Patrick Surtain earns the honors by a wide margin.
It’s been a weird week with Myles Garrett, the star defensive end of the Cleveland Browns…who has spent Super Bowl week talking about why he wants to be on another team in 2025. The former first overall pick won his first Defensive Player of the Year award last year, and he was up for it again this season, despite the Browns’ abysmal 3-15 record.
When the NFL Honors were revealed Thursday evening, though, Garrett was officially dethroned by Denver Broncos CB Patrick Surtain II. Surtain had 26 first-place votes, Bengals DE Trey Hendrickson had 11 first-place votes to finish second, and Garrett had 5 first-place votes to finish third. The full voting by each member of the Associated Press panel can be found here, and the cumulative votes for the Top 5 players are below:
- Broncos CB Patrick Surtain: 330 points
- Bengals EDGE Trey Hendrickson: 205 points
- Browns EDGE Myles Garrett: 162 points
- Steelers EDGE T.J. Watt: 114 points
- Eagles LB Zack Baun: 63 points
The points are scored by a first-place vote being 10 points, a second-place vote being 5 points, a third-place vote being 3 points, a fourth-place vote being 2 points, and a fifth-place vote being 1 point. No other member of the Browns received a vote for Defensive Player of the Year.
Despite Surtain winning, either FOX or the NFL had a royal screw up with their on-screen graphic, which listed Garrett as the winner:
Myles Garrett won the @NFL Defensive player of the year award. Or was it Pat Surtain?
NFL is throwing mixed signals here. Who REALLY won the award? pic.twitter.com/LvPhf42GLe
— Football Guy (@Raldi616) February 7, 2025
Opps.