Paid partnership with Polymarket. Polymarket US prices in this article come from a PredictionMarketsPicks read of the Polymarket US order book at 11:15 AM ET on Saturday, Nov. 14, 2026, and are midpoints of the best bid and ask unless noted. The embedded board updates live and supersedes them.
The No. 2 and No. 5 picks of the 2026 NFL Draft were argued about all spring: the Jets took Texas Tech edge rusher David Bailey over Ohio State's Arvell Reese, and the Giants took Reese three picks later. Ten weeks into their careers, they are the only two players the Defensive Rookie of the Year market takes seriously. The 7 Oracles broke down the race this week:
▶ Watch on its own page, with the full transcript →
Defensive Rookie of the Year odds right now
| Player | Team | Pos. | Polymarket US (bid / ask) | Implied |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Arvell Reese | Giants | LB | 52¢ / 53¢ | ~53% |
| David Bailey | Jets | EDGE | 27¢ / 28¢ | ~28% |
| Sonny Styles | Commanders | LB | 10¢ / 11¢ | ~11% |
| Jacob Rodriguez | Dolphins | LB | 2¢ / 3¢ | ~3% |
| Dillon Thieneman, Akheem Mesidor, Brandon Cisse, Caleb Banks | — | — | 1¢ / 2¢ | 1-2% each |
Polymarket US, 11:15 AM ET, Nov. 14, 2026. Turn any price into odds or a percentage with the Probability Converter.
The two front-runners add up to about 80¢. The market is saying there is roughly a one-in-five chance the award goes to anyone other than a New York rookie.
Arvell Reese, Giants: the favorite with the stat sheet
Reese has 81 tackles, 4.5 sacks, eight tackles for loss, four passes defended and an interception through nine games, and the Giants have kept him on the field for nearly every defensive snap. They stopped treating him as an edge rusher and turned him loose as an every-down linebacker who also rushes, which is how a rookie gets 81 tackles and 4.5 sacks in the same half-season. His case got its signature moment in Week 9: 12 tackles, three sacks, three tackles for loss, three quarterback hits and a forced fumble in a 19-11 win in Philadelphia that kept the 5-2-1 Giants on top of the NFC East. He is the first Giants rookie with a three-sack game since B.J. Hill in 2018, and only the ninth player in the Super Bowl era with 12-plus tackles and three-plus sacks in one game. That performance moved him from co-favorite to clear favorite. He followed it with 13 tackles and no sacks in Thursday's 24-21 home loss to Washington, which dropped the Giants to 5-3-1. The risk to his price is the one every off-ball linebacker carries: voters have historically rewarded sacks and splash plays over tackle volume, so Reese has to keep producing pass-rush numbers, not just tackles, to hold the lead.
David Bailey, Jets: the sack-record case
Bailey led the FBS with 14.5 sacks at Texas Tech, went No. 2 overall, and has 7.5 sacks and five forced fumbles in eight NFL games after missing one with a groin injury. That is the most sacks by a first-round pick through eight career games since Julius Peppers in 2002, and no player in the last 30 years has had 7.0 sacks and five forced fumbles in his first eight games. His breakout was a three-sack game against Cleveland in Week 5, the first by a Jets rookie since Hugh Douglas in 1995, and he followed it in Week 9 at Kansas City with two sacks of Patrick Mahomes and two forced fumbles on a single drive. The case for Bailey is arithmetic. Jevon Kearse's rookie record is 14.5. Bailey needs eight more sacks in the Jets' last eight games, and he is averaging 0.94 per game. If he gets there, he owns the record and the headline, and record chases have a way of deciding award votes. The case against: Bailey has already missed a game, and a sack total that stalls in the 11-12 range may not be enough to pass a linebacker who fills every column.
The rest of the DROY field
Washington's Sonny Styles, the No. 7 pick, was NFC Defensive Player of the Week in Week 3 (five tackles, an interception, a forced fumble and two passes defended against Seattle), and he had 13 tackles in Thursday's 24-21 win over Reese and the Giants. Since Friday night his Polymarket US contract has gone from a 6¢ last trade in a thin book to a two-sided 10¢ / 11¢ market. Miami's Jacob Rodriguez is the tackle-volume name, with 46 tackles, a sack, an interception and a forced fumble through six games, including an 18-tackle game against Minnesota; he trades at 2-3¢. Behind them, Dillon Thieneman, Akheem Mesidor, Brandon Cisse, Caleb Banks and Caleb Downs are all priced at 1-2¢. For any of them to matter, both Reese and Bailey would have to fade badly over the second half, and history is not kind to that idea: edge rushers have won this award six times in the last 10 seasons, and four of the 14 edge rushers drafted in the top 10 from 2016 to 2025 won it.
The live Defensive Rookie of the Year board
The board below is Polymarket US's own live widget for the AP Defensive Rookie of the Year market. If you have a view on Reese, Bailey or the field, check out Polymarket US.
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How the DROY market settles
Each player's contract pays $1 if he wins the AP NFL Defensive Rookie of the Year award for the 2026-27 regular season, announced at NFL Honors in February, and $0 if he does not. A tie splits the dollar among the tied players. Because the award is a vote, the price moves on narrative as much as on box scores: a record chase, a primetime game or a playoff push can move it more than a quiet two-sack week. For how the venues compare on fees and coverage, see Kalshi vs Polymarket. We first looked at this market in April, before either player took a snap, on Fade The Field Ep. 7. More NFL coverage is on the NFL hub, and The 7 Oracles' videos are on our page.
Stats are through Week 10's Thursday game for Reese and Styles and through Week 9 for everyone else. Prices: Polymarket US, 11:15 AM ET, Saturday, Nov. 14, 2026.