This offseason, Los Angeles Rams star Myles Garrett became the third player to win Defensive Player of the Year and play the next season with a new team.
Deion Sanders and Dana Stubblefield were the other two, but both moved as free agents, rather than via trade like Garrett, according to ESPN. Garrett is coming off an NFL record season and faces heavy pressure to pan out in his new surroundings, as Sanders and Stubblefield once did.
Both players couldn’t exactly recapture the magic of their stellar
DPOY seasons, though one was noticeably more successful than the other. What does that mean for Garrett? Maybe nothing, but it’s still worth examining as he follows in their footsteps.
Deion Sanders (1994)
DPOY Season:
Surprisingly, Sanders finished as Defensive Player of the Year once in his career, even though he set the gold standard for defenders.
His 1994 campaign is the stuff of legends, as he finished with six interceptions, which he returned for a league-high 303 yards. A third of his nine career pick-sixes came in this season alone, including a 93-yard score.
Sanders finished third in MVP voting and was the third 49ers player in line for the award that year alongside Steve Young (who won it) and Jerry Rice. The trio led the Niners to victory in a 49-26 demolition of the hapless Chargers. San Francisco couldn’t have asked for a better defensive season if they tried.
Season after:
From 1992-98, Sanders was named a first-team All-Pro in six of those seven seasons. The 1995 season, after winning DPOY, was the only time he didn’t receive All-Pro recognition or even a Pro Bowl nod in that span.
He did see a dip in his numbers from the year before. Sanders finished with a then-career-low 26 combined tackles and two interceptions in nine games. Well, none of that seemed to matter as Sanders won his second straight Super Bowl title, this time with the Dallas Cowboys.
Though Sanders wasn’t playing for the 49ers, he left his heart (and cleats) in San Francisco. That’s right, he was traded to the Giants in July 1995 and played in 52 games with the team. Let’s see Garrett do that!
While Sanders didn’t fare as well statistically with his new team after winning DPOY, he still helped the Cowboys hoist the Lombardi Trophy. The Rams would be fortunate if Garrett followed in that same path this season, even if he sees a slight drop in his sack totals. Should LA come away with another title, would that really matter?
Dana Stubblefield (1997)
DPOY Season:
Stubblefield rattled opposing offenses in 1997 with the 49ers.
He ended the year with a career-high 15 sacks, 14 more than the previous season! It also marked the second time he finished with double-digit sacks after his 1993 Defensive Rookie of the Year campaign.
Stubblefield earned Pro Bowl honors for the third time in his career and was named a first-team All-Pro. He received 28 votes for DPOY, easily topping Hall of Famer Bruce Smith, who got a mere six votes after a 14-sack season with the Bills.
Additionally, Stubblefield was tied with Steelers legend Jerome Bettis for fifth in MVP voting that season. The award went to Brett Favre and Barry Sanders, which is crazy to think that MVP honors used to go to non-quarterbacks. Either way, the sky was seemingly the limit for the star pass rusher, but he failed to capitalize.
Season after:
After arguably the greatest season of his career to date, Stubblefield became an unrestricted free agent. He ultimately bolted for Washington and never again found the success he had in the Bay Area.
In 1998, Stubblefield finished with 1.5 sacks in seven games. Stubblefield had just 14 sacks in the final six seasons of his career during stops with Washington, a second stint with San Francisco and Oakland. The ‘97 campaign was certainly an outlier for his career.
