Interesting Debate About Who is the Front-runner for the AP Defensive Player of the Year

 By John Turney 

Micah Parsons and Nick Bosa

Emmanuel Acho and Richard Sherman both former players and both television commentators and both active Tweeters are having a back-and-forth over who should be or who is the leader for the AP NFL Defensive Player of the Year Award.

It stemmed from a CBS Sports Tweet about Nick Bosa and Micah Parsons—

And these stills give you a flavor of the views of Acho who favors Parsons and Sherman who favors Bosa—

Two things. One, the season has more than a month to go. Two, there does not have to be one right answer. The AP takes a poll and there will be diverse answers from the voters. It will not be a year like 2012 (where one player dominates the voting—JJ Watt got 49 votes and Von Miller got one) or 2014 when Watt got all 50 votes.

It will be more like the 2016 season when Khalil Mack got 18 votes and Von Miller got 17 or the 2017 season when Aaron Donald got 23 votes and Calais Campbell got 17.

In 1972 when the AP first introduced the Defensive Player of the Year award (1971 was an oddity in that Alan Page was the MVP and though there was not a vote, Page was given a Defensive Player of the Year notation based on the MVP voting) Joe Greene was a clear winner but in 1973 Dick Anderson got four votes more than the runner-up.

Lawrence Taylor won three AP Defensive Player of the Year awards and in the first beat Joe Klecko by one vote. In the next two, 1982 and 1986, he dominated the voting totals.

While at this point it is a two-man race, there will undoubtedly be others that get votes. Maxx Crosby of the Raiders is playing great but is on a losing team. It's been a long time since a player on a losing team has won the award but he could garner a little but of support. 

Matthew Judon of the Patriots will get some votes and maybe someone like Quinnen Williams will get a vote or two. 

It will be interesting to see how it shakes out.