Broncos star Nik Bonitto could win DPOY in 2026, but he will need to do better

On Monday night, Nik Bonitto played across from a guy who had never started a game at left tackle in his life. Nik Bonitto finished the game with two tackle (one solo) on 36 defensive snaps. Part of this was the KC game plan to get the ball out quickly. Patrick Mahomes had one of the shorter times to throw on average on Monday. Still Nik Bonitto needed to have a better showing in a nationally televised game to have any shot at DPOY.

Since 2008, an on-the-ball defender has won Defensive Player of the Year on 13 occasions in the NFL. Eight different OLB/DEs have won it in those 17 seasons, with the rare defensive back winning it the other four times.

The OLB/DEs to win the award are Myles Garrett (2x), Nick Bosa, TJ Watt, Aaron Donald (3x), Khalil Mack, JJ Watt (3x), Terrell Suggs, and James Harrison. Those eight guys have combined to play in 1277 NFL games, and in only 59 of those games have any of them had zero tackles - 4.6 percent.

Last Thursday, defending DPOY Myles Garrett played 40 snaps and had all zeroes on the stat sheet. This was the fourth time in his 135 career games that he has had no tackles, the 40th game where he had no tackles for loss (TFL), and the 23rd time he has had no QB hits in a game. He also had no QB pressures.

The 49ers' offense accomplished this by double-teaming or chipping him on almost every play. The 49ers also throw almost every pass in 1.5 seconds or less. It is literally impossible for a defender to get to the QB that quickly.

Broncos OLB Nik Bonitto could win DPOY in 2026

Broncos star Nik Bonitto is going to have to up his game to win the DPOY in 2026 since all the guys who did it recently basically did not get shut out (zeros on the stat sheet) in any of the games in the years when they won it.

For example, Garrett had at least one tackle in every game last season. He had at least one TFL in 13 of 17 games last season, and he had at least one QB hit in 15 of 17 games last season. Compare this to Bonitto, who had at least one tackle in every game last season, but he had eight games where he didn't have a TFL last season and three games where he didn't have a QB hit.

Of course, sacks are sexy, and Garrett had 23 of them last season to set an NFL official record (admittedly in 17 games instead of 16). However, Al Baker had 23 sacks in 16 games (unofficial since the league was not officially tracking individual sacks yet). In terms of sacks per game, Garrett's 2025 season is 16th in NFL history (using the unofficial sack numbers from the 70s).

Reggie White's 21 sacks in 12 games in 1987 are absolutely unreal. That's 1.75 sacks per game. Over the course of 17 games, that would be 30 sacks. Deacon Jones' 1964 or 1968 seasons (14 games) over 17 games would project to 27 sacks. Admittedly, it was much easier to get sacks back then because QBs took more sacks per dropback.

The sack rate has been trending up since roughly 2008. So Maybe this is the season where Nik Bonitto sets the Broncos' franchise record for individual sacks (Von Miller in 2012 with 18.5 sacks). Nineteen sacks in 17 games is 1.12 sacks per game.

So far in his career, he has 37 sacks in 36 games started, or 1.03 sacks per game. So 1.12 is not out of the range of possibilities; however, Bonitto will probably have to share some sacks with the other on-the-ball defenders on the Broncos.

Jonathon Cooper, John Franklin-Myers, Zach Allen, Malcolm Roach, Dondrea Tillman, Eyioma Uwazurike, DJ Jones, and Jonah Elliss combined for 39.5 sacks last season. Cooper is a question mark with his legal issues, and Franklin-Myers is playing elsewhere. They combined for 15.5 of those sacks.

The area where Bonitto needs to step up his game is tackles for loss. Bonitto has 44 career TFL in his 2273 career defensive snaps (16 in 2024 was his best season). That's one TFL every 52 defensive snaps for Bonitto's career. Garrett has 149 TFLs on 7061 career snaps, or one every 47 snaps. During the 2023 and 2025 seasons (when he won DPOY) he had one every 48 and one every 26 snaps. The Broncos' defense was good at getting TFLs last season with 82, which was 10th in the league. The Browns led the NFL last season with 114, 33 of which came from Garrett.

According to PFR, there were 2589 TFLs (should be TsFL) in the NFL in 2025. Only three teams had more than 100: the Browns (117), the Vikings (107), and the Raiders (105). The three worst teams in the NFL last season were the Bengals (56), the 49ers (65), and the Bears (66). Yes, the Browns had more than double the TFL in 2025 of the Bengals. Joseph Ossai led the Bengals with nine TFLs. Garrett led the Browns (and the NFL) with 33.

According to PFR, the most TFLs (which the NFL started tracking in 1999) by a player in a season was 39 by JJ Watt in 2012 (a year in which he won DPOY). The most ever by a Bronco was 28 by Von Miller in that same year. According to PFR, only two players in NFL history have more than 20 TFLs per 17 games, and those are JJ Watt (22.0) and Maxx Crosby (20.6).

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