For six seasons, Sam Darnold largely toiled in NFL mediocrity. The 2018 top-five draft pick struggled through his first three seasons as the New York Jets' starting quarterback, then spent two uninspiring years with the Carolina Panthers and one season as a backup with the San Francisco 49ers.
Very little was expected from Darnold when he signed with the Minnesota Vikings in 2024 and became the starter following a preseason injury to rookie J.J. McCarthy. Most sportsbooks didn't have him on the opening MVP odds board, and ESPN BET eventually added him at 100-1, with some books listing odds as long as 300-1.
Then, the Vikings unexpectedly started 5-0 with some remarkable performances from Darnold. He completed 65.9% of his passes for 724 yards and nine touchdowns in consecutive wins against the 49ers, Houston Texans and Green Bay Packers.
With Darnold suddenly playing inspired football, many sports bettors, including George "Riley" Panagakis, believed the Vikings QB should be a front-runner to win the AP NFL Comeback Player of the Year award.
Panagakis was so confident in Darnold that he placed $1,000 worth of bets on him to win the award at +1000 odds after Week 1.
"He had a great week, and I said, 'Boy, the guy was a high draft pick, he's got a shot. The Vikings got talent at wide receiver,'" Panagakis said. "I'm not just throwing darts; I'm making picks for reasoning, and I think he's a legitimate candidate."
Darnold has a résumé similar to those of the two most-recent CPOY winners: Seattle Seahawks quarterback Geno Smith (2022) and then-Cleveland Browns QB Joe Flacco (2023), who both won the award after having career seasons and leading their team to the playoffs. Flacco won the award last season over Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin, who despite limited playing time, was a massive betting favorite for CPOY all season and closed at -400 odds.
In response to Flacco's victory, The Associated Press issued new guidelines to voters for the award ahead of the 2024 season. AP senior NFL writer Rob Maaddi said at the time that "The spirit of the AP Comeback Player of the Year award is to honor a player who has demonstrated resilience in the face of adversity by overcoming illness, physical injury or other circumstances that led him to miss playing time the previous season."
The ambiguity of that last clause -- "other circumstances that led him to miss playing time the previous season" -- left the door open in the minds of some AP voters who still felt Darnold deserved the award.
It also created immense confusion for sportsbooks. Some continued to offer odds on Darnold throughout the whole ordeal, while others took odds down temporarily when they interpreted him to be ineligible, only to put them back up once it became clear he could still win.
"While the AP stated Comeback Player of the Year is for players coming back from injury, some of the voters have expressed support for Sam Darnold regardless," BetMGM sport trading manager Christian Cipollini told ESPN via email. "This pushed us to put Darnold back on the board, despite not having odds for a good portion of the season."
Reports emerged in early January that the AP would accept Comeback Player of the Year votes for Darnold, and the organization later confirmed to ESPN that he will earn the award if he gets the most votes. The AP officially named him a finalist for the award a few weeks later, along with Hamlin, Cincinnati Bengals QB Joe Burrow, Los Angeles Chargers RB J.K. Dobbins and New England Patriots CB Christian Gonzalez.
VSiN senior producer and on-air talent Kelley Bydlon put a wager on Burrow to win CPOY at +105 odds, believing that if voters followed the guidelines, the Bengals signal-caller's MVP-worthy season after suffering a wrist injury in 2023 was more than enough to earn the honor.
"You're handicapping what human beings are going to do with a vote that they completely control on their own," Bydlon told ESPN. "It is not something that a scoreboard is going to show. It's whatever they feel that deserves their vote. So in that sense, I think from a bettor's perspective, you've got to be a little bit careful. You can't let your emotions cloud your judgment if you're betting on these things just because you feel some person has a case."
The 2024 Comeback Player of the Year debate is a perfect encapsulation of the uncertainty that comes with betting on award races. Unlike moneylines, spreads, totals, props and even most other futures, awards wagers are based on the opinions of voters, meaning bettors are secondarily betting on sports and primarily betting on human decision-making.
The uncertainty around Darnold's eligibility did not deter bettors, as the QB attracted a lot of action to win Comeback Player of the Year at sportsbooks.
The USC product took 18.5% of the bets at ESPN BET throughout the season, the most of any player on the board. At BetMGM, he narrowly took fewer tickets than Burrow, with 13.57% and 13.61% of the betshare, respectively.
Burrow ended up as the clear leader in handle at BetMGM (39.1%) and ESPN BET (29.9%) due to his short odds. The Bengals QB opened at around a consensus +250, behind only New York Jets QB Aaron Rodgers at +150, then got as long as +1200 during the Bengals' lackluster start. By mid-November, he was the odds-on favorite and should he win, Burrow would join Chad Pennington as the only players in NFL history to win CPOY twice (Burrow last won the award in 2021).
And yet, even Burrow's CPOY case isn't clear: he missed only seven weeks of the 2023 season and had already been considered a top-tier quarterback coming into this season, making his comeback subjectively less impressive.
"All awards are really difficult for us," DraftKings sportsbook director Johnny Avello told ESPN. "We evaluate what they've done during the year, try to stay on top of what some of the voters may be thinking."
Between Burrow's ascendance and the debate surrounding eligibility, Darnold's odds for the award fluctuated wildly. After beginning off the board and then garnering long odds to start the season, the Vikings quarterback shortened all the way to +225 at ESPN BET following Minnesota's 4-0 start.
Then, in mid-October, the AP reminded voters and the public of the new award guidelines and from there, ESPN BET lengthened his odds to +700 and then to 250-1 a month later -- but once it became clear that Darnold would garner at least some votes anyway, he fell back into small underdog territory. Some books even made him minus money, with BetMGM closing Darnold at -105 and Burrow at -120.
"When money's coming in, we adjust. That has nothing to do with the voters," Avello said. "We don't know what the voters are thinking, we just know what we're thinking and what the bettors are thinking, and that's pretty much what we have to go by. Sure, you scour the internet and you look for stories that could influence people's thinking, even voters' thinking, but that's about it."
The dilemma surrounding this season's Comeback Player of the Year award created a headache for sportsbooks and bettors to navigate because no one quite knew how it would play out. Would most of the voters stick to the AP's new guidelines? Would enough voters go rogue? Could there be an entirely unexpected result?
"The Associated Press laid out its criteria for the award," an AP voter told ESPN. "I plan to vote based on those criteria, and I would hope that all 50 voters will do the same."
If enough voters think like the one quoted, it could reflect why Burrow still closed as the favorite even after all of the arguments on Darnold's behalf. Still, he's not the only one "deserving" of the award under its current guidelines.
Take Dobbins, who suffered a torn ACL in 2021, a minor knee injury in 2022 and a torn Achilles tendon in 2023. The 26-year-old signed with the Chargers in the offseason and proceeded to put up career-best numbers across the board. At BetMGM, he closed at +1600, behind only Burrow and Darnold.
"I think that's where the true debate should be, between Dobbins and Burrow," Bydlon said. "It's a better statistical case with Joe Burrow, who isn't coming back from nearly as significant of an injury as Dobbins, and then you have Dobbins, who doesn't have nearly as good stats but has come back from a much greater extent of injury and his team made the playoffs. I don't know if that matters to anybody, but maybe it should."
And then there's Hamlin's case for the award. Hamlin had one of the most compelling narratives to win last season but ended up playing in only five games in 2023, making very little impact. Things changed in 2024, when Hamlin played 13 games, racking up a career-high two interceptions and five passes defensed.
"What is the Comeback Player of the Year award if Damar Hamlin's not winning it?" Snapback Sports CEO Jack Settleman told ESPN. "I feel like no one has ever resembled it more than that."
Settleman saw the AP's new guidance over the summer but decided to throw in a $1,000 wager on Darnold at +2000 anyway. He, like other Darnold bettors, is looking at the new guidelines as suggestions and doesn't expect all of the voters to follow them.
With the votes already in, it's impossible to say who will win until the envelope is opened at the NFL Honors Thursday night. Bettors around the country, whether they took Darnold, Burrow or a longer shot, will be on the edge of their seat.
"Right now, we have an award that's called Comeback Player of the Year. And to me, that could be from injury, that could be just your play," Panagakis said. "There's a lot of things in life that are not absolute, a lot of gray areas. I made my bet and I'm rooting for it, but every month when they change these nuances, I can't get all riled up or down by these new rules they have and all this B.S. and who's going to vote for it.
"What can I say? I made my bet and I hope I win."