Awards You Need To Know About—The PFWA Jack Horrigan Award

 By John Turney

The Pro Football Writers of America (PFWA) has perhaps a handful of awards that go players or others for off-the-field achievements. To us, these awards help tell the story of the NFL and too little (in our view) attention.

The PFWA, the Hall of Fame, NFL Alumni and other organizations contribute toe h mosaic of the NFL in terms of "honors" and rather than try and shoe-horn everyone into the Hall of Fame, advocates and fans of certain players or coaches or contributors need to educate themselves of the existence of these kinds of awards so they could, perhaps, see "their guy" deserves an award rather than induction into the Hall of Fame on the thinnest of resumes.

JACK HORRIGAN AWARD

Colts GM Chris Ballard 

The PFWA’s Jack Horrigan Award is given to the  league or club official for his or her qualities and

professional style in helping the pro football writers do their job.

NOTE: Year indicates when the award was presented for the previous season so Chris Ballard's award is for the 2019 season and voted on my the membership of a PFWA after the season and is award them

If it were our listing we'd use "2019" rather than "2020" for Ballard but here we present them as the PFWA does

WINNERS

1973 — John Breen, Houston Oilers
1974 — O.J. Simpson, Buffalo Bills
1975 — Art Rooney, Pittsburgh Steelers
1976 — Floyd Little, Denver Broncos
1977 — Jerry Wynn, San Diego Chargers
1978 — Bob Peck, Denver Broncos
1979 — John Madden, Oakland Raiders
1980 — Bum Phillips, Houston Oilers
1981 — Bob Sprenger, Kansas City Chiefs
1982 — Joe Gordon, Pittsburgh Steelers
1983 — Archie Manning, New Orleans Saints/Houston Oilers
1984 — Art Rooney, Pittsburgh Steelers
1985 — Joe Browne, NFL
1986 — Dick Steinberg, New England Patriots
1987 — Charlie Dayton, Atlanta Falcons
1988 — Art Modell, Cleveland Browns
1989 — Tom Landry, Dallas Cowboys
1990 — George Young, New York Giants
1991 — Jim Finks, New Orleans Saints
1992 — John Robinson, Los Angeles Rams
1993 — Warren Moon, Houston Oilers
1994 — Don Shula, Miami Dolphins
1995 — Leslie Hammond. NFL
1996 — Ron Wolf, Green Bay Packers
1997 — Don Smith, Pro Football Hall of Fame
1998 — Tony Dungy, Tampa Bay Buccaneers
1999 — Greg Aiello, NFL
2000 — Ernie Accorsi, New York Giants
2001 — Jeff Fisher, Tennessee Titans
2002 — Charley Casserly, Houston Texans
2003 — Herman Edwards, New York Jets
2004 — Ozzie Newsome, Baltimore Ravens
2005 — Rich McKay, Atlanta Falcons
2006 — Floyd Reese, Tennessee Titans
2007 — Steve Alic, NFL
2008 — Mike Holmgren, Seattle Seahawks
2009 — Dan Rooney, Pittsburgh Steelers
2010 — Gil Brandt, NFL.com
2011 — Rex Ryan, New York Jets
2012 — Thomas Dimitroff, Atlanta Falcons
2013 — Mike Signora, NFL
2014 — Pete Carroll, Seattle Seahawks
2015 — Bruce Arians, Arizona Cardinals
2016 — John Elway, Denver Broncos
2017 — Mike Mayock, NFL Network
2018 — Randall Liu, NFL
2019 — Joe Horrigan, Pro Football Hall of Fame
2020 — Chris Ballard, Indianapolis Colts

Most of the winners are GM-types but some are coaches or even players but all were the type to talk to the media and would aide the writers in getting stories out to the fans.