Award Races

If you’re an avid Pro Football Focus reader, you’ll know that each week we’ve produced an article focusing on the 2011 draft class. It was our Race for Rookie of the Year series and after 17 weeks of hectic action, that race ended as the regular season did.

That means the other analysts have decided to put their say into who should be the 2011 Rookie of the Year and they’ve seen to it that the “all positions created equal” mantra that I’ve created is no more. They’ve also stopped me hedging bets and looking at five to watch and what we’re left with is the Top 10 rookies of the 2011 NFL season.

The list, especially after doing this last year, is pretty damn impressive. We could quite easily have added another 10 players to it and found more deserving performers than guys who made the Top 10 last year. That’s how much of an impact this class has made. Anyway, without further ado, let’s get into it.

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Each year the Pro Bowl roster comes out and each year I lose a few brain cells smacking my head against the table.

To be honest that is how stupid some of the picks are.

I really can’t put it any other way. Now I know the PFF staff and I have an advantage. We have a system designed to capture more than stats, and that can (in our opinions) compare players at the same positions. As a benefit to spending about 24 man hours (spread amongst three people) per game, you also actually watch a lot of football and really see what’s going on all over the field. Not just the ball.

It’s why we love giving out praise. Great players deserve recognition, so the Pro Bowl should be something to be celebrated. Instead, it’s a joke. Because if some of the players mentioned in this article can get selected then quite frankly the idea of a Pro Bowl at some positions, is worthless since it’s got nothing to do with what happens on the field, and everything to do with reputation, hearsay and how much someone is earning.
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Maybe I’ve cursed him. But ever since I wrote that Von Miller was a lock to win our Race for Rookie of the Year things seemed to have gone wrong for the Broncos’ outside linebacker. First there was the injury to his thumb, and though he came back strong against Chicago, it’s been followed by two below-average displays against teams you really expected him to have success against.

So maybe, just maybe, that’s re-opened the race? After all, we’ve all seen the highlights of what Cam Newton did this weekend, while situational sensation Aldon Smith added another sack to his ever-growing list.

Perhaps I spoke too soon? Perhaps I didn’t? Let’s find out in the last installment of our 2011 Race for Rookie of the Year.

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The announcement has been made. Your 2012 Pro Bowl rosters have been unveiled, and just like any other year there are the usual number of head-scratching decisions that make you wonder if people really watch football at all. Everybody can point to the obvious players that made the roster based on reputation or on highlight plays–or presumably through the use of some kind of incriminating photograph–but the real shame of the matter are the players who missed out despite being the most deserving.

As much as fans and the media often like to say the Pro Bowl has become a joke and is now meaningless, NFL Agent David Canter made the point on Twitter earlier that making the team does matter to him and his clients. Players deserve earned recognition from their peers. They should not be robbed of the plaudits simply through the ignorance of people not having noticed how well they performed … and, while we’re at it, they deserve the free trip to Hawaii!

Let’s take a look at a few players who should make the trip, and the switch we would make to get them there.

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So here it is, the one the players really want to see. No hype, no bias, just a simple acknowledgement that–on the field of play, for the first 14 games of 2011–they were among the best at their position. It’s not based on highlight reels and you get as much credit for playing well early as you do late (during the regular season, winning the first game counts the same in the standings as winning the last).

We absolutely don’t lean towards players from teams that have the best records. It’s the ultimate capitulation to the power of hype when a coach says “yes he played well, but for him to get any recognition we have to play better as a team”. Why? This is about selecting the best players, not about the laziness of people who can’t be bothered to watch or research teams that are playing poorly.

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Hot on the heels of our AFC selections, we’ve of course got a roster of the year’s best for the NFC too. Again, selecting not based on hype or exposure, but simply on on-field performance, this team of stars represents the best we’ve seen from this conference in 2011.

If you haven’t read about the AFC squad, be sure to catch up, otherwise … for your consideration, here are our NFC selections:

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We may be in the holiday season right now but there’s a far more interesting, and even more stressful season coming on.

Awards season in the NFL.

This is the time to make those near-impossible personal preference decisions as to who the best players are at each position. A thankless task but one that often opens up some worthy debate. Pro Football Focus’ core group of analysts have each picked a guy they think warrants consideration for the Offensive and Defensive Player of the Year Awards. Offering these names for discussion, we invite your thoughts on the matter. In the comments field below, let us know who you’d pick and why.

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Remember when rookies used to hit the proverbial rookie wall?

It seemed only a year ago that I spoke of an admittedly pedestrian (in comparison to this year’s) draft class faltering down the final stretch. In 2011, the rookies don’t seem so much ready to hit the wall, as they are to explode right through it.

That’s made the Race for the Rookie of the Year (2011 edition) all the harder to write. There have been so many great performances across various positions that looking at the highlight reel plays of a quarterback just doesn’t cut it when making decisions any more. It’s partly for that reason I’ve championed less-heralded positions, where guys are playing to a higher level (relative to their peers at that spot), even if the position they play is less valuable.

That disclaimer, in this all-positions-created-equal mantra I’m trying to develop here, likely won’t save me from the usual abuse, but I’ve got to try, right? Here’s the Top 10 and then some, through Week 15.

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14 weeks down and just three to go. This race is over.

I’m calling it now. The continued excellence of Von Miller means this is very much a race to see who ends up on the podium next to him as opposed to who might challenge him. A week ago, I would have put Cam Newton as the standout candidate, but the human highlight reel that is SuperCam, did more bad than good as he contributed to a crushing defeat to Atlanta.

What of the other challengers? Has Andy Dalton got himself back into things? Has Tyron Smith swallowed up the competition as he swallows up defensive linemen? Or maybe Aldon Smith has done enough to force me to look past his situational role?

Let’s find out, shall we.

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Just when you think he can’t do any more to sow up his inevitable MVP selection, Aaron Rodgers goes and has that drive against the Giants. The ease of it almost made you forget how clutch he was once again as the Packer continues to put forth one of the greatest seasons a quarterback has ever had.

One of the voters in our MVP awards race sees it as such an open-and-shut case that he attempted to return a ballot that featured Rodgers as his top 10 choices. In a competition where second place is joint last, he might be onto something.

Instead he, like all the analysts, had to fill in their Top 10 before I collated the results in the final edition of our MVP preview before we deliver the real thing at the end of the season. No. 1 is a foregone conclusion, but what about the rest? Let’s see.

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