End of the Year Awards

This is my first post. I'm starting this because I'm tired of a lot of the truly ignorant things football "fans" pawn off as facts. I will update this whenever I have something to rant about. Enjoy, and please comment on this and let me know what you guys think about all of these topics.

This is something that has always bothered me. The NFL hands out a set of end of the year awards to the "best" players in the NFL. Some of these include MVP, Defensive Player of the Year, Offensive Player of the Year, Rookie of the Year, Coach of the Year. There are a lot of common misconceptions surrounding these awards, and I'm going to try to debunk them. A lot of you will get upset because this goes against a lot of the common views of football.

Let's start with MVP, or, Most Valuable Player. Right off the bat, there is ambiguity in the title. What is valuable? What does that mean? Is it most valuable to the NFL or most valuable to a team? The common perspective on this topic is that "valuable" means a player (or should I say, quarterback) who means the most to his team. But value is a matter of perspective. There's no cut or dry way to quantify a player's value the way the media would like to portray it. To them the things that matter most is leadership, heart, and winning. The thing that they usually ignore is statistics. Lets take a look into this, shall we?

Let's go back in time one year. Peyton Manning wins the MVP. Why? Peyton Manning wasn't even a top 5 QB last year. But he received 37.5 of the 50 votes handed out by the Associated Press. Of course, traditional NFL fans will go, "Peyton Manning won because he's a winner." That's just not how things work. You can't give someone total credit for a team effort. Sure Peyton Manning had a large effect on those wins, but he didn't catch the ball, he didn't rush very often, he didn't make tackles, he didn't intercept the ball, he didn't kick field goals, punt, kickoff, cover punts, ect.

Now lets look at the other 3 vote getters. Drew Brees came in second, Philip Rivers in third, and Brett Favre brings up the rear. All 3 had statistically better seasons than Manning. A 4th, Aaron Rodgers, wasn't even mentioned though he played markedly better and more efficiently. Yet, because of "intangibles" such as "leadership", "heart", and "clutch", Manning was a winner. But the 4 QBs who got snubbed by the voters weren't even the worst snub.

Chris Johnson had an unbelievable season in 2009. He accounted for over 2500 yards (an NFL record for a single season) and 2006 yards rushing (good for 5th best all time single season). Yet Chris Johnson didn't even get a vote? Why is that? If you ask the normal fan they'll say these two things: "quarterbacks are more important" and "the Titans only went 8-8". First off, the importance of a position is relative to the team. The Colts have a very QB centered system. The team builds the offense around Manning, the defense and rushing game are just enough to get by. The Titans are a run first team, their passing offense in 2009 ranked 26th and their defense (scoring and yardage) was 28th in the league. So Johnson and Manning both did what they did with defenses keying on them, so there goes that argument about the "importance" of one position over another. If you're great, you're going to have a great season. This idea that a team's record reflects an individual is also just obnoxious. Once again, CJ and Manning aren't on the field for defense or special teams. You can't use team accolades to promote an individual.

So how should you determine the "Most Valuable Player"? Easy. Statistics. Now here's probably the most annoying cliche in all of sports: "Yeah, (insert player here) is a really great fantasy player, but he isn't a winner." But how else do you gauge a player's ability? If you go by players who "win" and don't put up stats you'd have guys like Trent Dilfer, Brad Johnson, and Mark Sanchez as the top QBs in the NFL. They're not. Nobody would take Sanchez over Philip Rivers. "Fantasy stats" is a fancy way of saying "this guy produces a lot".

Water is necessary for life and gold is essentially useless to the basic survival of humans. So why is gold so expensive for just an ounce of it? Because there's such a scarce amount of it. The less there is of something desirable, the higher the price. There more there is of something, the lower the price. Simple economics. If you look at the statistics of Manning and of Johnson, Manning was the #6 QB while Johnson was the #1 RB. If you look all time, Johnson had the best season for any offensive player ALL TIME and the 5th best season for a running back yardage wise ALL TIME. How does someone who's not even in the top 5 in his position for a single year beat out a guy who's top 5 ALL TIME? To me "value" is based off of what can he do that nobody else can? I understand Peyton Manning is a GREAT player, but this is a YEARLY award based off of the body of work from one season, not including playoffs. You have to go off of what both players have done THIS YEAR. Chris Johnson is clearly more valuable.

Which brings me to my next point (I'll make these a lot more brief). Offensive and Defensive Player of the Year. Once again these awards are predicated on intangibles such as heart as well as wins. But there's some other questionable practices with these awards. Let's start with OPOY...

Offensive Player of the Year is usually given to the best NON QB (though, this year it will likely be Brady for MVP and he already won OPOY) who performs statistically better than the QB but doesn't win MVP because he's not a QB. How does that make any sense? If someone is the BEST defensive player and someone else is the BEST offensive player, how the the MOST VALUABLE player not one of those two guys? In 2009 Chris Johnson was OPOY, Charles Woodson was DPOY, and Peyton Manning was MVP...why? Shouldn't one of the two best in the two broad categories be MVP?? If there's so much importance on quarterbacks, make a separate category for QBs. Have a Quarterback of the Year award. That or get rid of MVP and just have Offensive and Defensive POY.

Finally, we'll get to DPOY (I'm going to have another post soon on COTY). Defensive PLAYER of the year. There's a key word in that title that should key you on where I'm going with this one. Again, let's go back to 2009, though this time I believe the right person was picked (yes, I'm a Packer fan, but no I am not biased here).

The two players who were mainly in the running were Charles Woodson and Darrelle Revis. Now, I will agree with anyone that says from a coverage standpoint, Revis is the best in the game right now. But that doesn't make him the best defensive player. Going along with the value trend (I assume this is also based on "value"), think of it this way. What's the appeal of a 2 for 1 deal? You're getting more of a good thing for the same price. People argue that Revis shuts down a WR, which is fantastic. But let's look at the bigger picture. Aside from coverage, Revis is very limited. He's not always gonna come up on the run, he's never going to blitz, he's usually going to stay 1 on 1 with a team's top WR. He does what he does well and he deserves all the credit in the world for it. But now let's look at Charles Woodson's season. He had more sacks, forced fumbles, tackles, interceptions, and touchdowns than Revis. Sure he probably gave up a couple more passes than Revis, but nobody can argue that being a great cover corner as well as being a bigger threat in the other parts of the game is a much more valuable asset than just pure cover skills. He's a better all around defensive PLAYER. He's not limited. Revis would be the best CORNERBACK, Woodson is the best DEFENDER.

Next time I rant about Coach of the Year.