Grey Zabel is the best Offensive Rookie, but will he get a single vote?

Zabel changed the Seahawks OL, can he change the mind of voters who don't understand what OLs do?

In his preview of Thursday’s game, former NFL head coach Jon Gruden called Grey Zabel one of the best guards in the league of any experience level.

“Zabel’s not a good rookie, he’s a great rookie. He should be in the Pro Bowl. When you start looking at pass protecting left guards, he’s gone 415 snaps without giving up a sack. Can you believe that? To me, Joe Thuney and Zabel should be your All-Pro guards and that’s saying something. He’s a badass.”

All. Pro. That means that Gruden believes that Zabel is one of the two best guards in the entire league.

And he’s not even in consideration to be the rookie of the year. Can you believe THAT?

If the AP’s 50 voters will consider Zabel for All-Pro status, how can those same people reconcile the fact that they’re not going to give him any votes for Offensive Rookie of the Year? How does that make any sense?

In 2014, Zack Martin finished second in OROY voting but lost to Odell Beckham Jr. and it wasn’t particularly close, as Martin only got one first place vote compared to 25 for OBJ. Although Martin had the better career (and was a first-time All-Pro in his rookie season), OBJ was a deserving winner too.

What’s the AP going to do in 2025 though when there is no quarterback or skill player in nearly the same class as Beckham but there is a guard who could be one of the top players at his position already?

As far as I can tell, Zabel IS the top offensive rookie in the league. He will also be punished by voters because they don’t understand the position that he plays.

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The other “candidates”

TreVeyon Henderson is the betting favorite to win Offensive Rookie of the Year. Seriously? Has it gotten that bad already?

Have we become so accustomed to declining quality of players that we’re now just rewarding the player who was the best last week?

First of all, let’s just try the smell test: If I had asked any of you to name the leading candidate for OROY, would ANY of you have answered Henderson? This is not LaDainian Tomlinson. This is not even Cadillac Williams! I mean, remember when a rookie would go off and we’d all turn to each other and say, “Damn, that rookie’s goin’ off!” ???

I don’t hear anybody doing that for any rookie in 2025 except arguably Zabel.

Eight games into the season, Henderson had rushed for 228 yards and one touchdown. He had just as many fumbles as touchdowns. He had 99 receiving yards.

Then Henderson started the next four games and he was…good. Henderson rushed for 330 yards and four touchdowns. He was merely good. Then Mike Vrabel pivoted back to Rhamondre Stevenson as the starter two weeks ago.

You hear that? He went BACK to Stevenson.

I’m not saying that anyone believes Stevenson is better or Henderson is struggling, but Vrabel took him back down to a 50% player for whatever reason. I’m sure Stevenson is still more trusted in certain situations. However, if Henderson was having one of those “gotdamn!” seasons, the Patriots wouldn’t take him off of the field in the middle of a division title race.

Henderson did rush for 148 yards and 2 touchdowns in last week’s loss to the Bills and that’s incredible on 25 snaps but nobody should feel like that game solidified him as the best rookie in football unless you’re really just that dejected about other options.

Did you see Zabel block on Kenneth Walker’s screen this week? How could you be dejected about EVERY other option?

Henderson has 773 rushing yards, putting him on pace for roughly 900 rushing yards. If he finished with 900 yards, that would be the 29th most by a rookie since 2010. Fewer yards than Dameon Pierce in 2022, fewer than Sony Michel in 2018, fewer than Elijah Mitchell in 2021, and fewer than Zac Stacy in 2013.

Hell, Stacy had 973 yards so Henderson probably won’t get that far.

Even if you said that Henderson goes off and reaches 1,000 rushing yards (in 17 games), that’s fewer than LeGarrette Blount, Tyler Allgeier, Phillip Lindsay, Bucky Irving, James Robinson, Leonard Fournette, and Walker.

I mean, Najee Harris had 1,200 rushing yards as a rookie in 2021 and didn’t get any votes for OROY. Zero.

That’s really just the tip of the iceberg but you get the point: Henderson’s rookie season is not indicative of anything “amazing” other than the fact that the NFL’s crop of first year offensive players is exceptionally bad if the FAVORITE to win the award is a running-back-by-committee member who has accumulated nearly half of his rushing yards in his two best games and he’s nothing to write home about as a receiver.

12 of his 14 games this year would equal these numbers: 112 carries, 478 yards, 4.26 yards per carry.

It is the two games with 295 yards that is doing all the heavy lifting on Henderson’s OROY campaign.

If Henderson wins OROY there is only one national story worth writing:

“How did we get here?”

More RB candidates

Quinshon Judkins, Browns

The leading rookie rusher, Judkins has 805 yards on the ground and is also on pace for around 900. But Judkins has averaged under 2.0 yards per carry in the last two games and just 3.1 YPC over the last nine. He doesn’t add value as a receiver and he’s not even in the running to win the award despite starting with 347 yards in the first four games.

Ashton Jeanty, Raiders

The easy bet to win the award at draft time, Jeanty is one the worst rushing team in the NFL. He has 700 yards and 3.5 YPC. I would bet Jeanty is still the best player in this entire RB class, but will need to get a better system/team around him.

Kyle Monangai, Bears

He surprisingly has the second-best odds of any RB as he’s bolstered his case in the last two months. The 7th round pick is averaging 4.8 YPC over the last seven, but like Henderson he’s really just living off the back of two great games and isn’t a starter.

But Monangai factors into the race another way: He might be just as good as Henderson, the betting favorite to win the award. Doesn’t that just mean that Henderson isn’t that good?

Are there any QB candidates?

Not really. Jaxson Dart is clearly the best with 20 total touchdowns (13 passing, 7 rushing) and giving the Giants as much as they could hope from a rookie quarterback on such a weak team. He has also lost his last six starts and isn’t putting up any wow numbers.

Consider that last year’s class had four QBs finish in the top-10 of OROY voting, including Caleb Williams in 10th place. Is he having a better season than Williams did in 2024? I don’t think so. So if the best rookie QB of this year isn’t as good as the four best rookies of 2024, what does that say about the quarterback class?

Saints quarterback Tyler Shough has made a late push, all but solidifying the premise that if he’s fifth in OROY odds that means the class has very little to offer…

If you’re not considering Zabel that is.

Voters are seriously considering a player who has only started the last six games and his claim to fame is beating the Panthers twice and the Bucs once. In his other three starts, he turned it over 5 times. And I’m not anti-Shough, but voters will mull over if the Saints quarterback should win the award for playing 408 snaps and not Zabel for playing 916 (better) snaps?

Cam Ward has talent but not a resume.

Then it’s a WR, right?

We keep hearing that college is producing the best wide receiver talent in league history over the past five years. Then where are they this year?

Shout out to Emeka Egbuka and Tetairoa McMillan for being good.

But at 870 yard and 851 yards respectively they are well off pace from having a special season relative to their rookie counterparts of the 2020s:

• Puka Nacua had 1,486 yards in 2023 and DIDN’T win OROY

• Ja’Marr Chase had 1,455 yards in 2021

• Justin Jefferson had 1,400 yards in 2020

• Brian Thomas had 1,282 yards in 2024

• Malik Nabers had 1,201 yards in 2024

Thomas and Nabers finished fourth and fifth in OROY voting last year and they were both stars. Nacua, Chase, and Jefferson were/are all stars. Egbuka and McMillan are good rookies but they’re not stars.

Egbuka fell off after playing the Seahawks, averaging just 47 yards per game in the last nine and catching only 42% (!!!) of his targets! With one touchdowns!

EGBUKA IS SECOND(!) IN OROY ODDS?!?!

McMillan is better but not a standout relative to your classic OROY considerations. He’d be nowhere in that mix actually. McMillan has 60 yards or fewer in seven of the last nine games and just five catches for 103 yards in the past three games. With the Panthers needing someone to carry them to important wins down the stretch, McMillan hasn’t been that guy.

No other rookie receiver in the league has 500 yards. All that talk of another outstanding class and nearly all of the 13 top-100 picks are invisible.

“Because a TE should win it, right?”

Voters despondent over the fact that there isn’t a good rookie quarterback this year, a disappointing receiver group, and who actually understand that Henderson isn’t even option 1A on his own team, may instead go back to where they started and campaign for Tyler Warren.

Seven games into the season, sure. Warren had 439 yards and four touchdowns, tracking to be in the Brock Bowers territory.

Since then however, with or without Daniel Jones, Warren’s season has cratered with 279 yards and one touchdown. His total contributions as a rookie tight end are fine (718 yards) but not more special than rookie seasons we’ve seen recently from Kyle Pitts or Evan Engram.

In fact, he may not even be the best rookie tight end because that’s probably Harold Fannin Jr.. But because he was a third round pick and he plays for the Browns, Fannin’s not getting much consideration. If he was a first round pick, Fannin might be getting more votes than Warren, but it still wouldn’t be worthy of a truly legitimate OROY campaign.

He’s fine, and he’s suffering from terrible play at QB, but caveats really have no part in voting. With caveats, maybe Travis Hunter should be the OROY! But caveats don’t count. It’s just: What did you do?

These are just not outstanding rookie seasons — not a single player mentioned in this whole article…except for that one.

And it seems like Grey Zabel is more likely to get an All-Pro vote than one for OROY.

Do the voters even realize that…they’re the voters???

They don’t have to claim that it’s an injustice for Zabel to not be in the running for Offensive Rookie of the Year. All they have to do is vote for him. Instead they’re going to vote for a RB2 or a WR3.

They’re not omitting Zabel because he’s not worthy. They’re leaving him off of the list because they’re unworthy. It’s because they feel unqualified to judge a guard and compare him to a running back or a quarterback, which shouldn’t just offend fans who rely on writers for critical analysis of football but also begs the question, “Then what makes them so certain they know how to compare a quarterback to a running back or a receiver?”

If you can’t argue that Zabel is a better rookie than Quinshon Judkins, then why should I believe you when you tell me that TreVeyon Henderson is a better rookie than Jaxson Dart? Because you have a fantasy team?

Because you can read the same leaderboards for passing yards, rushing yards, and receiving yards that we all understand?

Because you have a PFF premium account?

Because you’re following an EPA expert on Twitter?

Just let this be a reminder that when Grey Zabel gets zero votes for rookie of the year but Luther Burden or Kyle Monangai finish with a few points just because they physically carried the ball for a few years instead of paving the way for a 100-yard runner or protected a passer with the fourth-best pressure rate in the NFL, it’s not because Seattle’s rookie wasn’t the most valuable.

It’s because the voters can only count when you hand them the numbers on a silver platter.

Zabel’s case

I spent most of the article talking about players who aren’t Zabel, so it would be understandable to ask if his case is actually worthy on its own merits. All we have is the word of Gruden, a lot other people who cover football, and videos like the one I posted above.

Well, ESPN also gave Zabel the highest run block win rate of any guard in the NFL. Any guard.

Gruden mentions he hasn’t given up a sack.

Daniel Jeremiah says he’s already elite.

Anyone who has watched him every week knows that Zabel isn’t perfect. He makes mistakes every week. Big ones. He’s also one of the primary reasons that the Seahawks beat the Rams. He laid key blocks throughout the game, including like the ones above on Walker’s screen and Charbonnet’s touchdown, not to mention the game-winning two-point conversion.

Taking over for the worst left guard in the league last year, Zabel has transformed Seattle’s offensive line and optimism for their future. If he played quarterback, he’d be Russell Wilson as a rookie. If he played receiver, he’d be OBJ. If he played running back, he’d be Ezekiel Elliott.

All players who were vaulted to stardom as rookies because their positives outshined their negatives. Voters are willing to explain why TREVEYON HENDERSON deserves the award despite being a backup for 80% of the season but not Grey Zabel because they can’t confirm if any OL stats are legitimately useful.

The stats might not be that useful. Neither would total yards! Or touchdowns! Where are Henderson and Shough right now without any blockers?

Grey Zabel IS the best rookie in the league this year. He just is. He probably won’t get any votes, not even in one of the worst rookie seasons in the history of the NFL, unless his next pancake is the wall that sits in between the writers and reality.

Seaside Joe 2483