Only Myles Garrett and Will Anderson Jr. received more votes than Micah Parsons
This year’s NFL Defensive Player of the Year Award race wasn’t particularly close. Cleveland Browns edge defender Myles Garrett received all 50 first-place votes for the award after his record-setting 23-sack season in 2025. In total, Garrett received a perfect 500 points in the voting process.
Behind Garrett, though, it was a bit of a mixed bag. In second place was Houston’s Will Anderson Jr., who recorded 12 sacks in 17 starts and, like Garrett, was named an Associated Press first-team All-Pro this season. After Anderson in the voting was the Green Bay Packers’ Micah Parsons, the third edge rusher to make first-team All-Pro in 2025. Despite only playing in 14 games last year, due to his torn ACL against the Denver Broncos in Week 15, Parsons is still getting plenty of credit for the impact he had in his 12.5-sack season.
Below is how the point total worked out for the top five vote earners:
- 500 – Myles Garrett, EDGE, Cleveland
- 177 – Will Anderson Jr., EDGE, Houston
- 63 – Micah Parsons, EDGE, Green Bay
- 52 – Nik Bonitto, EDGE, Denver
- 42 – Aidan Hutchinson, EDGE, Detroit
Interestingly, Bonitto wasn’t even one of the top six edge defenders in the All-Pro race in 2025. Garrett, Anderson and Parsons were the first-teamers, while Hutchinson, New York’s Brian Burns and Houston’s Danielle Hunter were named the second-teamers at the position. With that being said, Bonitto was named as a Pro Football Writers of America All-Pro, though they split out their voting into the defensive end and outside linebacker positions (outside linebacker almost always also goes to edge defenders, t00).
Hopefully, Parsons finishes higher on the DPOY race in 2026, despite having to overcome his ACL recovery.
Category: General Sports
