National Football League

Chargers’ Ladd McConkey breaks out. Can Bo Nix catch Jayden Daniels for OROY?

Published Nov. 20, 2024 10:11 a.m. ET

Can Denver's Bo Nix catch up to Washington's Jayden Daniels in the race for NFL Offensive Rookie of the Year?

Nix had four touchdown passes in Sunday's 38-6 rout of the Falcons, giving him 14 on the season, four more than Daniels, who's still the prohibitive favorite to win OROY in leading the Commanders to a 7-4 start.

Both have had impressive starts to their NFL careers, with Daniels (picked second overall) and Nix (picked 12th) outpacing the Bears' Caleb Williams (picked first) and the Patriots' Drake Maye (picked third). It's possible both Nix and Daniels will lead their teams into the playoffs — the last two time rookies did that in the same season was 2012, when Seattle's Russell Wilson and Indianapolis' Andrew Luck did so. The New York Times' playoff simulator has the Commanders with a 91% chance of earning a playoff berth and the Broncos at 59%.

If Nix can finish this season on his current pace, his ability to throw touchdowns while avoiding interceptions would put him in rare company. In NFL history, just five quarterbacks have thrown 20 or more touchdowns as rookies while throwing fewer than 10 interceptions: Houston's C.J. Stroud last year, Jacksonville's Gardner Minshew in 2019, Dallas' Dak Prescott in 2016, Washington's Robert Griffin III in 2012 and Miami's Dan Marino in 1983.

Self-preservation is a good skill for a rookie quarterback to have, and both Nix and Daniels are running the ball less than they did in the opening month of the season. Daniels had four rushing touchdowns in his first four games, but has none in the past seven, playing it safer since sustaining a ribs injury. Nix, too, had three rushing touchdowns in the first month, but has just one since. Both could run more, but they're leaving that to others to limit the hits and injury risk. Daniels had at least eight runs in his first five games, but that same total is the maximum in his past six.

Oddsmakers have Nix with +300 odds (an implied one in four chance) to win OROY, and the biggest obstacle to him catching Daniels is the remaining schedule. Nix faces an easy defense this week in Las Vegas, but his final three games include a game at the Chargers, who have the NFL's No. 1 scoring defense, and at home against the Chiefs, who have had a top-10 defense all season. Daniels, meanwhile, has two games against the Cowboys, who have the second-worst scoring defense in the NFL, along with facing bottom-10 scoring defenses in the Titans and Falcons.

If Nix is going to catch Daniels, he'll have an uphill battle that would likely require Daniels stumbling down the stretch.

McConkey steps up for Chargers

This year's rookie receiver class has piled up catches and yards, but there really hasn't been much in the way of game-winning catches or clutch plays on the way to a last-minute victory. That changed Sunday night, when a prime-time showdown between the Chargers and Bengals led to a tie score with less than a minute left. Justin Herbert threw a pair of passes to rookie receiver Ladd McConkey for 28 and 27 yards, setting up the game-winning touchdown run by J.K. Dobbins.

Those two catches might not seem like much, but when it comes to receiving yards in the final minute of regulation, they make McConkey the NFL leader for 2024, not just among rookies but among all players. If you're looking for last-minute rookie touchdowns, the only two, by Raiders tight end Brock Bowers and Panthers receiver Jalen Coker, have come in garbage time trailing by multiple scores.

McConkey now ranks third in rookie receiving yards, behind Bowers (706) and the Jaguars' Brian Thomas Jr. (689), and as the Chargers make a playoff push, he's challenging for the most rookie receiving yards in team history. The only Chargers rookies to top 1,000 in a season are Keenan Allen (1,046 in 2013) and John Jefferson (1,001 in 1978), and McConkey is on pace for 1,046 with six games left on the schedule.

Rams leaning more on defensive rookies

We've written a lot this season about the depth and impact of the Rams' rookie class, and they're leaning more and more on first-year players, as was seen in Sunday's win against the Patriots.

Four rookies — safety Kam Kinchens, linebacker Omar Speights, safety Jaylen McCollough and defensive end Jared Verse — had five or more tackles, and that doesn't include defensive tackle Braden Fiske, who had two sacks in the win. Los Angeles had 260 defensive snaps from rookies, and across the league, the only rookies with more than three sacks on the season are both Rams — Fiske has 5.0, Verse has 4.5. Only five rookies have more than one interception this season, and two are Rams, McCollough with four, Kinchens with three. They are the only rookies with pick-sixes this year as well.

Will a rookie rush for 1,000 yards?

This has been a quiet class for rookie running backs, and there's the real possibility the NFL will go without a 1,000-yard rookie rusher for the second year in a row. The last time that happened in back-to-back years was in 1992, long before the current rookies were even born.

The Giants' Tyrone Tracy Jr. leads all rookies with 545 rushing yards. That would put him on pace for 926, but he barely played in the first month of the season, totaling 29 rushing yards in the first four games. Over the past six, Tracy has averaged 86 yards per game, and closing the year with anything close to that would get him to 1,000.

The rookie with the next-best shot is the Bucs' Bucky Irving, who has rushed for 492 yards while splitting carries with third-year pro Rachaad White. Irving's average of 5.12 yards per carry is slightly better than Tracy's, but Irving has had more than 10 carries in a game just twice. That could change Sunday, when the Bucs face a Giants defense that gives up an NFL-high 5.27 yards per carry and the fourth-highest average at 147 rushing yards per game.

Could this be Irving's first 100-yard rushing day? With a larger role, he too could still make a run at 1,000, becoming just the fifth Bucs rookie to do so if he pulls it off.

Greg Auman is an NFL Reporter for FOX Sports. He previously spent a decade covering the Buccaneers for the Tampa Bay Times and The Athletic. You can follow him on Twitter at @gregauman.

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