Last night, the NFL held its annual award ceremony to announce the winners of all the season’s biggest awards. Your favorite players made the trip down to Miami to attend the event and bring home some hardware. Surprisingly, only one player from either team playing in today’s Super Bowl brought home a trophy–I think they would each be much happier with the Super Bowl trophy, however. Here’s a rundown of each of the winners from yesterday.
Coach of the Year: John Harbaugh (Baltimore Ravens)
Since being plucked from the Philadelphia Eagles staff (where he had served as a special teams coordinator and defensive backs coach) in 2008, John Harbaugh has been everything and more a franchise could ask for in a head coach. Just the third coach in the history of the Baltimore Ravens, Harbaugh has already led the team to three AFC Championship games and won Super Bowl XLVII in 2012, which made Joe Flacco elite.
This year, the team finished with its best record in his 12 years calling the shots a 14-2. It was the first time in franchise history that the team had earned the number one overall seed in the AFC playoffs. To get there, Harbaugh and his staff reworked their entire offensive playbook in order to accentuate the talents of their starting quarterback, Lamar Jackson. This led to them breaking the record for most rushing yards by a team in a single season, a record that had stood for nearly 50 years.
Though the team was unable to make it past the divisional round, there’s plenty of reason for optimism in Baltimore. Jackson is only 23 years old, Harbaugh doesn’t look to be slowing down anytime soon, they kept offensive coordinator Greg Roman (who won Assistant Coach of the Year at this event), and their defense is still getting better. This season might have felt like it was destined to end with the Ravens in the Super Bowl but in reality, this may have just been the start to a new dynasty in the AFC.
Offensive Rookie of the Year: Kyler Murray (Arizona Cardinals)
Kyler Murray entered the NFL with a lot of expectations. Once the Arizona Cardinals made the choice to hire Kliff Kingsbury as their head coach, the Oklahoma (and Texas Tech) quarterback became pigeonholed as the player likely to be taken with the first overall pick in the 2019 NFL Draft. Despite not having the prototypical size of an NFL signal-caller (Murray is listed at 5’10” and 207 pounds) he proved to be worth the pick in his first season.
The Cardinals revamped their entire offense and brought the Air Raid to pro football. It had mixed results but by the end of the season, Murray had proven to the football world that he belonged and that he could captain this offense that once seemed sophomoric–pun intended–to success against the best players in the world.
Murray looks the part of the modern NFL quarterback because of his ability to break down a defense with the throw or with his legs. He finished the year with 3,721 passing yards, 544 rushing yards, and 24 total touchdowns. We’ve seen Russell Wilson, Patrick Mahomes, and Lamar Jackson (more on him later) take the league by storm in no short time thanks to their skills as dual-threat quarterbacks. Arizona looks like it has the next one and for that, he was awarded Offensive Rookie of the Year.
Defensive Rookie of the Year: Nick Bosa (San Francisco 49ers)
Another year, another Bosa bringing home the Defensive Rookie of the Year award. After Joey won Defensive Rookie of the Year in 2016, his younger brother Nick Bosa pulled off the same feat last night. They become the first set of brothers to ever win the award. Like his brother, Nick made an immediate impact when he got to the NFL. The San Francisco 49ers took him with the second overall pick in the 2019 NFL Draft and there’s a case to be made that the team might not be playing in tonight’s game if not for this rookie.
Bosa started in 14 games this year and managed to rack up nine sacks, 47 tackles, two fumble recoveries, one forced fumble, and one interception as part of the best defensive line in all of the NFL this year. His ability to win off the edge with any combination of speed, power, or finesse makes him a very tough person to be blocked one-on-one. Yet, with the Niners having multiple players on the field who need to be double-teamed at the same time it makes it harder to give the appropriate attention to Bosa on every play.
As the only player in this post who is still playing, he will have a chance to show anyone who doubts that he should have won this award just why he received it. If he and the rest of San Francisco’s front seven can figure out a way to slow down Patrick Mahomes than by the end of the night the 49ers could be your new Super Bowl champions.
Comeback Player of the Year: Ryan Tannehill (Tennessee Titans)
We all know how the voting for Comeback Player of the Year usually goes. A star player suffers an injury that keeps them out for the remainder of the season and then the following year they return and have a good year, which results in them being awarded this prize. However, that storyline isn’t the case for the person who won the award this year. Ryan Tannehill didn’t suffer an injury in fact, after being the starting quarterback for the Miami Dolphins in 2018, he was traded to the Tennessee Titans in the offseason where he would serve as Marcus Mariota’s backup.
This lasted until Week 7. At 2-4, the team needed to make some type of change to get a boost and it turns out that inserting Tannehill was exactly what they needed. He would go on to help them secure the last spot in the playoffs and then orchestrate back-to-back upset victories over the New England Patriots and the Baltimore Ravens. They even held a 17-7 lead over the Kansas City Chiefs in the AFC Championship game.
Tannehill going from castoff to leading his underdog team to a remarkable playoff run is the personification of the word “comeback”. Any other player winning the award this year would have been a disservice to it. Oddly enough, Tannehill now enters free agency and could be in line for a very big pay raise thanks to the work he did this season for the Titans.
Defensive Player of the Year: Stephon Gilmore (New England Patriots)
Stephon Gilmore just completed his third season as a member of the New England Patriots and he capped it off by becoming the first cornerback since Charles Woodson to win Defensive Player of the Year. For most of the year, we heard about how historically dominant the Patriots defense was and a big reason for their success was the play of Gilmore. He single-handedly shut down an opposing receiver–often the opponent’s best one–allowing for the rest of the defense to turn their focus to other players.
Not since Darrelle Revis has Bill Belichick had this type of singular talent at corner and just like Revis, Belichick stole him away from an in-division rival. Gilmore started his career with the Buffalo Bills before signing a big-money contract (rarely given out in New England) to switch sides in 2017.
This season, it felt like quarterbacks were better off throwing the ball out of bounds than at Gilmore. He recorded a career-high six interceptions and tied his career-high–set last year–for passes defended with 20. Both of those totals were tops in the entire league. He also had two pick-sixes (the only two of his career) and 53 tackles. In a passing league, Gilmore has proven to be the rare cornerback who isn’t scheme-dependent. Whatever Belichick and the coaching staff draw up for him to do he will, and he usually does it at a very high success level.
Offensive Player of the Year: Michael Thomas (New Orleans Saints)
His social media handles do a great job of explaining why Michael Thomas won this award, “cantguardmike”. It seemed like no matter who lined up across from him or what coverage and scheme a defense ran, there was no one on the field at any point in time who could guard Thomas. The chemistry and rapport that he has developed with Drew Brees since entering the league in 2016 is truly a sight to behold.
This season, things clicked better than they ever have. He shattered Marvin Harrison’s single-season receptions record, finishing with 149 and also lead the league in receiving yards this year totaling 1,725. For three out of his four years in the league, he has caught nine touchdown passes with last season being his third. The 6’3″ Thomas is just too crafty and too good of a route runner for opposing defensive backs. He also will likely have a size, strength or speed advantage against whoever is defending him on any given snap.
While the New Orleans Saints season ended earlier than expected (again) their prolific offense has been a thing of beauty to watch in recent years. As long as Brees decides to keep playing, there’s a chance that Thomas–or Brees, or Alvin Kamara–are taking home this award again at the end of next season. For now, defensive coordinators in the NFC are going to be spending a lot of time this offseason trying to figure out how to guard Mike.
Most Valuable Player: Lamar Jackson (Baltimore Ravens)
And now to the award that everyone was waiting for–and also the award that had seemingly been wrapped up just a little over halfway through the season. Lamar Jackson of the Baltimore Ravens was named MVP of the 2019 NFL season. In his first season as a full-time starter, Jackson made opposing defenses look silly week-after-week. He became only the second-ever unanimous MVP in NFL history (Tom Brady in 2010 being the other).
Prior to this year, the last time we saw him on the field was in the playoffs against the Los Angeles Chargers where he didn’t complete a pass for multiple quarters. This year, he put to bed a lot of questions about his ability to play quarterback in the NFL. He threw for 3,127 yards and a league-leading 36 touchdowns (compared to just six interceptions). His completion percentage surged up to 66.1 percent from 58.2 percent a season ago. He did all of this while more than doubling the number of attempts and completions he threw as a rookie.
His legs and scrambles made him must-see television on every snap. He set the record for rushing yards in a season by a quarterback with 1,206 yards and scored seven touchdowns too. However, the year ended once again with a disappointing playoff performance. Jackson did become the first quarterback to pass for 300-plus yards and run for 100-plus yards in a single playoff game but two interceptions, drops, and inaccurate throws ultimately led to Baltimore getting upset. If he makes another leap as he did between his rookie year and this season then he might be taking home this award again next season.
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