | f | 1.2 | 0.8% |
These are model estimates, not predictions of fact and not financial advice. The panel: Claude Fable, Claude Opus, Claude Sonnet, ChatGPT, Gemini Pro, Kimi, GLM, and DeepSeek, each pricing the full 52-name partition in one pass on August 7, 2026, without seeing any prices.
Every seat on this panel is graded against real market settlements — records to date: Claude Fable 84% on 334 graded calls · Claude Opus 85% on 385 graded calls · Claude Sonnet 83% on 366 graded calls · GPT 83% on 2,013 graded calls · Gemini 85% on 2,062 graded calls · Kimi 83% on 2,099 graded calls · GLM 81% on 2,138 graded calls · DeepSeek 79% on 2,145 graded calls. Recomputed daily; the full scoreboard is public.
More live boards from the same panel: Aaron Rodgers next team · Pittsburgh 95¢ · NFL win totals board · Kalshi NFL picks hub · NFL MVP board
Myles Garrett: The Rare Favorite The Panel Calls Fairly Priced
Twenty cents against a 19.6% blend is as close as this panel gets to agreeing with a market, and the agreement hides a real argument. The bull case is everything at once: the record season, the unanimous vote, and an all-in Rams team playing for a Super Bowl in its own stadium, the exact narrative shape AP voters reward. The bear case is history plus the trade's fine print. Repeat winners are rare, a point the panel litigated down to the names: Lawrence Taylor, J.J. Watt, and Aaron Donald are the back-to-back precedents GLM counted. And Claude Opus flagged what the market's one-sided trade read misses: "losing Verse means Rams offenses can key on him with fewer complementary rushers." Kimi held the panel's high number at 26 anyway, arguing a unanimous record-setter on a new contender keeps a real talent-and-narrative gap over the field. The blend splits the argument at almost exactly the market's price.
Will Anderson Jr. and Aidan Hutchinson: The Breakout Tier, Mildly Rich
The market's second tier is the panel's second tier, just cheaper. Anderson at a 10.2% blend against 13 cents is the profile voters love, an ascending third-year edge whose 23% pass-rush win rate, in Claude Opus's read, marks "a production-lagging-pressure profile that usually corrects upward." Hutchinson blends 8.9 against 12. The panel's message on both is the same: right names, modest overcharge, because the market is paying tier-two prices for breakouts that still have to arrive.
Micah Parsons: The Three-Cent Disagreement
The board's one true value flag by the panel's math: Parsons blends 7.9% against a 3-cent price, with every single seat between 7.0 and 9.2, and the revision round only hardened it: Claude Sonnet noted that "every peer, without exception, ranked him top-6." Claude Opus put the case in one line: he is "the best defender who has never won and therefore carries the most latent voter debt." The August sportsbook previews name him in the contender tier; the exchange prices him below Nik Bonitto. Whatever the crowd is discounting, the panel could not find it in the file, and eight independent seats landing at roughly 2.5x the price is the kind of consensus gap this lane exists to surface.
Jared Verse: The Other Side Of The Trade
The panel's favorite structural read on this board is that the Garrett trade created two candidacies, and the market has only priced one. Verse, the 2024-season Defensive Rookie of the Year, steps into the exact Cleveland role that just produced a record-setting DPOY season, and the revision round is where the panel noticed: three seats added or raised him after peers surfaced the mechanism, with Claude Opus calling him "a live candidate stepping into the exact role that just produced a record-setting DPOY season, with a revenge narrative voters like." He blends 3.3% against 3 cents, fair on its face, but he was the round's most-upgraded name.
Dark Horses The Panel Won't Dismiss
- T.J. Watt (3.6% blend, 4¢). A prior winner with the volume floor; Gemini Pro carried the high number at 7.
- Chris Jones (0.7%, untraded). Three seats priced the interior-wrecker path to a historic season; nobody has ever traded his contract.
- Abdul Carter (2.3%, 4¢). The young-edge breakout class in one name; the panel prices the class honestly while spreading it across the field bucket too.
- Pat Surtain (1.3%, 3¢). The defensive-back ceiling case: it takes a historic season, and the panel priced exactly how rare those are.
Where The Panel Changed Its Mind
The revision round was the Verse round. Three seats independently repriced him after the role-inheritance argument circulated, the clearest case this week of the cross-read surfacing a mechanism rather than pulling numbers toward the average. The favorite got argued in both directions and barely moved: Claude Fable went 17 to 19 after peers corrected its repeat-precedent count ("J.J. Watt went back-to-back in 2014-15... so the repeat precedent is stronger than I weighed"), while Claude Sonnet cut 24 to 20 on the same historical ledger read the other way, and Kimi trimmed 29 to 26 while explicitly refusing to chase the mean. GLM's stated reason for trimming Garrett is the round's best single sentence: voters who gave him 50 first-place ballots for 23 sacks "will perceive anything short of that as regression."
What Would Change The Panel's Mind
- A camp or preseason injury to Garrett, Anderson, or Hutchinson. Named by multiple seats as the single most repricing event class; none is reported in the card as of this build.
- Rams usage reports. How the post-Verse front deploys Garrett, and how often he faces chips and doubles without a premium running mate, is the number the bear case runs on.
- A September sack burst by anyone in the 1-4 cent tier. The field's 21.2% has to condense onto names eventually; early volume is how it starts.
- Cleveland's usage of Verse. A hot September in the inherited role activates the panel's most-upgraded dark horse.
Settlement Timeline
| Date | What Happens |
|---|---|
| September 2026 | Season begins; the first real stats start collapsing the field's 21.2% |
| November-December 2026 | The award race narrows; mid-season narratives harden |
| February 2027 | NFL Honors: the AP announces the winner and the market settles |
| March 10, 2027 | Listed market expiration |
This page re-scores as the race develops; prices and blends above are as of August 7, 2026.
How To Read These Prices
Buy YES on Parsons at 3 cents and you are paying 32-to-1 against a panel probability near 1-in-13, the widest proportional gap on the board; the honest caveat is that award longshots are exactly where thin books and stale prints live, so check the live quote before believing the screen. Garrett at 20 cents is priced almost exactly at the panel's number, which makes him the board's fair bet rather than its edge. And the field number is the discipline: a fifth of this award, by the panel's math, belongs to someone outside the named tiers in August, an argument for patience over conviction in week one. Sportsbooks run this same market with different structures; our sportsbook DPOY odds guide covers that side of the street. Every number in this piece gets graded in public once the award settles; the model verdict scoreboard carries the running record. These are model estimates, not predictions of fact and not financial advice.
The Bottom Line
The market and the panel agree on the podium, Garrett then Anderson then Hutchinson, and mostly agree on the favorite's price; the disagreements live below. Parsons at 3 cents is the number the panel would defend hardest, Verse is the trade's unpriced second candidacy, the second tier is mildly rich, and a fifth of the award belongs to the field. This board re-scores as the season answers what August cannot. When the AP votes in February, the retrospective lands here, graded against these exact numbers. To be explicit one final time: these are model estimates, not predictions of fact and not financial advice. 18+, eligible states only.
Verdicts generated August 7, 2026, price-blind, revised once after an anonymized cross-read. Prices as of August 7, 2026 (Kalshi candlesticks). Panel: Claude Fable, Claude Opus, Claude Sonnet, ChatGPT, Gemini Pro, Kimi, GLM, DeepSeek.
