They haven’t played a game yet, but there are five clear favorites for NFL Offensive Rookie of the Year this season.
With the 2026 NFL Draft in the rearview and providing a clear picture of what situation and opportunity awaits each top prospect, it’s a fine time to project the rookie of the year race.
We’ll start on the offensive side.
Since it was first awarded in 1967, AP NFL Offensive Rookie of the Year has only ever gone to a quarterback, wide receiver or running back/fullback. And in the last 20 years, the winner has been a first-round draft pick in all but three cases.
The exceptions in that span were Packers running back Eddie Lacy in 2013 (the 61st overall pick), Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott in 2016 (135th overall) and Saints running back Alvin Kamara in 2017 (67th overall). Saints quarterback Tyler Shough (40th overall) finished a distant second in the voting last year behind Panthers wide receiver Tetairoa McMillan.
Barring a totally unexpected breakout, the only Day 2-3 picks from this draft in any position to have a shot at offensive rookie of the year would be:
– Third-round QB Carson Beck if he wins the Cardinals starting job and exceeds reasonable expectations (we’ll take the under on that).
– Third-round WR Antonio Williams with the Commanders if he becomes a favorite target for Jayden Daniels, either as the No. 2 WR behind Terry McLaurin or if McLaurin again misses a chunk of the season.
– Third-round WR Caleb Douglas simply because the Dolphins have the thinnest WR depth chart in the league.
Those all seem like improbable long shots, depending on how one evaluates Beck.
So that narrows the field of potential candidates substantially as there were only nine QBs, RBs or WRs taken in the first round of the draft this year, and one of those was QB Ty Simpson to the Rams as a stash for the future.
Of the rest, here are the five most likely players to win 2026 NFL Offensive Rookie of the Year.
Favorites To Win NFL Offensive Rookie Of The Year
Arizona Cardinals RB Jeremiyah Love
Running backs rarely get drafted in the top 5 (of even the top 10) picks these days, for several clear reasons. We broke it down in depth here leading up to the draft when looking at Love’s case to join that exclusive list.
First, it’s the easiest position at which to find great value on Day 2 or even Day 3 of the draft. Five of the NFL’s top six rushing leaders last season (and 13 of the top 20) were not first-round picks.
Second, the hit rate on running backs drafted so highly is surprisingly discouraging, in part because rebuilding teams picking in the top 5 that don’t have a good infrastructure in place on their roster aren’t changing their fortunes by upgrading at running back. That should be one of the final pieces to the puzzle — not one of the first.
The example we used before was Saquon Barkley, who as the No. 2 overall pick in the 2018 NFL Draft was the last running back taken in the top 5 before Love. Even though Barkley was every bit as good as expected, it didn’t make any difference because the Giants were a mess in so many other ways and managed one winning season in Barkley’s six years there.
And third, the major benefit of the draft is locking in top-end talent below market rate for a few years. But that’s not the case if a team drafts a running back in the top 5. As determined by the NFL’s wage scale per draft slot, Love received a four-year, $53.02-million contract from the Cardinals. That immediately became the largest current contract in overall value for any running back (and ranks sixth in terms of average annual value).
So the Cardinals are already paying Love as if he’s one of the top rushers in football — they’re going to have every motivation to give him every opportunity to be that as a rookie and justify using the No. 3 overall pick on him. Even with veteran James Conner and newly signed Tyler Allgeier also crammed in on the deepest running back depth chart in the league.
That’s the biggest reason Love tops our list as the NFL Rookie of the Year favorite.
Also, he’s very talented — that’s never been in question. Whether drafting a running back No. 3 overall pans out for the Cardinals hinges on a lot more than Love’s ability.
Las Vegas Raiders QB Fernando Mendoza
The Raiders signed veteran quarterback Kirk Cousins to both mentor and take some pressure off Mendoza at the start of his career.
There is a growing expectation that Cousins will open the season as the starter, but even in that scenario, that doesn’t take Mendoza out of the Rookie of the Year picture.
Cousins is not the future of the Raiders — Mendoza is. And he will play this year.
Easing the No. 1 overall draft pick into his rookie season makes sense, but there is really nothing at stake for the Raiders in 2026 at the onset of their rebuild, so getting Mendoza significant experience is paramount.
This isn’t Jordan Love sitting for three years behind Aaron Rodgers with the Packers, Rodgers sitting for three years behind Brett Favre before that or Patrick Mahomes sitting for a season behind Alex Smith with the Chiefs. Those were playoff teams — the Raiders are certainly not yet — and none of those QBs was the No. 1 overall pick in the draft.
Drake Maye didn’t start until the sixth game of his rookie season as the No. 3 overall pick for the Patriots. A similar scenario makes some sense for the Raiders and Mendoza, and even then he’d have enough time to make a run at Rookie of the Year honors.
The aforementioned Shough only started nine games last season and finished second in O-ROY voting.
Seattle Seahawks RB Jadarian Price
Price, Love’s backfield mate at Notre Dame, was the only other running back drafted before pick No. 90, going to the Seahawks with the final selection of the first round.
Again, opportunity is everything, and Price has a big one in Seattle.
Super Bowl MVP Kenneth Walker III left in free agency for Kansas City and Zach Charbonnet is still recovering from a torn ACL sustained in the playoffs.
Seattle signed former Packers backup RB Emanuel Wilson and that’s it. Price should be the starter and have a full workload to open the season.
New Orleans Saints WR Jordyn Tyson
Tyson was the second of five wide receivers taken in the first round, going No. 8 to the Saints.
Of those five, he’s in the best position to have a huge stat line as a rookie.
Carnell Tate (No. 4 overall) is part of a more crowded WR depth chart with the Titans — Wan’Dale Robinson and Calvin Ridley — and the jury remains out on Cam Ward as an NFL passer.
Makai Lemon (No. 20) was one of our favorite picks of the first round, but the Eagles have DeVonta Smith as WR1, a full depth chart with Hollywood Brown, Dontayvion Wicks and Elijah Moore as well (assuming A.J. Brown is indeed traded.
KC Concepcion (No. 24) is in a bad quarterback situation and plays for a Browns team that is going to try to run the ball as much as possible.
And Omar Cooper Jr. (No. 30) is clearly behind Garrett Wilson for the Jets, who also have an uninspiring QB situation with Geno Smith.
Tyson, the former Arizona State star, isn’t higher on this list for many of those same factors, though.
The Saints invested big in free agent running back Travis Etienne (while retaining Alvin Kamara for now) and should lean heavily on the run. Shough isn’t exactly Mahomes-ian as a passer. And Chris Olave is an established WR1 with three 1,000-yard seasons in his first four years in the NFL.
But drafting a wide receiver in the top 10 usually portends to that player getting a lot of targets immediately, and Tyson is talented enough to put up 1,000 yards as a rookie even with Olave doing his thing.
McMillan won last year with 70 catches for 1,014 yards and 7 TDs. That’s well within reach for Tyson.
Tennessee Titans WR Carnell Tate
We really wanted to go with New York Jets tight end Kenyon Sadiq here, but again, a tight end has never won the award.
Even Brock Bowers couldn’t win with 112 catches for 1,194 yards and 5 TDs as a rookie for the Raiders two years ago, finishing second to Commanders QB Jayden Daniels. Somehow, 2025 rookie TEs Tyler Warren (76-817-4) and Colston Loveland (58-713-6) didn’t even factor in the voting despite making major impacts for the Colts and Bears, respectively.
So it’s hard to imagine Sadiq putting up big enough numbers with the Jets to be the first tight end to win the award.
With that said, we’ll close the list with Tate — the No. 4 overall pick of the Titans, out of Ohio State.
We absolutely thought that pick was a major reach for Tennessee, but all the same, Tate is a talented field stretcher who should immediately be the Titans’ top outside WR.
Even if Robinson (an expensive free agent signing) gets a high volume of work out of the slot and Ridley remains a productive veteran — he had back-to-back 1,000-yard seasons before being limited to seven games by injury last year — the Titans are going to want to feed Tate after investing such draft capital in him.
Again, though, it remains to be seen what Ward becomes as an NFL QB. He had 3,169 passing yards, 15 TDs and 7 INTs as a rookie while being put in a tough situation with his head coach fired six games into the season.
New offensive coordinator Brian Daboll and a year of NFL experience could make all the difference for Ward — and put Tate in position for a big rookie season.
We’re semi skeptical on the Titans putting it together this year, though.
