CLEVELAND, Ohio (92.3 The Fan) – Myles Garrett has won his first Defensive Player of the Year award.
But it’s not the one Garrett covets most.
Garrett was voted the NFL’s top defender for the 2023 season by the Pro Football Writers of America the association announced Wednesday, however the PFWA awards are not officially recognized by the NFL.
The league awards come from the Associated Press, where Garrett is expected to be a finalist for the same award, which will be unveiled at NFL Honors on February 8th.
Led by Browns executive vice president of football operations and general manager Andrew Berry and head coach Kevin Stefanski, the Browns have been pushing for Garrett to win the award this year with the central theme being Garrett’s stats don’t do his dominance on the field justice.
“We feel like his work on the field hasn't always been nationally recognized, to be quite honest,” Berry said Tuesday night at the 24th Greater Cleveland Sports Awards. “And so just having a historically great player on a historically great defense and everything we were able to accomplish this year with him being a huge part of it, it would be really important to us organizationally [for him to win].”
Garrett helped lead the NFL's top-ranked defensive unit with 14.0 sacks, 30 QB hits, 17 tackles for loss and four forced fumbles in 2023. Garrett, selected to his fifth Pro Bowl, was named first-team All-Pro for the third time and he made the All-Pro team for the fifth time by the AP.
Garrett winning the PFWA honor bodes well for his chances to take home the AP award. Over the last decade, the PFWA Defensive Player of the Year and AP award winner were identical with the exception of 2017 when Calais Campbell won the PFWA award and Aaron Donald took home the official AP honors.
Garrett, who was selected to the PFWA’s 2023 All-NFL and All-AFC teams, is the only active NFL player with 10 or more sacks in each of the last six seasons, and he became the seventh player in NFL history to accomplish that feat over any six-season period.
Garrett is the first Browns player to win the PFWA’s Defensive Player of the Year award since it began in 1992. No Brown has won the offensive award. In 1980 Browns quarterback Brian Sipe was voted NFL MVP by the PFWA.