The Pro Football Journal Awards Roll In

LOOKING BACK
by Nick Webster

As a reminder that the NFL season is 16 games, many of the critical awards were settled, or at the least cemented, in the final week of the season. The most maligned man in football, Roger Goodell, conspired to ensure that the Panthers, Cardinals, Patriots, Seahawks, Texans, Steelers and the like all played meaningful games in the final week of the regular season - some of which may have tipped the major awards in their balance.

In a season without a dominant rusher, where the best defenders were merely great and not '12 Watt or '86 Taylor, the NFL MVP battle came back to a group of QB's. And who knows what might have happened had the Panthers ended the season on a two game slide and the Cardinals snuck into the #1 seed in the NFC?  But it was not to be - and in the last week of the year Cam Newton cemented his hold on NFL MVP.

NFL MVP
Player	Team	Votes
Cam Newton	Car	11
Carson Palmer	Ari	9
Tom Brady	NE	2
Russell Wilson	Sea	2

Carson Palmer was a close second – in fact – Palmer did receive a first place vote in the race. Very tempting to characterize this year as a changing of the guard with Newton taking home the prize and Manning falling entirely out of consideration, but with 36-year-old Carson Palmer in second and 38-year-old Tom Brady tied for third, to paraphrase Churchill, “Now is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is perhaps, the end of the beginning.”

It is, in fact, a somewhat difficult year to choose and MVP and certainly a piece of the Newton argument is based on team success and the perspective that Newton’s play has elevated that of those around him, making it feel a bit more like a typical Heisman vote than MVP.

If MVP was cemented in Week 17, it is likely that Defensive Player of the Year was decided in the final Week.  In one of the closest races in recent memories a trio of Front 7 penetrators were joined by a couple of transcendent Cornerbacks to via for the award. First with the Front 7 penetrators . . . heading into the final game this was one of the closest contests ever – see the top three contenders in to Week 17.

D POY Contenders through Week 16

Player	Tm	Pos	GP	St	Snap	Tkl	SK	QBHit	FF	FR	PD	Int	Stf	EPA+
K. Mack	Oak	34OLB/43DE	15	15	953	67	15	9	2	0	2	0	10	44.6
JJ Watt	Hou	34DE	15	15	964	68	14.5	31	2	0	6	0	15	65.3
Aaron Donald	StL	43DT	15	15	861	67	11	23	0	1	0	0	13.5	54.7

The top players were separated by a single tackle, the top two sackers by half a sack, the top two stuffers by 1.5 Stuffs, and on and on. Yet in the final game only Watt had any sacks – and he had three. Watt defensed two passes to Donald’s 1 and Mack’s 0. Watt made 1.5 Stuffs to Mack’s 2 and Donald’s 0. Donald did exert consistent pressure with 4 non-sack QB Hits versus both Mack and Watt with one each. Watt both forced and recovered a fumble participating in 2 turnovers. In the end, the numbers and the clutch performances support Watt.

D POY Contenders through Week 17

Player	Tm	Pos	GP	St	Snap	Tkl	SK	QBHit	FF	FR	PD	Int	Stf	EPA+
Khalil Mack	Oak	34OLB/43DE	16	16	1,018	77	15	10	2	0	2	0	12	49.4
JJ Watt	Hou	34DE	16	16	1,021	76	17.5	32	3	1	8	0	16.5	78.2
Aaron Donald	StL	43DT	16	16	935	69	11	27	0	1	1	0	13.5	55.3

How about the Defensive backs? There is certainly a case for Josh Norman, Patrick Peterson and even Tyrann Mathieu. In the end Mathieu’s injury cost him serious consideration – despite a phenomenal season. Coming into the final week of the season both Norman and Peterson has Passer ratings when targeted in the mid 50’s at 54.7 and 55.5, respectively, these were virtually inseparable. In fact, Derrelle Revis had the strongest Passer rating when targeted of this group at 51.2, all of these, however, represent extremely similar numbers in the big scheme of things. However, Norman’s performance has been falling off of late as he was allowing a rating in the low 40’s as recently as 4 weeks ago, Revis was shown to have lost a step against Sammy Watkins on Sunday and Peterson produced a non-descript performance over the weekend. 

What does it take for a corner to win Defensive Player of the year? Quite a bit actually. For a position where you typically pay for what they keep from happening the awards go to guys who keep bad things from happening while also making lots of big plays. In fact, since the AP began issuing Defensive Player of the Year awards again in 1971 only 5 CB’s have taken home that trophy, three lead the league in Interceptions – Mel Blount (11), Lester Hayes (13), and Charles Woodson (9). Who were the other two, in back to back seasons future NFL HOF’ers Rod Woodson and Deion Sanders carried home the award in 1993 and 1994. More to come in future weeks on Deion’s peerless 1994 season, but with all due respect to Norman, Peterson and even Revis none was in the category of a Woodson or Sanders in 2015.

The final vote – J.J. Watt again, Defensive Player of the Year.

Defensive Player of the Year
Player	Team	Votes
J.J. Watt	Hou	12
Aaron Donald	StL	7
Josh Norman	Car	4
Patrick Peterson	Ari	1

More awards coming tomorrow - stay tuned.