BroBible
Every NFL team heads into the draft hoping to scoop up a rookie who’s able to make an immediate impact. They can only hope they end up with (at least) one of the two players who earn a Rookie of the Year award for their contributions during their first season in the league, and some franchises have had a bit more success in landing those guys than others.
The Associated Press presented its first NFL Offensive Rookie of the Year award in 1957 (the legendary Jim Brown was the first recipient), and defensive players had to wait a full decade to get the same honor (Lions CB Lem Barney got the nod in 1967).
As things currently stand, the Eagles and the Jaguars are the only two franchises that have not had at least one player who’s won the award in either category. There are also teams on the other end of the spectrum that have reaped the benefits of some standout first-year talent more frequently than the rest.
There was once a time when St. Louis was home to two professional sports franchises known as the Cardinals, as the city had an NFL team that ripped off the MLB team that has been there since 1892 during its stint from 1960 to 1987.
Two running backs—Johnny Roland and Ottis Anderson—won Rookie of the Year during that run. Simeon Rice became the first (and, to date, only) defensive winner and the first to win it in Arizona, and Anquan Boldin and Kyler Murray eventually joined the club.
All but one of the players who’ve won Rookie of the Year with the Cowboys did so thanks to their contributions on the offensive side of the ball. Two of them, Emmitt Smith and Tony Dorsett, ended up in the Pro Football Hall of Fame, and it seems like there’s a solid chance Mich Parsons could follow in their footsteps.
The Titans are the only team on this list that relocated and rebranded, but I’m going to take the players that won when they were still the Oilers into consideration.
The first three guys on the list won Rookie of the Year when the franchise was still in Houston, and Jevon Kearse was the first to get the nod in Tennessee before Vince Young was welcomed into the fold.
