Storyline of the year: young quarterbacks
Over the past two years, the NFL’s old guard has cycled out, making way for a new generation of stars. Future hall of famers Ben Roethlisberger, Drew Brees and Tom Brady have left the building. Aaron Rodgers continues to tease that he may follow the trio out of the door.
In their place is a new crop of quarterbacks. Adding to the intrigue: the talent is concentrated in one conference. Draw up any top-eight quarterback list, and the names Josh Allen, Patrick Mahomes, Justin Herbert, Joe Burrow, and Lamar Jackson will appear in some order. And who knows, there’s a chance that one of Trevor Lawrence, Mac Jones and Zach Wilson will join the party over the next couple of years.
After back-to-back playoff battles, the Allen-Mahomes rivalry has slotted neatly into the void left by the near-annual Brady-Manning matchup. Adding Burrow, Herbert, and Jackson to the mix is just unfair.
The AFC is swamped with the game’s best and brightest. The next 10 years are set to produce some of the finest quarterback duels the playoffs have ever seen, featuring a rotating cast of five rather than the league’s most fearsome twosome.
MVP: Aaron Rodgers
There is no wrong answer here. You can take Rodgers or Brady. If you want to doff the hipster cap, maybe look to Cooper Kupp for his third-down impact on a Rams offense that was otherwise up-and-down for the bulk of the year.
Still: It’s an award about value, and the quarterback is indisputably the most valuable player on the field. Rodgers edges Brady out in the most compelling advanced metrics. The EPA+CPOE Composite, which tracks the down-to-down value of each play and attempts to isolate the quarterback’s impact on those plays (using the Completion Over Expectation metric thanks to the tracking chips in the player’s shoulder pads), has Rodgers streaking ahead of the field.
This season Rodgers has lacked some of the awe-inspiring, how-does-he-do-that performances that have come to define his career, but he traded that in for a touch of Brady’s nagging excellence. Rodgers piloted the most effective, efficient, and explosive offense in the league, leading his team to 13 wins in 16 starts. That should be enough to swipe the award.
Defensive player of the year: Micah Parsons
Aaron Donald is the best defensive player in the NFL. Myles Garrett had the best individual season of any defensive player in 2021. TJ Watt tied the NFL sack record. But let’s think of the DPOTY award not as a Who Had The Most Sacks award as it traditionally defaults to but “which player had the biggest total impact on the unit.” Let’s think of it as a true defensive MVP.
With that mindset, there’s not much competition: It’s Parsons, the Dallas Cowboys’ outstanding linebacker. Forget evolution, Parsons triggered a defensive revolution in Dallas. Sure, there is all sorts of talent on all branches of the Cowboys’ defensive tree, but it’s Parsons’ versatility that makes the thing sing. He can align here, there and everywhere. On one snap, he’s a sideline-to-sideline thumper. The next, he’s sliding into deep coverage. The next, he’s turning the corner as a pass-rusher, drawing comparisons to the best to ever do it.
It’s too easy for Micah Parsons ⭐️
— PFF (@PFF) November 21, 2021
pic.twitter.com/UMYDy7cbQy
Parsons became one of the league’s most dominant defenders, and this after opting out of his final year of college. And he did it not as a one-trick pony, but as the ultimate Swiss Army Knife. That’s not rare, it is totally without precedent.
Offensive player of the year: Deebo Samuel
Samuel’s success has been less about his gaudy, record-breaking numbers and more about how his style has shattered norms. When you’ve spent half a season redefining the very concept of positions, you know you’ve achieved something pretty special.
The hybrid running back-receiver’s ability to add splash plays alongside his team’s formidable defense carried the 49ers to within a possession of the Super Bowl (had Kyle Shanahan better managed the clock, they might be playing next Sunday).
Now prepare for an offseason of teams dipping into the draft or free agency trying to find a Samuel clone. But Samuel is one of a kind. Any team looking to recreate his success by targeting a hybrid player in the draft will be disappointed.
Coach of the year: Mike Vrabel, Tennessee Titans
The tidal wave of opinion that the Titans were the worst No 1 seed in history proved to be true. The Titans were not a great team, but that should not discredit what Vrabel was able to pull off this season.
Vrabel’s gruff exterior and rah-rah persona belie one of the game’s most creative thinkers. He’s more of a chess player, a scheme manipulator than he’s given credit for. All that stuff that Brandon Staley is running in Los Angeles that makes the X’s and O’s nerds go gaga, Vrabel was running way back in his days as the defensive coordinator in Houston. He has long been ahead of the league’s trends, even if they’re often hidden behind a Derrick Henry-shaped exterior.
Throughout the season, Vrabel found solutions that allowed him to hide Ryan Tannehill’s flaws, even with Henry out of the line-up. He helped construct a feisty defense that was the driving force behind Tennessee winning 12 games. He gets all the little things right on the margins, which is how a team that has no business winning double-digit games winds up winning 12 and claiming the division crown.
Often coach of the year goes to someone who outperforms preseason expectations. The Titans were expected to make the playoffs, but Vrabel deserves the award for keeping a creaky ship on course.
Coordinator of the year: Lou Anarumo
Anarumo’s season will most likely be remembered for his second-half masterplan against Mahomes and the Chiefs offense in the AFC title game. But throughout the season Anarumo has been the architect of one of the league’s overachieving groups.
The Bengals defense has talent sprinkled through every level, but it isn’t exactly blessed with a bevy of All-Pros. It’s a case of good players playing excellently as a collective.
Anarumo has come into his own this season. Over the span of his career, he has been the architect of the same Bad (with a capital B) defenses. He has been rigid in his thinking, sticking to the old ways in the belief they are the way. This season, he’s shifted. His defense moves more than ever. Every week, the Bengals unveil a fresh take on their old packages.
Some coaches get stuck in their ways, their egos telling them they’ve cracked this football thing. Good coaches are constantly looking to adapt, to build their scheme around their best players, and to keep up with the evolutionary cycle of the league. Anarumo was once a dogmatist. This season, he’s ditched dogma in favor of what has worked, and he’s led his defense all the way to the Super Bowl.
Acquisition of the year: Matthew Stafford
You can go any number of ways here. Was Stafford the best player acquired over the last 12 months? No. Has he had the greatest impact? No. Matthew Judon in New England and Melvin Ingram have stronger claims under those criteria.
But Stafford was acquired for a specific reason: To raise the floor of the Rams offense; to make one or two throws that could push the team back to the Super Bowl, the kind of throws Jared Goff was unable, or unwilling, to make.
Stafford to Kupp again!
— EdjSports (@edjsports) January 23, 2022
The #Rams get down to the #Buccaneers’ 12-yard line.
The 44-yard completion increases LA’s win probability by 37% and sets up a game-winning field goal attempt.#LARvsTB #RamsHouse pic.twitter.com/02BYoIQXXl
Stafford hasn’t hit his loftiest heights this season. His flaws have been magnified on a team that has, at times, needed him to put the offense on his back. But he was brought to LA with the specific purpose of hitting a big-time throw (or two) in a big-time game. His 44-yard pass to Cooper Kupp in the divisional round against Tampa Bay to set up the winning field goal and effectively end Tom Brady’s career was that moment. Mission accomplished.
