Draft Season

Four teams remain alive for a Super Bowl championship, but for the other twenty-eight it is already time to look ahead to next season. We still have nearly eight months before the first regular season game is played, but the time between is packed with events. Free agency, training camp, and—perhaps most significantly—the draft.

The NFL Draft is a long and tedious process, with the actual selections not being made until late April. The field of draft eligible players has already been whittled down, and now we have three months to spend on the countless rounds of speculation and criticism. The first of these occurs a week from Saturday with the playing of the Senior Bowl.

The Senior Bowl is a game held each January pitting the top college seniors against each other as a display for professional scouts. Every team sends multiple representatives to this game and to the practices in the week leading up to it. A lot of the top prospects are underclassmen who aren’t invited to this event, but it can still have major influence on the shape of the draft. Eric Fisher’s success at the Senior Bowl in 2013 led to him becoming the first overall pick. Aaron Donald’s dominance last year began his climb into the first round. There is a lot more that happens during this week than people realize, and it is probably even more significant than the better known Combine.

It is also the start of a brutal stretch that sees players torn to pieces in ways we previously couldn’t conceive of. There has been a lot of criticism in recent years of the long predraft process, ridicule involving its overemphasis on physical ability and its apparent indifference to the production we’ve all seen on the field. It’s this sort of nonsense that led to Vernon Gholston and Troy Williamson going in the top ten. It’s this sort of bizarre overanalysis that caused Teddy Bridgewater to drop to the very last pick of the first round. To a lot of fans and media members outside the mainstream scouting community, the draft would be a much more effective tool if we did away with this other nonsense.

 

It probably doesn’t need to be said, but the best way of determining whether a player is good at football is to watch them play football. Film is the number one tool used by the scouting community, both within NFL organizations and by outside analysts. Those truly involved will study every play of a player’s college career, searching for minute strengths and weaknesses to try to project what will or will not carry over into the NFL.

In a lot of cases, these match up. Teddy Bridgewater dominated the college ranks by controlling the 10-20 yard intermediate range, but he struggled with deeper throws. In his rookie season he quickly became one of the best quarterbacks in the league between 10 and 20 yards but struggled to complete the ball over the top. Aaron Donald’s explosive strength and quickness allowed him to make regular plays in the backfield at Pitt, and he was able to do the same in the NFL. CJ Mosley and Khalil Mack made plays all over the field when they were in college, and they made plays all over the field their first year in the NFL. A football player is a football player, and the games played in college and the NFL are not different enough to fundamentally change who people are.

So why do NFL teams spend time and resources on the exhaustive and misleading process of the predraft routine? The Combine fooled us into promoting players like Justin Gilbert while letting others like Chris Borland fall. Was Teddy Bridgewater’s performance against air at his Pro Day really worth throwing out three years of productivity against real defenses? Surely it would be better if we skipped all this nonsense and drafted players based on what we saw from them in college.

Over the years we’ve convinced ourselves that the draft process leads people astray, but if we look closer it becomes clear that this is largely the result of selection bias. We remember the players who don’t work out, and we forget those who benefited from this process and proved well worth their draft positions. Often times, film can be every bit as deceiving as the workouts these players are put through.

Watching a player’s college film can provide a lot of information about that player, but there is no way to strip that film from the context around it. They are almost always playing in the same system, handling the same responsibilities, and surrounded by the same talent. And the film itself can only tell us so much about what happened. It can’t tell us exactly what a player was supposed to do on a given play, or what his teammates were supposed to do. It can’t tell us what thought process led to a particular outcome, or what outside factors may have affected the play. Film presents a lot of information, but there is still plenty that it leaves out.

No position suffers more from this shortage of information than quarterback, the hardest position to scout and the most crucial to get right. Watch a quarterback play in college, and there is plenty you can pick out. You can see arm strength, accuracy, athleticism, mechanics, and responses to different coverages. You can see the routes the receivers run, and you can pick out which players were open and where the ball should have gone. You can see whether the quarterback puts the ball where it had to go, and you can see when he makes a mistake.

This is the trap most fans and media members fall into. Quarterback is the most highly analyzed position on the field for any team. Almost everyone who watches the game keeps their eyes on the ball, and on pass plays they see just about everything a quarterback does. These observations combine with the most thorough statistics for any position to make outside analysts believe they know everything about a quarterback. This is why Teddy Bridgewater was so highly thought of prior to the predraft process last year, and this is why he remained the top player available in the minds of many outsiders even after scouts across the league had downgraded him.

There is a lot more to playing the quarterback position than what is seen on film. Much of the action takes place between the quarterback’s ears, and he alone knows what exactly was going through his head. The film can show us what routes were being run and what coverage the defense played, and we can sometimes get an idea where a quarterback is looking based on the movement of his head. But nothing about the film itself can tell us what the exact read was or why the quarterback ended up making the decisions he did.

This is where the interviews with the teams can be so crucial. In these interviews scouts and coaches have the opportunity to speak with the quarterback and to break down film to get an idea of how he makes reads. These are the conversations that outsiders aren’t privy to, and these play a huge role in the movements of quarterbacks up and down draft boards. Struggles in interviews were a major reason for Ryan Mallett’s fall to the third round in 2011, a result that looks like a reasonable outcome in retrospect. Interviews in that same year showed Cam Newton’s football intelligence, making him the first overall pick despite only a single year of major college football. Now he is one of the best young quarterbacks in the league, with two straight playoff appearances to his name.

These offseason activities are crucial for enhancing understanding of a quarterback prospect, but it's clear that the process has gone over the top in the past few years. After Bridgewater’s successful rookie season it seems inevitable that we’ll spend at least the next five years hearing fans boast their superior knowledge over NFL personnel. The criticisms that hit Bridgewater were ridiculous—small hands, Pro Day issues, and “skinny knees”, whatever that means—and the ones being lobbed at Marcus Mariota and Jameis Winston now have earned plenty of eye rolls already.

These criticisms are unfair and inaccurate, but they come from a genuine, understandable place. Drafting a quarterback is an essential task for building a team, and getting it wrong usually leads to another three or four years of failure. Below I’ve listed every quarterback taken in the first round in the five year stretch between 2008 and 2012, and beside it I’ve indicated whether they are still a starter for the team that drafted them and whether the coach and GM who made the pick are still employed by the team.

Quarterback	Starting?	Coach Retained?	GM Retained?
Matt Ryan	Yes	No	Yes
Joe Flacco	Yes	Yes	Yes
Matthew Stafford	Yes	No	Yes
Mark Sanchez	No	No	No
Josh Freeman	No	No	No
Sam Bradford	¯\_(ツ)_/¯	No	No
Tim Tebow	No	No	No
Cam Newton	Yes	Yes	No
Jake Locker	No	No	No
Blaine Gabbert	No	No	No
Christian Ponder	No	No	Yes
Andrew Luck	Yes	Yes	Yes
Robert Griffen III	¯\_(ツ)_/¯	No	No
Ryan Tannehill	Yes	Yes	No
Brandon Weeden	No	No	No

The first thing that stands out is the brutal attrition rate for quarterbacks, coaches and GMs. The second is that if you fail when drafting a quarterback in the first round, you’re doomed. Only Rick Speilman in Minnesota survived a failed first round quarterback (partially because even though he was the GM in 2011 he didn’t have complete control over personnel decisions), and now that Rex Ryan has been fired no head coach has lasted through a quarterback bust. The message the NFL has given over the past few years has been very clear. If you invest in a quarterback and he doesn’t pan out, you lose your job.

Under this kind of pressure, it is understandable that these people go over the top with the analysis. What appears on the film is important, but no general manager wants to be known as the person who didn’t realize that JaMarcus Russell cares more about food than football or that Ryan Leaf had the emotional maturity of a four year old. If a team isn’t completely certain a player will be a solution at quarterback, the system is set up to incentivize delaying this career defining moment.

Essentially, the entire predraft process is an exercise in team officials tying to convince themselves not to take a quarterback. The Tennessee Titans have already started trying to talk themselves into liking Zach Mettenberger, and I’m sure Tampa Bay is picking apart the top options as we speak. The process that led to Bridgewater’s fall will repeat again because it is the only rational way for this to go. You don’t have to like it, but you have to acknowledge it as the inevitable result of fan pressure for immediate results and the position of culpability that coaches and general managers find themselves in.

The quarterback analysis has gotten out of hand, but we shouldn’t use this one position to discount the valuable information gained by studying other college prospects. While we can’t use the same arguments about the mental aspects of the game to justify the offseason analysis of running backs and wide receivers, there is plenty of valuable information to be gained.

Every year we hear the same stories over and over about the same failed prospects. Darrius Heyward-Bey was the first receiver off the board because of his performance at the Combine. Jason Smith ended up second overall because he had the athleticism of a tight end in an offensive lineman’s body. Calais Campbell, Antonio Brown, and Navorro Bowman all fell because their athletic numbers didn’t match their performance on the field.

We remember these stories because they fit the narrative, and we forget the ones that get lost in the shuffle. Von Miller leapt to the second overall pick thanks to his dominance at the Combine. Da’Quan Bowers was considered the leader for the first overall pick in 2011 before poor offseason workouts. Just last year we saw players like Kyle Fuller and Aaron Donald make late pushes towards the top of the draft, players who went on to have strong rookie seasons.

And that brings me to one specific player, one I’ve been meaning to write about for some time. During the draft last year I broke down each and every first round pick based on what I knew the teams needed and what I had seen of the players on film. Some picks I was highly positive on, most I kept fairly neutral, but there were three that I was heavily critical of. The first was Greg Robinson to the Rams, a move still very much up in the air. The second was Justin Gilbert to the Browns, which is not looking good after a disastrous rookie season.

The third was, unfortunately, probably the biggest error in my short time writing about football. Here is what I wrote about the twelfth overall pick, which the New York Giants used on a receiver out of LSU by the name of Odell Beckham.

“I don’t like Odell Beckham, and I really don’t like him to the Giants. They already have a player who can do everything he does in Reuben Randle. There is no justification for taking a player in the top twelve who tops out as only a number two receiver, especially in a draft where a number two receiver can be found in the second or third round. They absolutely should have taken Aaron Donald, and if they were committed to the idea of a wide receiver they should have gone with the higher upside of Brandin Cooks or Marqise Lee.”

When making predictions you are bound to get stuff wrong, but I think I may have set a new record for density of statements that are regretted in retrospect. This year Beckham put together one of the best performances ever by a rookie wide receiver, and he will likely run away with Offensive Rookie of the Year. He does far more than Reuben Randle, he is absolutely a number one wide receiver, and he is much better than Cooks or Lee. (The Giants still probably should have taken Aaron Donald, so at least I wasn’t wrong in everything I said.)

Looking back at this, the question I have to ask is how I managed to be so completely wrong about Beckham. I remember watching the tape of a couple of his games when he was at LSU, and I remember being only mildly impressed. He spent most of his time at LSU running small variations of deep routes, occasionally springing open for a long bomb but not contributing to the game on a consistent basis. He didn’t display quickness to create separation in tight areas, and he rarely did anything with the ball in his hands.

That was the player I saw in college, not the player I saw in the NFL. When I first put together my prospect rankings about a month before the draft, I remember Beckham being pegged as a late first or early second round prospect. As the process wore on he slowly crept up draft boards, to the point that I saw him occasionally making it into the top ten. I didn’t understand this at the time. What I had seen was a limited player who was really only a danger as a deep threat, someone who best case scenario turned into DeSean Jackson. That’s a useful player, but it isn’t the type to spend a high first round pick on.

It has become clear now that he was limited at LSU not because of himself but because of the team around him, specifically the quarterback. Beckham ran almost exclusively deep routes because those were the routes quarterback Zach Mettenberger was best at throwing. Mettenberger doesn’t have the anticipation or the accuracy to take advantage of the windows Beckham can create with his quickness on timing routes, the sort of throws that made up the bulk of his production this year in the NFL.

Beckham climbed in the draft not because of the Senior Bowl, or a Pro Day, or the Combine. His climb was due to the other part of the draft process we often forget about--the individual team workouts. Each team is allowed to bring thirty prospects in for personal workouts at their facilities, an opportunity for the coaches to work with the players and to see what they can do that might not have showed itself on film.

Previously I wrote about the success found in new roles by players like Anthony Barr and Deone Buchannon. Nothing about the college tape suggested that Barr could play off the ball as a linebacker or that Buchannon could survive so consistently playing in the box. These are traits that reveal themselves in these private workouts, outside the view of the fans and the media. It’s a well told story that in Teddy Bridgewater’s workout with the Vikings he was asked to make a subtle change to his mechanics, a change that erased many of the flaws revealed by his disastrous Pro Day. It was this workout that convinced the Vikings to trade back up into the first round to pick him.

Only the coaches, scouts, and players know what truly happens in these workouts, but I suspect that Beckham flashed abilities few people realized he had before, the sort of abilities that rocketed him up every team’s draft board. Had the draft been held immediately at the end of the college season, there is a decent chance he wouldn’t have made it into the first round. After the predraft process that everybody complains about, he settled into a more appropriate spot in the top fifteen.

Beckham is just one of many examples, and I’m sure there will be several more to add the list after this year. There is still a lot we don’t know about the players in this year’s draft. The next few months will be long and exhausting, but on the whole they will allow the talent evaluators in the NFL to make smarter decisions when it comes time to select the players on April 30.

Constructing an Upset

Despite an occasional attempt to argue otherwise, a first round bye in the NFL playoffs is a major advantage. Since the institution of the twelve team field in 1990, the teams that earned the first round bye have combined to go 70-26. The benefits of home field advantage and a week of rest are difficult to measure, but even with these factors included it is hard to argue the simplest explanation. These teams are simply better than the ones they’re facing.

Even so, this year looks like an extreme case. For some time now it’s been clear that most people have viewed the Broncos, Patriots, Packers, and Seahawks as head and shoulders above the rest of the league. Very few people picked one of the teams playing in the wild card round to make it to the Super Bowl, and last week every commentator seemed to go out of their way to mention that the true Super Bowl contenders had another week before they had to play.

Finally this week we received some numbers to back up this perception. The 7-8-1 Panthers are 10.5 point underdogs in Seattle, only the seventh team in the past ten years to be double digit underdogs in the divisional round. Both New England and Denver are 7 point favorites, and even in the matchup of two teams with identical 12-4 records the Packers are 6 point favorites. I’m not big into gambling, but I know enough about betting lines to know how absurd these spreads are. Based on the data compiled by Wizards of Odds Dallas is the only team with even a thirty percent chance of making it to the next round.

The odds are stacked against the four road teams, but that doesn’t mean an upset is impossible. There are strategies for underdogs to give themselves a chance at stealing a game they shouldn’t win. Minimizing turnovers and controlling the ball are obvious necessities in all cases. Cutting down on the number of possessions can increase the chances of irregular results holding. But beyond these strategies, each and every team has certain advantages they have to take advantage of and certain weaknesses they have to hide if they have any hope to continue their seasons.

Baltimore Ravens @ New England Patriots

As I mentioned on Tuesday, Baltimore tore apart Pittsburgh’s strong offensive line with their stellar pass rush, accumulating five sacks and regularly forcing Ben Roethlisberger out of the pocket. They will face an even greater challenge in New England’s line this weekend, but if they can collapse the pocket on Tom Brady they will reap even greater rewards.

Brady has always had trouble when facing pressure, more so than even other elite pocket passers like Peyton Manning and Drew Brees. He is utterly incapable of moving outside of the pocket, and he shies away from contact when a defender is bearing down on him. Baltimore has had success in the past against New England (with a largely different cast of players on defense) because they’ve been able to confuse the protection and get to Brady. New England’s offensive line is not what it used to be, and they should be able to cause some errant throws.

Brady’s best defense against a pass rush is Rob Gronkowski. Gronkowski’s size and athleticism means that he is open under almost any circumstance, and since he spends most of his time running up the seams it is often easy for Brady to make quick throws on hot reads. If the Ravens can get pressure on Brady they can stop the Patriots, but they can only get pressure if they can handle Gronkowski. This is one area where the Ravens are better suited to face the Patriots than most teams in the league. They have two excellent coverage linebackers in Daryl Smith and CJ Mosley, and they have an emerging safety in Will Hill. They have the players to run with New England’s most dangerous weapon, and if they can keep him from winning too many contested balls they can hold him in check.

Baltimore’s greatest weakness on defense is their secondary. Injuries have shredded an already thin unit, and they have no hope of being able to keep up with a top receiving corps. Fortunately, they won’t have to face this in New England. The Patriots wide receivers are good at finding holes and running timing routes, but they don’t have the ability to win one on one matchups. They will get what they normally get, but New England simply isn’t set up to exploit Baltimore’s greatest weakness.

Carolina Panthers @ Seattle Seahawks

This is the game with the biggest point spread, and it should be no surprise that it is the hardest to envision an upset in. Carolina lost more games than it won this year, and it is facing a team that many believe is the favorite to win the Super Bowl. Carolina’s offense has struggled all year, and it is going against a defense that has surged to the top of the league over the final month of the season. It would surprise no one if the Panthers failed to reach double digit points.

If the Panthers are going to score, they are going to need to do so on the ground. Even over their recent five game winning streak Carolina’s passing offense has been far from impressive. Their leading receiver against Arizona was Fozzy Whittaker, whose sole reception was a screen he took 39 yards for a touchdown. Kelvin Benjamin has cooled considerably since the start of the season, and this is a particularly bad matchup for him. He still has a lot of work to do as a route runner, and most of his catches come on contested balls. Seattle has cornerbacks and safeties who can match him on these catches, and I would be shocked to see Benjamin reach even 50 receiving yards.

Carolina needs to move the ball on the ground, hardly an appealing prospect against a team that ranked second in the league against the run. But the Panthers did just roll over a similarly strong run defense in Arizona, and with Jonathan Stewart handling most of the carries they’ve shown the ability to run on just about anyone. Seattle has struggled in the past against mobile quarterbacks like Colin Kaepernick, and if Cam Newton makes use of his legs to escape the pocket he can help sustain drives against Seattle’s defense.

Even if everything goes right for Carolina’s offense, they will still need a great performance from their defense to stay in this game. Their secondary shut down Ryan Lindley, but it is completely different trying to hold down Russell Wilson. But like the Patriots, the Seahawks lack top notch receivers capable of beating a poor secondary. Seattle’s receivers excel at getting open when Wilson scrambles, but they don’t consistently create separation within the normal framework of the routes.

This is the difficulty with playing Seattle. Wilson is one of the most elusive quarterbacks in the league, and when he escapes the pocket he is always looking to make plays deep down the field. Carolina’s defensive line has been playing well enough lately that they should be able to beat Seattle’s mediocre pass protection, but it doesn’t matter if they can’t corral the quarterback. Stopping Wilson requires help from the linebackers, and fortunately Carolina happens to have the best pair of linebackers in the league. Luke Keuchly and Thomas Davis have the athleticism to track Wilson down when he escapes the pocket, and they have a chance to minimize the damage he can do with his legs.

Dallas Cowboys @ Green Bay Packers

Above I mentioned that one of the keys to pulling an upset is to control the ball and to shorten the game. No team is better set up to do this than Dallas. Their offensive line is the best in the league, and their running back is used to handling twenty plus carries a game. After fighting with Ndamukong Suh and the monsters across Detroit’s front, it will be a relatively comfortable matchup against Green Bay’s front seven. This is Dallas’s greatest advantage, and if they keep the ball on the ground they can increase their chances of pulling this one out.

Dallas will be able to score against Green Bay. The Packers don’t have anyone who can match up against Dez Bryant, and their pass rush is not even close to good enough to beat the Cowboys offensive line. They can try a blitz heavy approach like Detroit did last week, but I expect Dallas will be better prepared to counter that this time around. They did a fine job neutralizing Detroit’s pressure in the second half. The Packers inferior front seven won’t cause any issues.

The biggest problems for the Cowboys will be on the other side of the ball. Dallas has put together a surprising defensive performance this year thanks to the phenomenal coaching of defensive coordinator Rod Marinelli, a genius when it comes to developing defensive linemen. He’s going to have to get the most out of his line if they are going to win this game. They need to play aggressive, find and hit Eddie Lacy in the backfield before he can get a head of steam built up. Lacy doesn’t have the vision or ability to change direction of other top backs, but once he gets two or three yards down the field it is difficult to stop him from fighting for another couple. Gap discipline isn’t as important to this game as penetration, and if Dallas can live in the backfield they can stymie the Packers running game.

This is one area where the Cowboys have received some good luck. Maintaining disciplined running lanes isn’t necessary against the Packers to stop their running backs, but it is normally necessary to contain their quarterback. Aaron Rodgers is one of the most mobile passers in the league, and he excels at dipping beneath undisciplined pass rushers to escape the pocket and give his receivers extra time to come open down the field. Through most games teams have chosen the lesser of the evils, limiting penetration to contain Rodgers and sacrificing running opportunities to Lacy.

There is a chance the Cowboys might not have to make that choice in this game. Rodgers is hobbled with a calf injury, and two weeks ago against Detroit it was very clear that he is not his usual mobile self. Two weeks of rest will have done him good, but if he is still limited outside the pocket he can be disrupted by penetrating linemen. He won’t suddenly turn into Tom Brady under pressure, but a few guys in his face could be enough to get their offense off the field once or twice. If Dallas can control the ball and keep possessions to a minimum, this will be enough for them to win the game.

Indianapolis Colts @ Denver Broncos

This is quietly a much bigger mismatch than either the Baltimore-New England or Dallas-Green Bay game. Denver is a more complete team than people realize. Their defense has actually been better than their offense this season, and they’ve developed a strong running game late in the season. Peyton Manning’s performance has slipped over the past month, but even at a level below his expectations he is still one of the top ten quarterbacks in the league, more than enough to win against anyone with this supporting cast.

Indianapolis has Andrew Luck. That’s about it. They have some decent players dotting the rest of their roster, but their team goes as their quarterback goes, more so than any other in the league. That’s been enough to get them past the first round of the playoffs the past two seasons, but they have consistently fallen short when faced with other top teams in the NFL. The first thing they are going to need to pull off this upset is a Herculean effort from their young quarterback. They don’t just need Luck to outplay Manning. They need him to stand head and shoulders above the opposing quarterback.

Denver’s defense is tricky because of its overall level of talent. People fixate on the pass rushing duo of DeMarcus Ware and Von Miller—among the best in the league—but they are supported on the back end by a pair of Pro Bowl cornerbacks in Aqib Talib and Chris Harris. They have run stuffers Terrence Knighton and Derek Wolfe along the line and multifaceted safeties TJ Ward and Rahim Moore playing wherever they need to go. There is no real weakness to exploit on this team. To beat them, the Colts are going to have to be just as versatile on offense.

The first step is to handle the pass rush. Indianapolis’s offensive line has struggled recently, and even Cincinnati’s anemic pass rush managed to generate some pressure last week. Fortunately, Luck is one of the few quarterbacks in the league who seems genuinely indifferent to pressure. His athleticism is very similar to Rodgers’s, sneaky and deadly as an expansion of the passing game. And unlike Rodgers, he appears to be healthy. If Miller or Ware gets too far upfield he will take advantage of the lane to break from the pocket and force the secondary to extend their coverage.

The Colts have an intriguing—if slightly disappointing—array of weapons on offense, and they are going to need all of them. Another week should get TY Hilton healthier than he was against the Bengals, and hopefully he won’t have as many costly drops as he did in the wild card round. Reggie Wayne was a nonfactor against Cincinnati but will be crucial in exploiting Denver’s coverage. Coby Fleener and Dwayne Allen need to contribute both as blockers and as receivers, and the Colts need to get something out of lower level receiving options like Hakeem Nicks or Donte Moncrief. None of these players will be able to get open consistently enough to have an explosive game, but as long as they are all contributing the Colts will be able to move the ball through the air. This is essential, because there is simply no way they’ll be able to run the ball successfully against the Broncos.

The battle on the other side of the ball is a bit trickier. The key to beating Manning has always been a pass rush, and that is the part of the Colts defense most lacking. But Denver’s offensive line has struggled enough this season that we can probably look at that matchup as a wash. They will get occasional pressure on Manning, enough to throw him off his game every now and then.

The key will be how their secondary holds up. Vonte Davis has had the best season of his career, and the Colts managed to beat the Broncos in the regular season in 2013 largely because of his success blanketing Demaryius Thomas. Denver is even thinner at the wide receiver position now, and if they can limit Manning’s top target it will be a serious blow to their passing game. This will require Davis to play the game of his life, but if he does so the Colts offense might have a chance of being able to outscore the Broncos.

The Matchups That Decided Wild Card Weekend

When breaking down games between teams the first step is usually identifying and comparing relative strengths and weaknesses. A team built around a strong passing game will likely excel against a team with a poor secondary, but could struggle if they try to rely on this passing game against an opponent with a dominant pass defense. During the regular season this sort of analysis is often enough to predict the game. Pittsburgh had the second best passing offense in the league, and Atlanta had the second worst pass defense, so it was no surprise when Pittsburgh tore the Falcons up through the air and beat them in Week Fifteen. When a team has better overall talent than its opponent, one matchup advantage can be enough to decide the game.

Things get a little more complicated in the playoffs, when the teams being matched up are roughly equal in talent level. We can look at these matchups and say that talented passing offenses like Pittsburgh and Baltimore will be able to demolish the shaky secondaries facing them, or that Cincinnati’s offensive line should have no problem handling Indianapolis’s questionable pass rush.

But for every matchup advantage there is a corresponding disadvantage. These teams are in the playoffs because they do some things really well, and they failed to earn a first round bye because there are things they don’t do particularly well. With these strengths and weaknesses balancing each other out, games are usually decided by something going the way we don’t expect. The games this past weekend are perfect examples of what can happen when two evenly matched forces go against each other and one comes out on top.

Cardinals Run Defense vs Panthers Running Game

I’m going to start by making one thing clear. Arizona’s offense meant that anyone could have beaten them, with any offensive performance. Ryan Lindley was atrocious, and the Cardinals weren’t any better running the football. Turnovers kept them in the game through the first half, but a team that can’t even make it to 80 yards of total offense is not going to win any playoff games.

If Arizona had gotten anything from their offense, this game might have been interesting. Arizona’s defense has been phenomenal all season, and on Saturday they gave Cam Newton plenty of problems through the air. Newton’s numbers looked fine for the game, but he was a little bit off the whole day. He missed several open receivers, and he was at least partially responsible for the ugly interception that set up one of Arizona’s scores.

Carolina’s best success offensively came on the ground. This is a bit of a surprise against an Arizona defense that has been strong against the run all season. This is the first team that managed to hold DeMarco Murray under 100 yards, and even with a few struggles against the Seahawks late in the season they still finished ranked seventh in the league against the run. On the surface this looked like a clear advantage for Arizona. Carolina ranks in the middle of the pack in terms of rushing offense, even with a mobile quarterback to bolster their numbers. If they were going to have success running the ball, most expected they would need Newton to create these yards on his own. Simply handing the ball off did not look like a great strategy.

This is where the numbers fall a bit short. Carolina’s running attack struggled for most of the season, but over the past month they have been reignited by the emergence of Jonathan Stewart. During their four game winning streak to close the season Stewart ran for 401 yards on 79 carries, a remarkable average of 5.1 yards per rush that he managed to match this weekend with 123 yards on 24 carries. His performance nearly doubled every other running back this weekend, and he was the main reason for the limited success Carolina found on offense.

The Panthers ran the ball on one of the best defenses in the league this past weekend, and they are going to have to do it again next weekend if they are going to get past the Seahawks. The running game has been the biggest factor in their recent winning streak, and their dominance of Arizona’s stellar run defense has to give them confidence going forward. They will need a lot more to happen if they are going to continue their remarkable run, but it starts on the ground.

Baltimore Pass Rush vs Pittsburgh Pass Protection

As I mentioned above, both Baltimore and Pittsburgh came into this game expecting to have a significant advantage throwing the ball. Pittsburgh boasts one of the league’s top quarterbacks and the best wide receiver in the NFL, and they were facing a secondary decimated by injuries. Baltimore doesn’t boast the same high level of talent as the Steelers, but they have better depth and were facing a secondary that had been even worse than their own over the course of the season.

Neither team managed to do much on the ground, but as we expected both were able to dominate through the air. Joe Flacco continued his playoff hot streak, and when Roethlisberger had time to pass he shredded Baltimore’s patchwork secondary. There, however, was the difference in this game. Baltimore managed to stymie Pittsburgh’s offense because they were able to pressure the quarterback, and the Steelers could not stop the Ravens because they could not get to Flacco. One of these was not particularly surprising. Pittsburgh has had an inconsistent pass rush all season, and Baltimore’s line has held up even through a wave of injuries. 

The matchup on the other side of the ball is much more interesting. Baltimore has had one of the best pass rushes in the league this year, led by Elvis Dumervil and bolstered by Terrelle Suggs and Pernell McPhee. Facing them was the Steelers offensive line, a much maligned unit that came together well as the season went on. Roethlisberger had all the time he could want against Cincinnati in Week Seventeen, and he was only sacked once by Kansas City’s dangerous pass rush in Week Sixteen. The absence of Le'Veon Bell was a major blow to their protection, but they had every one of their starting linemen available to begin the game. If they could hold Baltimore’s pass rush at bay, Roethlisberger would have no trouble dissecting the Ravens defense.

Baltimore's pass rush won this matchup, and it won it quite thoroughly. The rush wasn’t a constant presence in the Steelers backfield, but it appeared often enough to disrupt timing routes and end promising drives. Pittsburgh’s red zone troubles in the first half were partially due to drive killing sacks, and their turnovers late in the game were direct results of the pressure.

Roethlisberger managed to make a few of his typical escapes to turn big plays, but it wasn’t enough to match the offensive production on the other side of the ball. Pittsburgh forced only a single punt by the Ravens. With that defensive performance, the Steelers needed to score at every available opportunity. Baltimore’s pass rush offered just enough protection for their secondary to allow them to outscore the Steelers and win the game.

Cincinnati Run Defense vs Indianapolis Running Game

Like the 4/5 matchup in the NFC, this game pitted a run defense against an evenly matched run offense. Unlike the other game, this was a case of weakness against weakness rather than strength against strength. Indianapolis has struggled all season running the ball, and they only got worse down the stretch after losing Ahmad Bradshaw to injury. They had the good fortune this week that Trent Richardson was sick and unable to contribute, but they still came into this game with Boom Herron as their primary runner. On the opposite side, Cincinnati has one of the bottom five rushing defenses in the league, and they only got worse with the loss of Rey Maualuga, their best run defender, in the first half.

The question became, which was going to give? Indianapolis has a dangerous passing attack, but Cincinnati’s secondary has been playing incredibly well over the past few weeks with the emergence of young cornerback Dre Kirkpatrick. They could not sustain the offense they needed just by throwing the ball, especially with injuries slowing TY Hilton.

On the first drive it appeared Indianapolis had the upper hand. They moved the ball the length of the field thanks to a 27 yard run by Herron, a drive capped off by a two yard Herron touchdown run. Their offensive line cleared holes for him, and Cincinnati appeared unable to stop him. If Indianapolis could get that kind of production throughout the game, the Bengals would not be able to keep up.

Something strange happened after that. For the next quarter and a half, Indianapolis simply did not try to run the ball. With their running game this isn’t necessarily a bad decision, but their offense did struggle for a little while as their receivers blundered through a series of dropped passes, leading to long third downs that they were unable to convert. Cincinnati managed to hang with them until the second half, when the Colts went back to their running game and pulled away.

The final numbers don’t look particularly dominating, but Indianapolis was the clear winner of this matchup. Their two running backs combined to have 23 carries for 96 yards, an unspectacular but above average number for their running game. They did their best work in the fourth quarter, running the ball with Zurlon Tipton to bleed the clock and maintain their lead. Indianapolis is the better team, and Cincinnati’s offensive struggles meant that they probably would have won the game no matter what. But the ability to find some success running the football removed any doubt from the outcome.

Detroit Defensive Line vs Dallas Offensive Line

This was the premier matchup of the weekend. The best offensive line in the league against one of the top three defensive lines in the league. With both teams facing questions on the other side of the ball, they looked towards the strengths that have gotten them through the season. Dallas had a top five offense this year thanks to their line, which ranked as the best run blocking group in the league using Football Outsider’s Adjusted Line Yards statistic. Detroit made the playoffs thanks to a top three defense built around their defensive line. As soon as it was announced that Ndamukong Suh would be allowed to play, this became the matchup to watch.

Before I go any further, I want to take a quick moment to address the controversial moment in this game. Facing a third and one on the Dallas 46 with 8:25 left in the fourth quarter, Matthew Stafford threw a prayer in the direction of Brandon Pettigrew. The defender did not turn to make a play on the ball, and the back judge threw a flag for defensive pass interference, which would have given the Lions a first down in field goal range. After some discussion, the referees decided to pick up the flag.

This was a difficult call that could have gone either way, but I believe they made the correct decision. There was barely any contact on the play, and most of it was initiated by Pettigrew extending his arm to try to create separation. The defender gets very little benefit of the doubt because he did not turn his head towards the ball, but the rule requires there to be some contact that affects the receiver for a penalty to be called. There was no such contact. Had the official made the correct call and not thrown the penalty to begin with, no one would have an issue. The referee crew handled this as poorly as they possibly could, but they probably made the right call in the end. And it probably wouldn’t have mattered if Detroit had done the smart thing and gone for it on fourth and one in Cowboys territory. Jim Caldwell did far more to cost the Lions this game than the referees did.

But back to the discussion at hand. This battle was more competitive than any I discussed above, just as this game was more competitive than any of the others. In fact, the fate of this game swung roughly on the same track as the battle between the lines. During the first half the Lions absolutely dominated Dallas up front. Detroit is not typically a blitzing team, but knowing the opposition they were facing they decided to bring heavy pressure from their linebackers and safeties. Dallas wasn’t ready for this, and all their play calls were designed to require excellent run blocking or pass protection to get receivers down the field. They did not get this in the first half, and they only managed seven points on one big pass play.

Halftime gave the Cowboys the opportunity to make adjustments, and these adjustments turned the fortune of this battle. They came out in the second half using more three receiver sets than at the beginning. This forced the Lions into a nickel defense, spreading them out and limiting the pressure packages they could bring. DeMarco Murray finally found some holes to run through, and Tony Romo no longer had to worry about five or six defenders bearing down on him every time he dropped back.

The end result was still more competitive than I expected. I underrated Detroit’s defensive line somewhat coming into this game, particularly Suh. He played one of the best games of his career, tearing through the line on a regular basis to get after Romo. But the Cowboys held up often enough for Romo to attack down field, and they were able to find holes in Detroit’s secondary that most teams had been unable to exploit this season. As a whole, I would say that Detroit’s defensive line won the battle. But Dallas’s offensive line did enough to let them win the game.

Black Monday and the NFL MVP

Black Monday

We saw a strangely quiet Black Monday, with only four coaches being fired (or mutually agreeing to go separate ways, in the case of Jim Harbaugh). Counting Oakland there are only five open coaching positions this offseason. Here are my thoughts on the four firings from Monday.
 
Fired:

New York Jets

The Jets fired both head coach Rex Ryan and GM John Idzik on Monday. For Ryan, the writing has been on the wall for a long time. If anything it was a surprise that he made it through last season. The Jets have gotten worse every year since he’s been the head coach, both on offense and on defense. Their offensive struggles have gotten most of the blame, but they have steadily declined on the other side of the ball as well. Here are the Jets defensive ranks in DVOA during the six years with Ryan as coach: 1, 5, 2, 9, 12, 21. They have not invested in offense, and they have failed to develop highly drafted defensive players like Quinton Coples.

The firing of Idzik was a bit unfair, but I understand the desire to start over from scratch. They want to bring in a new GM, a new coach, and a new quarterback and mark 2015 as a completely fresh start. Idzik actually did a good job drafting in 2013 and picking up useful veterans like Eric Decker and Chris Ivory. But the Geno Smith pick doomed him, as all failed quarterback picks eventually do.

Atlanta Falcons

I am not going to argue against the firing of head coach Mike Smith. After years of playoff disappointment followed by a disaster of a season in 2013, it was clear that he needed to make the playoffs if he was going to keep his job. As the NFC South collapsed around him the road to the playoffs only became easier, but he still wasn’t able to lead the Falcons to the division title. At least twice this year he cost his team an almost certain victory with idiotic clock management, and nothing he tried over the past two seasons did anything to fix the problems assailing their defense. Mike Smith had to go, and the Falcons had to start over.

The one thing I can’t understand is the decision to retain GM Thomas Dimitroff. Dimitroff arrived the same year Smith did, and he deserves just as much credit for their early success and just as much blame for their recent failures. He repeatedly traded assets away to move up in the draft, and because of his moves the team was left bare of talent at most positions. If anything he deserves more of the blame than Smith for the past two seasons. If the Falcons wanted to start fresh, they should have begun at the top of their organization.

Chicago Bears

Three years. That is, in my mind, the minimum time a coach deserves to attempt to demonstrate his value. The only possible exceptions that come to mind are in extreme cases, such as a Greg Schiano level sociopath. Trestman does not fall into this category. The season was a disaster in Chicago, and they probably needed to fire their defensive coordinator. After the drama involving the leaked Jay Cutler information, they probably needed to move on from their offensive coordinator too. But it is completely unfair to dismiss Trestman after two seasons, one of which was actually worthy of being called a success.

Trestman inherited a team in a bad situation. Their defense was built around an aging core of Julius Peppers, Lance Briggs, and Charles Tillman. The closest they had to young talent was Shea McClellin. Years of poor trades and drafting under former GM Jerry Angelo left him with very little to work with. The fact that they nearly won the NFC North in 2013 despite crippling injuries on defense and the loss of their starting quarterback was a minor miracle. As bad as 2014 was, it doesn’t change that. One good year and one bad year should not be enough to get a coach fired.

San Francisco 49ers

I cannot express how stupid this whole thing was. Jim Harbaugh is one of the best football coaches in the world. Everywhere he has gone he has made the team immediately better. Stanford was 1-11 the year before he arrived. He left them as a top ten team in the nation. San Francisco won 46 games in the eight years prior to his arrival. Counting playoffs, they won 49 games in his four seasons. I can’t speak to the specifics of any internal strife, but if there were problems in the organization they should have found a way to fix them other than jettisoning one of the top coaches in the league. The 49ers are on a definite downward trajectory, and I wouldn’t be stunned to see them end up with a top ten pick in 2016, just as they had the year before Harbaugh arrived.

Retained:

There were a few other coaches who looked like they might be let go, but so far most have managed to hang on. A couple of these could still lose their jobs, but it seems likely that they'll all be given another year.

 

Miami Dolphins

The Dolphins announced last week that Joe Philbin would be staying for at least the 2015 season. As much as this was a vote of confidence in Philbin, it struck me more as a vote of confidence in Ryan Tannehill. This was by far Tannehill’s best season, but he is still far from a long term solution at quarterback. He needs to take another step forward next season. If he doesn’t, they will have to part ways with him. The Dolphins retained Philbin to maintain continuity and to give them flexibility to start from scratch in 2016 if things don't work out next year.

St Louis Rams

Of the coaches who were fired, Smith and Ryan were probably the only two that deserved it. Of the coaches who weren’t fired, I can think of only one who deserved to be let go. Jeff Fisher is far and away the most overrated coach in the NFL. He is highly respected among NFL circles, meaning no one in the media ever says a bad thing about him, meaning most people seem unaware that he is not really that good as a coach. In nineteen full seasons as a head coach he has finished over .500 six times. His gift is the ability to be consistently mediocre. In eleven of those seasons he finished with between six or eight wins, meaning only twice did he finish with five or fewer wins.

And sure enough, his three years in St Louis have seen him go 7-8-1, 7-9, 6-10. In that time the Rams have utterly failed to develop the wealth of young talent they received from the RGIII trade, have made questionable decisions hiring coordinators, and don’t seem to be able to do anything other than pull an occasional upset to trick people into believing they’re better than they actually are. St Louis needs to make a change now, while they still have a chance to harness the potential of players like Tavon Austin and Michael Brockers.

Washington Redskins

Remember above when I said that there are very few cases where a coach should be fired after two years? This holds doubly true for a single season. 2014 was a disaster in Washington, and Jay Gruden looked hopeless as he tried to manage the countless calamities unfolding around him. Dan Snyder at the helm means that anything is possible, and there was plenty of speculation that Gruden could be on his way out, especially if he wasn’t willing to support Robert Griffin as the long term answer at quarterback. Right now it looks like Gruden will be back next year, for better or for worse. He definitely deserves another chance, but nothing I saw this year leaves me optimistic for his coaching tenure.

Jacksonville Jaguars

I don’t have much to say on this one. A smart decision to retain Gus Bradley, even if I’m not sure how long he’ll last in Jacksonville. I think he’s a good coach, but this team still looks a long way from competing for playoffs. For him to last they’ll need to win seven or eight games next year then make the postseason in 2016. He will go as far as Blake Bortles will carry him, which has to be a bit nerve wracking after this season.

Buffalo Bills

Before the season I called Doug Marrone the most likely coach to end up fired. I was wrong about this (and quite a few other things too, which I’ll get to in a couple weeks). The Bills surprised everyone by pulling out a 9-7 record this season, covering for the personality conflicts caused by their coach early in the season. Of course, this will all go away when they start losing again next year. The Bills had a good season, but they are a team built around an aging core of Fred Jackson, Mario Williams, and Kyle Williams. With no clear options at quarterback, next year will be a disappointment and Marrone will likely be on his way out.

MVP

I normally don’t care much about end of season awards. I find them mildly amusing, and I will occasionally get indignant if the voters get things completely wrong. But I don’t see much reason to waste a lot of time thinking about and writing about the winners of these awards. If you’re really that interested, here’s who I think should win the major awards.

Offensive Rookie: Odell Beckham Jr

Defensive Rookie: Aaron Donald

Coach of the Year: Bruce Arians

Comeback Player: Julio Jones

Defensive Player: JJ Watt

Offensive Player: I’m honestly not even sure what this award is supposed to mean. Antonio Brown, I guess.

You’ll notice that I left one award out, the biggest of them all. That’s because this year we are looking at one of the most interesting and most wide open MVP fields in history, at least in my mind. Aaron Rodgers is the presumed winner, and he certainly has put together a fantastic season in leading the Packers to a division title and a first round bye. But I don’t want to just leave it at that. I want to look a little closer.

Before any discussion about MVP, I think it’s important to define how we interpret “Most Valuable Player”. I’m not someone who gets caught up too much in the word “valuable”. I think when MVP awards were first handed out it was constructed this way to make it sound more prestigious than simply saying “Best Player”. I think it’s more an accident of history that we give so much importance to the word valuable, and I think the award should go to whichever player puts together the best season. Getting caught up in the word valuable leads to facile arguments such as Nick Foles deserving the award because the team collapsed without him, or Andrew Luck because the Colts have so little outside of him.

I do think there should be one condition on a player being eligible for MVP. A team shouldn’t have to make the playoffs for one of its players to win the award, but it should be competitive down the stretch. I don’t think the award should go to a player who piles up great stats in meaningless games. If a team is alive in the final week of the season, if every game a player plays is crucial to a playoff run, then I don’t see why we should dismiss his performance just because a game here or there did not go his way.

To discuss the MVP we need to start by looking at the quarterback position. No one will dispute that this is the most important position on the field, and if a quarterback stands head and shoulders above the other players at his positions then he deserves to win the award. Most people seem to agree right now that Aaron Rodgers has done this, but I don’t think it’s that clear cut. Below I’ve listed the stats of the five best quarterbacks in the league this season. See if you can pick Rodgers from this list.

	Yards	Completion %	Touchdowns	Yards/Attempt	Passer Rating	QBR
A	4952	69.2	33	7.51	97.0	71.6
B	4381	65.6	38	8.43	112.2	82.6
C	4727	66.2	39	7.92	101.5	77.2
D	4952	67.1	32	8.15	103.3	72.5
E	3705	69.9	34	8.52	113.2	82.8

If you’re familiar enough with the stats, you will probably be able to identify everyone on the list. Quarterback A is Drew Brees. Quarterback B is Rodgers. Quarterback C is Peyton Manning. Quarterback D is Ben Roethlisberger. And Quarterback E is Tony Romo.

But the fact remains that, looking at these stats, it is impossible to claim that Rodgers is far and away the best quarterback in the league. The one place that he stands out is interceptions, which I omitted above solely because it would have made it too easy to guess which was Rodgers. He threw only five interceptions this season. The next fewest among quarterbacks to start every game was Russell Wilson with seven. Tom Brady, Roethlisberger, and Romo all had nine. Rodgers was the best at avoiding turnovers (though he did fumble the ball more than any of the other four top quarterbacks), and for that reason I would call him the best quarterback in the league.

But there is absolutely no reason to say that Rodgers was far and away the best in the NFL. He was 2^nd in the league in QBR, 2^nd in quarterback rating, 2^nd in yards per attempt, 3^rd in touchdowns, 7^th in passing yards, and 9^th in completion percentage. His efficiency numbers fall slightly short of Tony Romo’s, and his volume numbers are behind Peyton Manning and Andrew Luck.

Rodgers had a good season this year. But it doesn’t come close to being an all time great season like we saw from Peyton Manning last year or Rodgers himself in 2011. Rodgers’s stats this year are almost identical to those he put up in 2012 when he didn’t even brush the MVP discussion. He was the best quarterback in the NFL this season, but it wasn’t by enough that we just have to ignore the other positions.

So we have to ask ourselves, were there any players who dominated their position groups in the way Rodgers failed to do? Let’s start by looking at running backs. DeMarco Murray blew the competition out of the water in terms of rushing yards, topping the second place runner Le’Veon Bell by nearly five hundred yards. But look closer at these two backs and it doesn’t look quite as dominant. Both had identical yard per carry averages of 4.7, and Bell offered much more in the passing game as a receiver and a blocker. Factor in receiving yards and Murray’s lead shrinks to less than fifty. Murray also benefited from the best offensive line in the league, and I think most people would argue that the line deserves the majority of the credit for Dallas’s success.

That raises another awkward question. Is there an offensive lineman we could give this award to? It will never happen of course. Lineman don’t have the exposure or the statistics to win this award. It is also very difficult to separate one lineman’s performance from the unit as a whole. By rule voters are allowed to cast their vote for a unit, and I would be tempted to give it to the Cowboys offensive line. But I think, for the sake of being realistic, we should drop linemen from consideration in this discussion.

Wide receiver is a more interesting situation. This season it was pretty clear that Antonio Brown was the best receiver in the league. He led the league in yards, blew the competition out of the water in receptions, and ended up tied for second in receiving touchdowns. His season is great in a historical sense as well. His 1698 yards are the sixth most all time, and his 129 receptions are the second most for a single season. Only three other receivers have ever matched his 1600/120/10 stat line. Factor in being top ten in the league in punt return average and a punt return touchdown, and you have indisputably the best season put together by a receiver this year in the NFL.

This may come as a surprise to some, but a wide receiver has never won NFL MVP. The award has been won 37.5 times by a quarterback, 17.5 times by a running back (Brett Favre and Barry Sanders shared one year), once by a defensive tackle, once by a linebacker, and once by a kicker (Mark Mosely in 1982, a strike shortened year in which he missed three extra points. The 80s was a stupid time.)

Wide receiver is viewed as a position of minimal value in the league. Counting receptions, runs, and punt returns Brown touched the ball a total of 163 times. 27 running backs had more carries than that. Wide receiver has become a more valued position in recent years, but it still carries the stigma of a player who only touches the ball seven or eight times a game. (It also doesn’t help that Brown is teammate with two other MVP candidates in Roethlisberger and Bell, or that Bell actually won the team MVP award.)

No other offensive player has asserted themselves as an MVP candidate, and in other years Rodgers’s slight superiority at quarterback would have been enough for him to win the award, as happened with Tom Brady in 2010 and Peyton Manning in 2008. But this is not any other year. There is a player in the league who has dominated his position in a way that no other has.

By now you know where I’m going with this, so I’ll just spit it out. The MVP of the league should be JJ Watt. I’m a bit of a late arrival on the JJ Watt MVP train, joining over the past few weeks as he’s continued to tear offenses apart and Aaron Rodgers has slipped back to the realm of mortal quarterbacks. I do think it should be more difficult for a defensive player to win the award, and I am not at all affected by Watt doing stuff around the goalline that any backup tight end in the league could do. Watt deserves this award because of what he’s done on defense, putting together one of the best seasons in NFL history by a defensive lineman.

Watt had 20.5 sacks this year, second in the NFL to Justin Houston’s 22. But his dominance goes far beyond sack numbers. He recorded a hit on an opposing quarterback 50 times this season. This was first in the league by a mile, almost doubling the second place total of 28. He recorded 29 tackles for a loss in addition to his sacks, six more than Houston’s second place total. He scored two defensive touchdowns and recorded a safety. In all likelihood he will be a unanimous selection as Defensive Player of the Year.

Most voters breathed a sigh of relief when the Ravens won on Sunday, eliminating Houston from the playoffs. This gave them an easy out to dismiss Watt’s candidacy. After all, anyone whose team misses the playoffs can’t be that valuable. This ignores the realities of Watt’s team. Five different quarterbacks took snaps for the Texans this season. Their three best skill position players on offense battled injuries throughout the year, and the rookie first overall pick who was supposed to give Watt support from the other side did absolutely nothing.

Houston made it as far as they did almost entirely because of Watt. They entered the final two weeks of the season needing to win both games to have any shot of making the playoffs. They won both games thanks to four sacks, a safety, and a forced fumble from Watt. Had Cleveland been able to hang on and beat the Ravens, the Texans would be in the playoffs now and the strongest argument against Watt would go out the window.

Aaron Rodgers has had a fantastic season and has been the best quarterback in the league, but if you compare him to recent top quarterbacks his season is merely average. This is the same thing we went through two years ago, when Peyton Manning put together a season similar to Rodgers’s this year while Adrian Peterson and JJ Watt put together all time great campaigns. If an elite performance at another position cannot beat an average performance at quarterback, what would it take for a nonquarterback to win the award? If this is the case, should we not simply rename the award MVQ?

Rodgers will win the award in the end, and I don’t think the voting will be particularly close. But I think we’re rapidly reaching the point where we have to consider splitting this into separate awards. As long as we’re caught up with the definition of value, it will be hard to argue that a nonquarterback deserves to win the award, no matter how much more dominant he was at his position than the top quarterback. The simplest solution would be to change the criteria, to make only quarterbacks eligible for MVP and only nonquarterbacks eligible for Offensive Player of the Year. Because if we hold ourselves to the criteria we are using to give the award to Rodgers this year, then I think there’s a decent chance that Adrian Peterson will be the last nonquarterback to be able to call himself the NFL MVP.