2017 Wrapup: Awards

The week before the Super Bowl is always a strange thing. After twenty consecutive weekends with meaningful football, we’re left with nothing to take our attention but the Pro Bowl. Of course this time is great to spend talking about the two teams matching up in the Super Bowl, but we have all of next week for that, so I’ll hold off for now.

Instead I’m going to use this time to look back on the season that was. There has been quite a bit of argument about whether or not 2017 was a good year of football, but there is no debating that it is an interesting one. Some things went as expected, while a lot of things certainly did not. Later this week I’ll try to sort through my thoughts on that, as I run through my predictions that either worked out (few) or went up in flames (a lot).

But for today I’ll keep it simple and brief, wrapping up the last business from the regular season: the award races. I don’t spend much time talking about these during the season, but I certainly have opinions on them at the end of the year. So for each award below I lay out who I believe should take home the trophy, followed by my prediction for who will actually win.

Offensive Rookie of the Year

Who should win: Alvin Kamara, RB New Orleans Saints

I loved Kamara’s tape coming out of college last year, even if I had no idea what the hell he was going to be at the next level. He’s the sort of player who can only really be described with the word “fun”, and he landed in the perfect place to maximize his abilities. As a pure running back he still has a long way to go, but the Saints didn’t use him as just a pure running back. They got him the ball in space and let him do whatever he wanted with it, which usually resulted in big plays down the field.

There was no dominant superstar on the offensive side of the ball this year, which makes it easy to give the award to the most dangerous gadget player in the league. I was high on Kamara coming into the year, but he exceeded even my expectations to become an integral part of a playoff offense. I still have questions about his ability to sustain a running game on his own, but I no longer worry that this will be enough to hold him back from becoming a superstar. A player with Kamara’s gifts comes along very rarely, and we should enjoy what he is rather than picking apart what he might or might not be.

Who will win: Kamara

This race could end up close, with Kareem Hunt of the Chiefs making a late season push by winning the rushing title. But Hunt disappeared for big chunks in the middle of the season, and as impressive as it is to be the top rusher in the league, his 1327 yards is the lowest total of a rushing champion in 27 years. His season was good, but it wasn’t extraordinary, and it isn’t enough to snag the trophy from Kamara.

Defensive Rookie of the Year

Who should win: Marshon Lattimore, CB New Orleans Saints

It is very rare for a rookie to come in and be one of the five best players in the league at his position. We see rookies succeed all the time, but it’s only once every couple years that a player can have an impact like Lattimore’s. He instantly came in and elevated the entire defense around him, playing arguably the most difficult position for a player to transition from college to the NFL at and instantly becoming one of the elite players in the entire NFL.

The sky is the limit for Lattimore going forward. He wasn’t supposed to be this good this quickly (no one is supposed to be this good this quickly), and he has the potential to get much better. His physical tools are remarkable, and he is still only 21 years old. Injuries were the only thing that caused him to fall to New Orleans at 11 last year, and they’re one of the few things that could stand between him and becoming an all time great at the position.

Who will win: Lattimore

And the league goes two for two! With the two clear frontrunners for rookie of the year, the Saints boast what is among the greatest rookie classes of all time, and that’s before even mentioning the starting right tackle and safety they found in the draft as well (though right now most Saints fans would probably prefer to forget Marcus Williams).

The only player who could push Lattimore for this award is Buffalo’s Tre’Davious White. Both players play cornerback, and both finished with similar stats (Lattimore had one more interception, but they had the same number of passes defensed). And while he never reached the highs of Lattimore, you can make a case that White brought more value by being on the field for 99 percent of Buffalo’s defensive snaps, where Lattimore could only stay out for 71 percent. In most cases this argument would be compelling, but Lattimore’s dominance was on a rare level, and I think his slightly limited sample still deserves to claim this award.

Comeback Player of the Year

Who should win: Keenan Allen, WR Los Angeles Chargers

Allen has been one of my favorite players since he entered the league, and it’s been brutal to watch him struggle to stay on the field over the past few years. In 2016 he put up six catches and 63 yards in the first half of opening week, before missing the remainder of the season. Coming into 2017 no one had any faith in Allen contributing for the Chargers, and he exceeded all expectations by playing sixteen games and accumulating nearly 1400 yards.

There will always be some questions with Allen about what might have been, but even though the injuries have slowed him down he is still one of the premier receivers in the league. He isn’t fast, but he can generate separation with impeccable route running. He doesn’t have much explosiveness as a leaper, but he understands how to use his strength and body position to snatch the ball from defenders. He’s one of the most fun players in the league to watch, and it was wonderful to see a full season from him at last.

Who will win: Rob Gronkowski, TE New England Patriots

I never know who to pick for this award. There are always players who put together great seasons coming off of devastating injuries, and picking from among them feels like splitting hairs. Earl Thomas deserves recognition, even though Seattle’s team failures will keep him from getting the recognition. Allen could very easily end up winning it, but I think it will probably go to the player from the more high profile team.

Don’t get me wrong, Gronkowski absolutely deserves this award (unless you want to strip him of it for his bullshit hit on Tre’Davious White, which I would definitely be okay with). Coming off a back injury he was once again the best tight end in the league, despite the fact that he very clearly cannot run anymore. It doesn’t matter if he can’t generate separation from linebackers or safeties, because his height and his strength means that Tom Brady always has somewhere to throw him the ball. When New England’s offense is sputtering, Gronkowski is the player who gets them back on track, and it’s hard to imagine them having anywhere near the success they had this year with him on the sideline.

Coach of the Year

Who should win: Mike Zimmer, Minnesota Vikings

Things didn’t end particularly well for the Vikings, but these are all regular season awards, and in the regular season Zimmer did a spectacular job leading this team to an unexpected 13 win season. His most direct impact was felt on defense, where he designed the scheme and called the plays for a unit that allowed the fewest points of any in the league. They did this despite finishing in the middle of the pack in turnovers and sacks generated, suggesting a unit that thrived on suffocating the opposing offenses with discipline rather than sporadic big plays.

Zimmer also deserves credit for managing the messy quarterback situation the Vikings ended up with this year. They started the year with Sam Bradford under center, trusting him to carry them through the season as he did last year. That lasted all of one game, before they were forced to turn to Case Keenum. Zimmer kept the team steady through an aborted comeback from Bradford, the return of Bridgewater, and the ups and downs of his journeyman starter. He was handed the most difficult situation a coach can have, and he took it in stride on the way to a tie for the best record in the entire league.

Who will win: Sean McVay, Los Angeles Rams

This is the easiest award to predict, and it’s also the one I most strongly disagree with. That isn’t to denigrate McVay’s performance at all. He did a fantastic job this year, lifting the Rams from their seemingly perpetual state of mediocrity and winning the NFC West. His play calling turned this into one of the most dangerous offenses in the league, after being completely toothless a year ago. This is what will ultimately win him the award, as the Rams jumped from last in the league in scoring to first.

This is a strong case, but it is also a pretty drastic oversimplification. I think people are giving McVay too much credit for Jeff Fisher’s incompetence, and ignoring the value of the players they added this offseason. He certainly did an excellent job elevating this offense, but it didn’t hurt that they had an entirely new receiving corps and added a former All-Pro left tackle. McVay did a lot to make this the top offense in the league, but Zimmer did a lot to make Minnesota the top defense. And if you’re looking for a tiebreaker, well the two units faced each other in November, when Zimmer’s Vikings held McVay’s Rams to a season low 7 points.

Defensive Player of the Year

Who should win: Aaron Donald, DT Los Angeles Rams

With JJ Watt having missed most of the past two seasons, Donald has established himself as clearly the best defensive player in the NFL. He somehow happens to be the fastest player off the ball in the league and also the best with his hands, and he makes up for his small stature by consistently winning position against every lineman he faces.

Two or three times a game Donald will simply wreck plays in ways that very few other defenders in the NFL can. Harrison Smith and Bobby Wagner are the only ones that come to mind in terms of sheer destructiveness, and they suffer from playing so far away from the ball. Donald lines up between the tackles on every single play, and on any given snap he can shoot into the backfield and yank the quarterback down before the play even has a prayer of developing. He is a problem that no offense in the league has an answer for, a force of nature that simply cannot be stopped.

Who will win: Calais Campbell, DE/DT Jacksonville Jaguars

Over the past several seasons we have grown increasingly aware of the importance of getting pressure on the quarterback. The NFL is a passing league, and if you aren’t disrupting the quarterback there isn’t much you can do defensively. When we think of the best defensive player, we need to start by thinking of the pass rushers. It’s just unfortunate that the best statistic we have for measuring pass rush is sack total, which misses out on all sorts of other forms of generating pressure.

Ironically before this year Campbell would have been the poster child for the overreliance on sacks. In Arizona he was a dominant defender, but his role on that defense kept him from ever accumulating double digit quarterback takedowns. This year, however, he raced past that to finish second in the league with 14.5 sacks, thriving in his new circumstances. On paper this looks like a career year, but in truth he’s the same player he was in Arizona. And over the course of the season, he still did not do as much to destroy offenses as Donald did, despite stacking up 3.5 more sacks.

MVP

Who should win: Tom Brady, QB New England Patriots

The Patriots finished tied for the best record in the league. Brady led the NFL in passing yards and threw 32 touchdowns against only 8 interceptions. He was as cold and precise as he’s ever been, despite being 40 years old. Yes, you can put together an argument for someone like Drew Brees, and Carson Wentz’s numbers stack up even despite the time he missed. But Brady did this all without his top wide receiver on a team with a miserable defense. Right now Brady is the Patriots, as much as any player in the league (including Aaron Rodgers and Andrew Luck, whose absences revealed the sheer ineptitude of the teams around them).

Who will win: Brady

For a big chunk of the year it looked like people were going to find a way to give the award for Carson Wentz, but a late season knee injury swung the tide back to where it should have been all along. Over the course of the year attrition knocked out every major contender, from David Johnson to Aaron Rodgers to Antonio Brown and finally to Wentz, while Brady somehow kept himself together as a 40 year old quarterback to be the best player in the league. With everything else he has going, it would be a bit much to say durability is his greatest strength. But as we watched every other star player around the league fall off, it certainly highlights how remarkable it is that Brady has been able to perform at such a consistent level for so many years.