This was my sixth year as an official Associated Press voter for both the All-Pro team and the end-of-season awards. A couple of weeks ago, I wrote a long article about my All-Pro votes. With the NFL awards now given out, I wanted to do the same and divulge my award ballot.
Remember that these awards are voted on prior to the postseason, and therefore only reflect what we knew about players and coaches at the end of the regular season. Once again this year, we listed five players or coaches for each award. The top man listed received 10 points, second received 5 points, and then 3, 2 and 1 for the final three men listed.
Most Valuable Player
- Drake Maye, Patriots
- Matthew Stafford, Rams
- Jordan Love, Packers
- Dak Prescott, Cowboys
- Josh Allen, Bills
I am generally of the belief that the MVP is a quarterback award. Quarterbacks are the most valuable players in the game. If we wanted to give it to a player at another position, we would need to call this award something else or the Associated Press would need to give us specific guidance that we should consider a player’s value compared to the average at his position.
If we did the latter, I would need to consider Jaxon Smith-Njigba, Puka Nacua, and Myles Garrett. But the idea that any of those players are more valuable than the five quarterbacks listed above is crazy.
I explained my choice of Drake Maye over Matthew Stafford when I went through my All-Pro ballot a couple of weeks ago. The short version is that while Maye played a very easy schedule, much of Stafford’s value was tied to Nacua, and I felt that Maye was able to do almost as much as Stafford without as much talent surrounding him.
The discussion of advanced stats in there also showed how high Love and Prescott were this season in most advanced metrics. We can’t blame Prescott for the fact that the Cowboys had a historically bad defense and thus had a losing record. Imagine how bad they would have been with a different quarterback!
Offensive Player of the Year
- Puka Nacua, Rams
- Jaxon Smith-Njigba, Seahawks
- Bijan Robinson, Falcons
- George Pickens, Cowboys
- Jonathan Taylor, Colts
Deciding between Nacua and Smith-Njigba was very difficult, and at one point I almost asked if it was possible to vote for a tie but I decided that was kind of cowardly. I’m here to make a choice.
As I noted in the year-end Quick Reads, Nacua set the all-time record for DYAR value by a wide receiver once you add in his 10 carries for 105 yards and a touchdown. So you have to ask yourself how much does the gap between Nacua and Smith-Njigba (675 DYAR vs. 544 DYAR) matter compared to the fact that JSN was in many ways a one-man passing game for the Seahawks. I hemmed and hawed over this, went back and forth, changed my vote a couple of times, and decided that Nacua had enough of an advantage to make up for the circumstances and their teammates.
Now I have to address the question of why I voted for Nacua after he made an antisemitic joke on a podcast earlier this season. I think that Nacua is a naive man who was goaded into making a stupid statement by a podcaster who was trying to get attention for himself. He apologized immediately after. There is very little evidence that Nacua is a virulent antisemite. There certainly is evidence that Puka Nacua has politics that are very different from mine. That’s true of half the players in the National Football League. We’re here to vote for awards based on how well football players are playing football, not to make judgments about their politics. If there are any voters who are political conservatives, I certainly would not want them to disqualify players based on their liberal politics.
I am not averse to voting for an offensive lineman for this award, but I didn’t feel like any offensive linemen stood out enough to be among my top five guys.
Defensive Player of the Year
- Myles Garrett, Browns
- Micah Parsons, Packers
- Derwin James Jr., Chargers
- Will Anderson Jr., Texans
- Kyle Hamilton, Ravens
Finally, an easy one. I put Parsons second because he had such an impact on the whole Packers defense once they added him before the season, even if he couldn’t finish out the year due to injury. Derwin James Jr. led all defensive backs in coverage DVOA. Anderson and Hamilton are key to their defenses.
Offensive Rookie of the Year
- Tetairoa McMillan, Panthers
- Grey Zabel, Seahawks
- Tyler Booker, Cowboys
- Emeka Egbuka, Buccaneers
- Colston Loveland, Bears
McMillan is a clear choice for the top spot. There were ton of rookies to consider for the other spots. We had good players this year at:
- Quarterback (Tyler Shough, Jaxson Dart)
- Running Back (TreVeyon Henderson, Quinshon Judkins, Kyle Monangai, RJ Harvey)
- Wide Receiver (Tetairoa McMillan, Emeka Egbuka, Luther Burden III)
- Tight End (Colston Loveland, Tyler Warren, Harold Fannin Jr., Oronde Gadsden II)
- Offensive Line (Grey Zabel, Tyler Booker, Armand Membou, Kelvin Banks Jr.)
So why not an offensive lineman as an OROY candidate? Grey Zabel had an 83.0% run block win rate according to ESPN. No other guard in the league was over 80%. That’s crazy. Tyler Booker was eighth among guards in run block win rate and above average in pass block win rate. That’s pretty good too. I do feel that Egbuka doesn’t deserve all the blame just because Baker Mayfield became inaccurate and forgot how to find him in the second half of the season, and I went with Loveland as the best of the tight ends.
Defensive Rookie of the Year
- Carson Schwesinger, Browns
- Xavier Watts, Falcons
- James Pearce Jr., Falcons
- Jonas Sanker, Saints
- Nick Emmanwori, Seahawks
Another easy No. 1 choice. There were so many good rookie safeties this year, although Nick Emmanwori is not really a safety. He basically went between nickel cornerback and linebacker all season. Sports Info Solutions’ Total Points stat had Watts and Sanker ahead of Emmanwori. Emmanwori was impactful and influenced the Seahawks’ ability to stay in nickel defense all the time but he was also targeted a lot in coverage and SIS had him as below average in run defense.
Coach of the Year
- Mike Macdonald, Seahawks
- Sean McVay, Rams
- Kyle Shanahan, 49ers
- Ben Johnson, Bears
- Mike Vrabel, Patriots
This was impossible but I went back to past years and apparently I say that about Coach of the Year every year. I had seven guys I wanted to nominate and five spots. I didn’t even have room for Liam Coen and Sean Payton, and honestly there’s no reason that Ben Johnson and Mike Vrabel should be on there and Coen is not except that I ran out of space on the ballot.
Anyway, as far as I am concerned you are eligible for Coach of the Year even if your team was good the year before and had high expectations. Mike Macdonald and Sean McVay led the top two teams in the league this year by DVOA, by a lot. Macdonald is responsible for the Seattle defense, which was No. 1. McVay is responsible for the Los Angeles offense, which was No. 1. So those were my top two coaches. Macdonald’s team had more wins so he gets to be in the top spot. Shanahan is third because he overcame so many injuries for the 49ers to still make the playoffs. Then Johnson and Vrabel, with Johnson higher because he takes care of the offense and the Bears’ offense made such a leap this season.
Assistant Coach of the Year
- Brian Flores, Vikings defense
- Chris Shula, Rams defense
- Klint Kubiak, Seahawks offense
- Anthony Campanile, Jaguars defense
- Chris Banjo, Jets special teams
OK, Chris Banjo? Yes, Chris Banjo. Maybe I’m just being a weirdo, but the trick to building a good special teams unit is usually twofold. First, you need to have good specialists. Second, you need to have a deep roster. Do the New York Jets have a deep roster to fill those coverage and return blocking teams? Hell no, they do not. Did Banjo lead them to rank as one of the top 10 special teams units in DVOA history anyway? Yes, he did. Somebody had to put some respect on that man’s name, so I did it.
But the top spot goes to Brian Flores, who is always cooking with gas when it comes to coordinating the Vikings defense and those complicated pressure packages. I liked what Chris Shula did with a Rams defense that didn’t cost a lot of money and wasn’t very well-regarded at linebacker or cornerback. Klint Kubiak got one hell of a half-season out of Sam Darnold and then built a strong running game for the stretch run. Anthony Campanile put together one of the best defenses in the league without many well-known names past Josh Hines-Allen and Travon Walker.
Comeback Player of the Year
- Dak Prescott, Cowboys
- Christian McCaffrey, 49ers
- Trevor Lawrence, Jaguars
- Aidan Hutchinson, Lions
- Stefon Diggs, Patriots
We are given the following instructions: “The spirit of the 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.”
This was the only award where the top five vote-getters were also my five choices. As noted above, Dak Prescott was one of the five best quarterbacks in the league this season. As good as Christian McCaffrey was as a receiver, he was just really bad as a runner. He finished dead last in the NFL Next Gen Stats Rushing Yards Over Expectation! So I went with Prescott as my pick.
