Let’s be honest, offense is the reason we all tune in on Sundays to watch football. It’s hot, sweaty, and exciting, just like the new Aliens installment. 

Since offense is what puts butts in the seats—and makes the NFL a boatload of money every year—they even came up with an award to recognize their most gifted, and talented offensive player: The Offensive Player of the Year (OPOY).  

As you may have guessed by now, OPOY is an honor given out to whichever offensive player the voters believe had the most outstanding season. Any offensive player can technically win the award, but the last five seasons have all seen OPOY awarded to either an RB (‘23, ‘20) or WR (‘22, ‘21, ‘19). 

It’s not outlandish to think that we see a quarterback win this award again sometime soon, but, at the same time, the messaging by voters has been pretty clear of late: MVP = best quarterback in the league, OPOY = best offensive player that is not a QB. 

2024 NFL OPOY past 10 winners

If I were to target a QB, I’d be looking at one with rushing upside like Anthony Richardson (+5000), as QB rushing stats still get undervalued to a degree by voters in the MVP category. Additionally, while the Colts are a good team, they may not get enough wins to have Richardson considered for the MVP—but could be good enough for him to get a piece of OPOY.

Both myself and Matt LaMarca have been churning out futures bets in a lot of these award categories of late and he did dive deeper down to look for some QB value (see below for which one). I may yet bet Richardson—I just made a pretty good case to do so if I’m being honest—but for now, I’ve personally kept my bets to the skill positions.

Here’s who we are both currently targeting for OPOY. 

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2024 OPOY Best Bets

Breece Hall (+2000; FanDuel)

With the injury to Christian McCaffrey, Hall has a great shot at positioning himself as the lead RB in the league by the end of the 2024 season. 

We know Hall is explosive, and his nine runs of 30+ yards last season were second in the entire league (despite him playing limited snaps early on). However, as Dwain McFarland noted in his Running Back Tiers article this year, Hall isn't just an explosive runner but he’s also a terrific receiver who managed a 55% route participation and 19% target share last season. That kind of usage and ability to get open may mean a huge surge in receiving numbers and TDs given he is getting one of the biggest QB upgrades in the league this year as the Jets move from Zach Wilson to Aaron Rodgers. 

From a betting perspective, TDs are a big area of concern for Hall as he was miles behind McCaffrey in that category last season, with nine total TDs to McCaffrey’s 21. However, the room for positive regression in the TD department is massive with Rodgers and, unlike some other top backs, he’ll have little to no competition for red-zone work given his elite receiving skillset and ability to run inside the tackles. That makes him more attractive to me than Bijan Robinson, who is shorter than Hall in odds for OPOY at most sportsbooks, but has to work in tandem with a solid red-zone back in Tyler Allgeier, who scored five times in 2023. 

The Jets as a team do concern me a little, given Nathaniel Hackett is still calling plays. However, if their defense outperforms again they’ll be happy to give the still-23-year-old Hall a massive workload and protect their aging QB for the playoffs. If that works out, Hall’s likely to challenge or even exceed some of McCaffrey’s numbers from last season, which would make him a very easy player to vote for in OPOY. 

• Ulrich

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De’Von Achane (+6000; DraftKings)

I wrote about Achane last month for this award. As a rookie, he led the league in explosive rushes per carry and in yards after contact per attempt at 3.0 (min. 100 carries). Again, that was as a rookie. 

As noted by Ian Hartitz in his Miami Dolphins season preview, Achane also averaged 7.8 yards per carry; the most efficient season in NFL history (for any RB with more than 100 attempts) since Jamaal Charles posted 6.4 YPA in 2010. 

This is pretty heady stuff we’re talking about, and unlike some top RBs and WRs, we don’t have question marks about coaching or playcalling to worry about. Mike McDaniel is a certified genius whose offenses have ranked top seven in EPA per play the last two seasons despite dealing with a significant number of injuries to key players. 

From a production standpoint, the path to a monster season is there. Achane missed six games last season but still managed 11 TDs (in 11 games). His teammate Raheem Mostert led the league in TDs with 18. Mostert is also 32 years old and has had issues staying on the field himself, so it wouldn’t be overly shocking if the injury situations suddenly reversed this year in Achane’s favor.  

Additionally, the Dolphins could simply decide to allow Achane to touch the ball more. Last year he averaged just 10.1 carries per game, while Mostert averaged 13.9. However, if those numbers flip (and honestly, if the Dolphins are smart, they should)—or Mostert gets taken out of the equation completely (by injury or ineffectiveness)—Achane’s workload could skyrocket. 

There are other names around this level I may add for this award, like Anthony Richardson or DK Metcalf, but neither have the same path to the kind of bump that Achane would get if Mostert goes down. In that scenario, Achane’s odds for this award would probably get cut in half (at minimum) so getting a piece of him in preseason at +5000 or bigger is a relatively easy decision. 

• Ulrich

Jonathan Taylor (+3500; FanDuel)

We’re not that far removed from Taylor being the best pure runner in the NFL. He led the league with 1,811 rushing yards and 18 rushing touchdowns in 2021, and he did that while averaging a blistering 5.5 yards per attempt. He finished second in Offensive Player of the Year voting in that season, losing out to Cooper Kupp’s historic season at receiver.

There’s a strong case to be made for Taylor getting back into the discussion this year. For starters, Taylor plays for one of the best offensive coaches in football in Shane Steichen. My love for Steichen is well documented, and his biggest skill is the way he designs the running game. He dominated on the ground as the offensive coordinator in Philadelphia, and he carried that success into his first season with the Colts. Taylor wasn’t the same player due to injuries, but Steichen still led the team to a strong year overall.

If Taylor is fully healthy in 2024, we could see his best season to date. The combination of Steichen and Anthony Richardson at quarterback has the potential to open up holes big enough to drive a U-Haul through. He’ll have to contend with the best receivers in a league that is becoming more pass-happy by the year, but that could make Taylor an even more appealing option. He has a chance to lead the league in rushing by a wide margin—Christian McCaffrey led all backs with just 1,459 yards last season—which could make Taylor look more deserving in the eyes of voters.

• LaMarca

Josh Allen (+6000; DraftKings)

Offensive Player of the Year is typically reserved for skill-position players, but we’ve seen quarterbacks win the award occasionally. I think Allen could get himself in contention this year.

I laid out the case for Allen to win MVP on the Betting Life Show with Matthew Freedman, but I think there’s a chance the Bills take a step backward overall. They have less offensive and defensive talent to work with than they have in the past few seasons, so their record could suffer.

Still, Allen should be an absolute monster. He’s going to have to do absolutely everything for Buffalo, both with his arm and with his legs. With Stefon Diggs now gone, Allen is going to get all the credit for whatever production Buffalo gets out of its offensive attack this season.

There’s a world where Allen puts up the best statistical production at the QB position, but the Bills’ record isn’t good enough to put him in the MVP race. In that case, I could see Allen getting the OPOY as a “consolation prize.” There’s also a chance that Allen pulls off the MVP-OPOY double, which is something we’ve seen select quarterbacks do in recent years. It would take a truly special season to make that happen, but if any QB can do it this year, it’s probably Allen.

• LaMarca

If you liked this article, don't forget to check out our other series on:

2024 MVP

2024 OROY and DROY

2024 COY

And also don't forget to bookmark our FREE NFL bet tracker. It’s already loaded with a ton of future bets for 2024 and, during the season, we’ll be loading all our NFL plays in the tracker as well. 

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