NFL Awards

 

Nobody – not even the Food Network – was showing anything but reruns during NBC’s airing for the NFL Awards last night, so you probably watched the show.  Just in case you didn’t…….

Hometown hero J. J. Watt was not named the NFL MVP for 2014. That honor went to Green Bay’s Aaron Rodgers for the second time in his career.  Even though that honor almost always goes to an offensive player, usually a quarterback, Watt and Rodgers were the only two serious contenders for this year’s award – Rodgers won with 31 votes, Watt got 13, followed by a couple of Cowboys (Tony Romo and DeMarco Murray) with two votes apiece.

Bleacherreport.com calls Watt  a football superhuman who is well on his way to being the best 3-4 defensive end in history and striking his place among the all-time defensive greats. He finished with 78 tackles and was second league-wide with his 20.5 sacks, becoming the first player in NFL history to have 20 sacks in two separate seasons. Working as an occasional goal-line tight end, Watt added three receiving touchdowns and had five touchdowns overall.

Pro-Football-Reference.com's approximate value metric, which attempts to quantify a player's performance and normalize it across positions, had Watt as the league's best player by a significant margin.

Watt’s blocked pass/interception/long run for a touchdown was one of five plays shown on the big screen as a contender for Play of the Year. Offensive Rookie of the Year, Odell Beckham Jr. grabbed Play of the Year for that unbelievable one-handed catch he made for a TD against the Cowboys.

Watt was the first presenter of the night, and he drew laughs for correcting his co-presenter’s pronunciation - She kept saying o-fensive and he kept telling her it was off-ensive – and he may have drawn the biggest laugh of the night during his acceptance speech when the thanked the cafeteria workers who prepared the food, LOTS of food.

Acceptance speech – oh yeah.  He was named Defensive Player of the Year for the second time in his short career. He was the first unanimous choice for the honor in the history of the awards.