Aidan Hutchinson may have won the fan-voted Pepsi Rookie of the Year award on Thursday morning, but he didn’t walk away with the hardware at Thursday night’s NFL Honors event. The Associated Press, instead, chose New York Jets cornerback Sauce Gardner as the 2022 Defensive Rookie of the Year.
This topic has been hotly debated amongst Lions fans since the season ending, with our own Ryan Mathews believing Gardner had the edge over Hutchinson.
The truth is both players would have been worthy of the honor. Gardner was arguably one of the best cornerbacks in football in 2022, leading the league in both pass breakups (20) and PFF grade.