This year is an anomaly, because multiple candidates actually deserve to win their NFL Awards 2019. This makes the front runners for COTY and ROTY no slam dunk, so who should actually win?
The NFL conference championship games are hard to handicap. They offer two matchups of talented teams. It almost feels like splitting hairs to pick winners. The same thing can be said of a number of the NFL awards 2019 that the league will hand out in the coming weeks.
Coach of the Year: Frank Reich or Matt Nagy or other?
Offensive Rookie of the Year (ROTY): Baker Mayfield or Saquon Barkley?
Defensive ROTY: Darius Leonard or Derwin James or Leighton Vander Esch?
All three races for these NFL Awards 2019 are wide open, so who should actually win? Will wins and losses decide the outcome, or will individual statistics win the day?
Two brothers from New York, Dan Salem and Todd Salem, debate NFL Awards 2019 in today’s NFL Sports Debate.
Todd Salem:
COTY is particularly tricky this year. Normally, the comparison is between an out-of-nowhere overachiever versus an established guy who may have taken some next step. It would have been Matt Nagy taking the Bears beyond what anyone expected versus, for example, Sean Payton pulling up his squad into the tier of best in the sport.
However, 2018 threw a wrench into things because Frank Reich fills the same category as Nagy. Whose unexpected success was…more successful?
Most people would agree that Nagy had the superior defensive roster, but offense is close. And Reich likely had more talent in the trenches, though few knew it before the season started. Reich had the better team leader in Andrew Luck, but no one was sure Luck could be his old self before the season. Does Nagy get credit for winning without an elite quarterback? Does he lose credit for being an offensive coach of a team that won with defense?
The nitpicking for offensive and defensive ROTY is equally precarious. On offense, Baker Mayfield took over the Cleveland Browns and brought them back to relevance. His numbers were very good, but his eye-test impact was even greater.
Saquon Barkley had a very different impact on the season. He turned out to be arguably the most exciting player in the sport. Every 50-yard play he tore off just added to his mystique. And yet, his real impact was negligible. He didn’t help his team win at all. He was head and shoulders above any of the non-Mayfield skill position rookies, but the Giants may have still made a mistake in selecting him with the second pick in the draft. But for ROTY, is it fair to hold that against the player himself?
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On defense, ROTY is one of the best races we’ve had in years. Darius Leonard is a first-team All-Pro at linebacker. Derwin James is first-team All-Pro at safety. Leighton Vander Esch made the second-team at linebacker. Rookies aren’t supposed to do this! Good luck factoring team success into the equation. All three’s teams made the playoffs. Poor Bradley Chubb was fantastic as a rookie this season and dude doesn’t have a chance at sniffing this award.
My choices for these closest of races are as follows:
Reich – I subjectively feel like he had a bigger impact on his team’s success than Nagy did his, mostly because of the mediocre performances of the Bears offense.
Barkley – Perhaps this shouldn’t matter, but Barkley felt like the rookie story of the season much more than Mayfield did. Even if Mayfield had a larger impact on his team winning, Barkley made a larger statement on the league.
Leonard – Leading the league in tackles is fine. I’m more impressed with his seven sacks and eight QB hits from an outside linebacker in a 4-3 scheme. All three guys were great, but Leonard seems to offer a wider range of NFL-caliber abilities.
Dan Salem:
These three NFL awards 2019 all have multiple deserving candidates, but I don’t think the races are as tight as you think. One race that is a slam dunk will be the Comeback Player of the Year. They still do this one, right? Andrew Luck wins in a landslide. Sorry, not sorry, Aaron Rodgers.
COTY actually has more than just two deserving candidates. Both the Chargers and Chiefs vastly exceeded anyone’s expectations. In a normal year, both of their coaches would warrant significant consideration. ROTY on defense is probably the tightest race of all, while ROTY on offense seems open and shut to me.
My choices are as follows:
Nagy – Chicago dominated from week one of the season and never looked back. They overcame an injury to their starting quarterback and seamlessly integrated Khalil Mack into the defense. I’m very impressed with Reich’s work in Indianapolis, but the Bears overcoming Green Bay and Minnesota feels like a larger accomplishment. Nagy did more with less and deserves the award.
Barkley – This is the easiest pick of all three. I don’t care how many wins Barkley afforded the Giants, because without him they would have been awful. He was the most electric and dynamic player in the league on offense, managing to put up great numbers in an offense without a solid offensive line for half the season. No matter how bad New York played, Barkley still excelled.
Leonard – His numbers are just better in every category, plus his impact to his team’s performance was greater. I’m not sure Indianapolis sniffs the playoffs without his dominant season. The Colts defense was a major reason for their late season surge.