Let’s roll out the red carpet for the mid-season awards. Just a quick note, these rewards are based on what happened over eight weeks. These are not projections of how the awards race will play out at the end of the year.
Offensive Player of the Year
Nominees: Saquon Barkley, Philadelphia Eagles; Justin Jefferson, Minnesota Vikings; Ja’Marr Chase, Cincinnati Bengals; Derrick Henry, Baltimore Ravens.
Did even the Ravens think the addition of Henry would go this well? The ageless guard is on track to hit the 2,000 mark at 30 years old. After a shaky opening week against the Chiefs, Henry crushed every defense he faced. He leads the league in rushing yards, scrimmage yards, touchdowns and had the longest run of the season for good measure. The only player with more explosive rushes than Henry this season is… Lamar Jackson.
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Typically, a team adding a veteran running back is the kind of move that attracts offseason columnists but fails to move the championship needle. But Henry helped the Ravens reinvent their offense around Jackson, making the team more viable for a deep postseason run.
Jackson is still the key block in Jenga. Without Henry, the Ravens could still be a great offense. Without Jackson, they would be in trouble. But combining the two took Baltimore’s offense to a new level. They have the most distinctive and efficient running game in the league; teams accustomed to generic ground attacks seem shocked when facing the Jackson-Henry tandem.
Somehow, pairing the NFL’s best downhill runner with the league’s MVP worked out better in reality than in theory.
Winner: Henry
Defensive Player of the Year
Nominees: TJ Watt, Pittsburgh Steelers; Brian Branch, Detroit Lions; Will Anderson, Houston Texans; Dexter Lawrence, New York Giants; Chris Jones, Kansas City Chiefs; Aidan Hutchinson, Detroit Lions; Nick Bosa, San Francisco 49ers.
There are a dizzying number of candidates this season. Before his season-ending leg injuryHutchinson waltzed with the prize. With Hutchinson running out of time, it’s tempting to give the award to Brian Branch, Detroit’s safety, slot corner and part-time linebacker. Branch is the secret sauce to the Lions’ defensive success, a multi-positional star who plays with unteachable vision, two steps ahead.
But Branch is the hipster choice. The logical choice is TJ Watt. The Steelers leader continues to take charge of games single-handedly. He has as many as 6.5 sacks this season and has forced four fumbles, recovering two of them. Against the run, he was completely unblockable, making 14 stops on the run. No one with his sack total is close to the double-digit mark.
What’s remarkable about Watt is not that he wins, but how. Anderson, Hutchinson and Myles Garrett have multiple ways to break through the backfield and tip quarterbacks. They pile moves on top of moves. Hutchinson aside, the league’s big, good shuffle in the defensive lineup. Not Watt. He doesn’t attack from weird angles. He doesn’t have many tricks. He receives no schematic help. He lines up in the same spot – as a left defensive end – and lets it rip.
This is not an exaggeration. Watt has only one move: a dip-and-rip, a rush. He explodes off the line, gets around the opposing right tackle and closes in on the quarterback. That’s it.
For most of his career, Watt tried thing. But he has now traded unpredictability for efficiency. The idea isn’t to win every rep, but when he wins, it’s quick and clean, giving him a chance to not only pressure or drop a quarterback, but also attack the ball and to force a fumble. Her historical forced fumbles numbers are not an accident, they are intentional. Watt chose to look for game-changing plays rather than bolstering his pressure numbers.
Watt’s stats this season won’t blow you away. He has 28 total pressures, which ranks 28th in the league – and second on his own team behind Cameron Heyward. In terms of win rate (how often he beats his blocker), he is 37th in the league, behind two teammates – Heyward and rotation runner Nick Herbig. But there’s a lot of context. No passer has attracted more double teams, chipped as often, or planned a match against as much as Watt.
He may not hit all the traditional benchmarks, but no defender has been as valuable to their unit as Watt.
Winner: Watt
Offensive Rookie of the Year
Nominees: Jayden Daniels, Washington Commanders; Malik Nabers, New York Giants; Brock Bowers, Las Vegas Raiders; Brian Thomas Jr, Jacksonville Jaguars.
In a stacked class, it’s not particularly tight. Jayden Daniels walks around the field. Daniels has proven to be the dual threat he was in college, equally comfortable escaping for an explosive run as he is carving up defenses from the pocket. Eight weeks into his career, he approaches games with the confidence of a five-year veteran.
Daniels leads the league in RBSDM Quarterback Compositewhich measures the value of a play and to what extent the quarterback can be considered responsible for this value. This data dates back to 2010. During that span, no rookie or first-year starter (including Patrick Mahomes!) led the field through the first eight weeks of a season.
Does anyone deserve this more than Washington fans? Like Andy Dufresne, they escaped down a sewer pipe, this one belonging to Dan Snyder, and emerged with a rookie quarterback playing at an MVP level. Next up, Zihuatanejo, or, you know, a playoff win.
Winner: Daniels
Defensive Rookie of the Year
Nominees: Jared Verse, LA Rams; Evan Williams, Green Bay Packers; Laiatu Latu, Indianapolis Colts; Quinyon Mitchell, Philadelphia Eagles; T’Vondre Sweat, Tennessee Titans.
The Rams were never going to replace Hall of Famer Aaron Donald impact. But they approached last offseason hoping to recreate Donald’s. production Overall, they brought in two recruits who they hoped could one day form a group that would keep them from pining for Donald.
Midway through the season, they got more than they bargained for. Jared Verse, the 19th overall pick, is already a legitimate star. He only had 2.5 sacks in seven games, but he spent the majority of those games in the opposing backfield. Verse had recorded 32 total pressures this season, good for ninth in the league, and only Hutchinson has a better pressure per snap rate.
Once again: Verse is a beginner! Beginners in pointe are supposed to be flashy. Sometimes their bag production is inflated, but their under-the-hood numbers don’t stand up to scrutiny. The verse is the opposite. It’s a real wrecking ball that hasn’t really been able to close. Eventually the bag total will increase. But in the first eight weeks of his career, he played at a Pro Bowl level.
Winner: Verse.
Coach of the Year
Nominees: Matt LaFleur, Green Bay Packers; Dan Campbell, Detroit Lions; Dan Quinn, Washington Commanders; Mike Tomlin, Pittsburgh Steelers; Andy Reid, Kansas City Chiefs, Kevin O’Connell, Minnesota Vikings.
Choosing a Coach of the Year is tricky at the best of times. Good luck finding out this year. You can toss out the names of any of the three coaches atop the NFC North and pick whoever hits the floor first. Campbell has transformed the Lions into a certified juggernaut. Then you have Tomlin, who puts the Steelers first in the AFC North despite a quarterback change. And there’s Reid, who gets the two-time defending champions off to an undefeated start, even if the atmosphere has seemed a little weird at times.
In pure coaching terms, LaFleur building a successful offense around Malik Willis in the absence of Jordan Love is as strong an argument as any coach. It’s also difficult to look beyond Quinn, who has the ecosystem in place for Daniels to shine and has the Commanders in contention for a division title in what should be a rebuilding year.
But O’Connell connects these two ideas. As the originator of the Vikings’ offense, he helped rejuvenate Sam Darnold’s career, building a top-10 points-per-game ranking around the journeyman quarterback. O’Connell also deserves kudos for signing Minnesota contract confuse and crush defense. Brian Flores is the architect of the Vikings’ confusing, erratic and charming unit, but O’Connell hired Flores and his approach – a style that would have made many other head coaches shudder.
Winner: O’Connell
Most Valuable Player
Nominees: Josh Allen, Buffalo Bills; Lamar Jackson, Baltimore Ravens; Jared Goff, Detroit Lions; Jayden Daniels, Washington Commanders; CJ Stroud, Houston Texans.
It’s tight. Goff is going through the best period of his career, lighting fire to the preconceived notion that he is just a function of the Detroit system. Stroud kept the Texans’ offense afloat despite so much difficulty incoming shot like any quarterback in the league.
But there are two notable candidates: Allen and Jackson.
Jackson, the reigning MVP, remains the keystone of the Ravens’ offense. He runs a more prolific offense than Allen. But the Bills quarterback is having the best season of his career with a slightly higher degree of difficulty than Jackson.
In his seventh season, Allen has eliminated some of the more difficult aspects of his game. He has thrown just one interception against 14 touchdowns this season, reducing the mind-boggling turnovers that followed him in previous years. This is partly due to him getting rid of the ball faster than at any time in his career, which has seen him turn into most efficient passer in the league. And all this without curbing his aggression or playmaking instincts – Allen still leads the league in big throw rate, according to Focus on professional football.
At this point in his career, the Bills are following the same path as Allen. And it puts the team in position to win its fifth straight AFC East title. He beats Jackson – just.
Winner: Allen
