The Ringer NFL Show - Awards Show! (Ep. 228)

Episode Date: January 25, 2018

The Ringer’s Robert Mays and Kevin Clark dole out their end-of-season NFL awards, including Defensive Player of the Year (02:30), the best rookies on both sides of the ball (05:30), and best head coach (07:30). Then, Kevin sways Robert’s opinion on Most Improved Player (16:30), and the guys reveal the surprise crushes they developed this season (21:00). Finally, Danny Kelly joins the show to crown the best celebration (31:00) and best fan base (34:45), and everyone tries to agree on an MVP (42:15). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Now that the college football season has ended, we've rebranded our Ringer University podcast fee to Through the Ringer. This is your go-to place for our weekly wrap-ups of Ringer podcast titled This Week in Ringer culture and this week in Ringer sports. It's also where you can hear some of our special projects, one-off stories, and our news shows we're working on behind the scenes. So if you want to hear all of our best culture and sports podcast moments and some of our special projects, subscribe to Through the Ringer on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify, or wherever you can. get your podcasts. Welcome to the Ringer NFL show, part of the Ringer podcast Network. I'm Kevin Clark, joined as always by Robert Mays, who is super excited for this award show. Robert, you branded yourself a big awards guy. This would be your favorite show of the year. It's up there. It's certainly up there. I mean, I enjoy the preview and review shows for like to Vishinal weekend because that's just a

time of the year I like. But yeah, man, I think awards matter. And the reason I think awards matter is that 100 years from now, when we look back at this NFL, season and the tapes of it have been lost or it's not as easily accessible to kind of watch the games, this stuff is the documentation of history. I mean, think about Bill's book. Like, what, where, just the research Bill was able to do. I mean, he couldn't write that book if they didn't hand out like all NBA teams and stuff like that. So I just feel like it's a nice button on the end of the year. And over the course of the rest of time, this stuff is going to be looked at all the time. So I think that's why they matter to me. I want to go back to something you to

said. You said the tapes will be lost. What will be happening? I mean, technology may change. I mean, think about how hard it would be to find a football game from 1965. Yeah, but we have YouTube now. I understand that, but why do we need awards when we have YouTube? That's fine. We can just, we can all just refresh YouTube all the time. It'll be great. That's fair. Future is going to be fantastic. It's easy to find games from the YouTube era. So I guess that's fair. But I'm just saying that this is the stuff that's easily accessible and that's why I always put some thought into it. All right. We're going to reveal our big NFL awards. Plus will update some of the awards we gave in the preseason like Red Zone Channel MVP. And Danny Kelly will be here to crown the best fan base and winner for the best play of the year. Let's kick things off with the big one defensive player of the year. Robert, we got the same guy here. There's a lot of there's going to be a lot of chalk here. But that's okay. Because in a weird year, there were some great performances. And I don't think any of us need to be controversial for the sake of doing so. So start us out with DPO. I think it's Aaron Donald.

I just feel like he was the best player in the NFL at any position this year. And I wrote about defensive player of the year kind of in the couple weeks before the season ended. I wrote it while I was covering and reporting a story about Aaron Donald, actually. But it's an interesting race. There are just a lot of guys in the conversation that were on defenses that really kind of drove the season. I mean, you throw Callas Campbell in there. Bobby Wagner was probably the frontrunner for a good chunk of the year before he got hurt. So there are a bunch of names in the mix here.

But for me, I just felt like Donald, all the pressures. I mean, he created pressure on 19.9% of his snaps, according to PFF. The average interior defender does that about, it's about a third of the time. So that's ridiculous. I mean, the guy was three more, three times more disruptive as a pass rusher than any other interior player in the league, or than the average interior player. He's unbelievable. I mean, I just think he's the best player in the NFL period.

91 quarterback pressures this season. Von Miller was second with 79. Colomac was third with 76. And Aaron Donald only played 14 games. Yeah. No one was even in the 80s there. Okay. And so, yeah, I mean, it just has to be Aaron Donald.

He's a game wrecker. You know, it's funny. I brought this up before, but I had a pretty illuminating conversation with Richard Sherman a couple weeks ago about specifically Bobby Wagner. And he was talking about how defensive player of the year is a bit unfair

because in a different way than how they view the offensive war, this is Sherman's point, they look at who you're supporting castes in defense and they ding you for it. And that's why he thinks that he hasn't won, Cam Chancellor hasn't won, Bobby Wagner hasn't won. And it's interesting to me because the point he was making was it's never a clear cut defensive player of the year guy who were saying, okay, this is the guy, this is all that matters, and nobody else should be in the hunt. Aaron Donald is the rare case where I think that if you watch the tape, if you look at the statistics, if you look at the advanced statistics, he's a defensive player of the year. As you said, there were arguments at one point for somebody like Bobby Wagner, but if you look at the totality of the season and the balance of the season and you say it's not Aaron Donald, I'd love to hear that argument because I'm not buying it.

I totally agree. And part of my one of my favorite things I did while I was reporting that Aaron Donald thing, I talked to Marshall Yanda. I just felt like why not talk to the best guard about the best defensive tackle. And to hear the deference that Marshall Yonda, who belongs in the hall of fame, gave Aaron Donald,

that's all you need to know about how hard it is to stop Aaron Donald game in and game out. I mean, he just is a ridiculous challenge. We throw around the phrase game wrecker all the time and most of the time it's overstated. He can wreck games and he can wreck offensive plans and he's just, he's a phenomenon.

Can't wait to see what they pay him. It's going to be ridiculous and I'm excited about it. Next up, offensive rookie of the year. Yeah. We both did this for the ringer.com a couple weeks ago. It's Alvin Kamara for both of us. Yeah, I think there's an argument to be made for Kareem Hunt. I don't think that argument is good enough.

I just feel like Kamara was so spectacular that I'm giving it to him. I'm going to remember more about Alvin Kamara the season than Kareem Hunt. Yep. Totally agree with you. I mean, we'll get to the individual exciting plays later because I have Hunt in a category where you have Kamara. but yeah, I mean, as far as production, as far as influence of the entire season, it's got to be Camara. Defensive rookie of the year, we're going to differ on this.

You go ahead. You said Chardavius White, correct? I did say in the post we did a couple of weeks ago, I said Tredavius White. That's correct. There's a couple of reasons for that. Number one, played 16 games, which they're basically tied. The only thing is that Tadius White, I think, was the third best player in coverage all season this year, better than Lattimore, and he played 16 games.

You know, I think that White is a really, really good player, and I think that he got overshadowed by Latimore because of the strides that the Saints defense made. I see them as 1A, 1B. I picked White just because I thought he deserved a little pub and that it wasn't offensive to me that he would win the award over Latimore if he possibly did. That's all fair.

I think that they're very close to me as well. I had a couple different tiebreakers. Again, when I hand out these, I think that how you're going to remember the year and the things that define the year should be taken into consideration. I think the Saints defensive turnaround was such a huge story. And Lattimore had such a big hand in that. That's why I gave it to him. Just because I feel like when we think about the 2017 NFL season, his year is more memorable.

Sorry, let me do it again. His year is more memorable than what Tradius White did. Sure. I think that's completely defensible. It's just it's, it's, they could have gone either. way for me. And quite frankly, if everybody was picking Trudevius Way, I would have picked Marshall and Lattimore. It's one of those deals. Okay, coach of the year, I picked McVeigh. Yeah. I mean, the man orchestrated the biggest single season turnaround for an offense in

NFL history. And I just feel it because it was year one, you know, you could make an argument for Doug Peterson, you can make a really good one. And you can make an argument from Mike Zimmer, who managed to take his team to, I mean, this is a regular season award, but a top two seed in the NFC without his starting quarterback or starting running back. I mean, there are a lot of excellent jobs that were done this year. But I feel like because it was the first year of McFay, because every single one of those changes can be tacked up to the coaching job he did this season, it's it for me.

I just think that he's the, yeah, I think he has the best argument. I really do. I have a question. Why is this regular season award on the podcast that we've made up? It's a good question. That's what I'm going to get into. And that's why I let you go first here, okay? McVeigh had the biggest offensive turnaround in the history of football.

He went from 32nd to first in offense. And not only that, I think went up 17 points a game. So either by ranking or actual by scoring, he had the biggest turnaround. And if this were a regular season award, and for the ringer.com a couple weeks ago, it was I picked Sean McVeigh. If we're just doing, when we think about the 2017-2018 season, what are we thinking about? I mean, Doug Peterson did the best coaching job because Doug Peterson's in the Super Bowl with Nick Foles. I understand he always had that defense, but he's the head coach.

And beyond that, I've just been impressed with some of the play designs. I've been impressed by the fact that as we talked about, you know, his third, Foles is third down production. It's not going to make him look like Carson Wentz, but it's going to make him look like he's better than most players in the NFL at third down, which is most important down, obviously. I think generally, if you have 300 yards in the NFC championship game against a really good Vikings defense, signs point to if you're an offensive coach,

we've done a really nice job. So regular season, I'm giving this award to McVeigh. If we're doing, you know, if we're doing a con smite of coaches, I'm going Doug Peterson. That's totally fair.

I agree with you 100%. If we're including the playoffs in this, it's definitely Doug Peterson. The job he did against the Vikings was masterful. Design. I pointed to that, Zach Ertz double move on Twitter when some, I think Sheel Capadia tweeted a link or tweeted at the video.

And I pointed to that play and I said, this was why the Eagles won this game. And it's because of three different reasons. One, Zach Ertz is just really freaking good. He's a good player. The Eagles have excellent talent. Two, the design of that play is really well done. They put him in the slot. They know it's a man.

So he's going to be able to hit that double move. They clear it out for him. Just the way they design plays is really good. when they called that play. Situationally, understanding, you need a chunk there to maybe get a field goal. That was the coaching job just in a nutshell in one single snap. And I think, yeah, if we include that game and what he did against Atlanta, I have no problem with that whatsoever.

Totally agree with you. All right, moving on to maybe another Eagles employee executive of year. Yeah, it is for me too. I mean, I've been saying it for weeks. Hallie Roseman did an incredible job. And I think that if you want to, and certainly people have criticized Doug Peterson, then you have to give all of the credit to Howie Roseman. I think that they both did a really nice job, so I'm not going to favor one over the other.

But this is Howie's freaking team. You look at some of the moves that he made. You just start one quick off the bat, Timmy Jernigan. Timmy Jernigan was deemed expendable in Baltimore. He's really freaking good. Vinnie Curry at $11 million, looks like a bar. bargain. Zach Ertz at 10.5 this year looks like a bargain. Getting Nick Foles for, he's making $7.6 million against the cap this year, which you'd think, you know, it sounds like a lot for a

backup quarterback, but when Carson Wentz goes down and Carson Wens plays a style where he's going to get hit a lot, Nick Foles is ready to step in and by the way, make the Super Bowl. No player makes over 10% of the cap. I mean, this is, things will change as we like to say, the bills will come due. But for the 2017, 2018 season, which is what we're talking about, this is a hell of a roster. I wrote about this today on the ringer.com, just kind of the lessons we learned from this season. And the first entry in that, of those five lessons was that I think pick for player trades are a new market and efficiency in the NFL. And I like what they give you. And I think the Eagles are a perfect example of that.

By getting Ronald Darby for $700,000 next year, by getting Jay Jai for something similar. Yeah. It's kind of a workaround of free agency. You're addressing a position of need with a proven veteran player, but you're not paying him the sticker price in the market because you're essentially paying a certainty tax in the form of draft capital to get him. It's a fascinating way to build your team when you think you're close

because those can be the finishing touches that provide an instant impact, but you don't have to pay them like established veterans. It's just a really smart way to build your football team when you think that you're right there and just need a couple guys on the margins. So I was fascinated by their ability to do that because like you said, this is not a team full of guys on rookie contracts. In a similar way to the Steelers, this is a team that actually has paid almost all of their guys.

Think about it. Lane Johnson is on a second deal. Jason Kelsey, Jason Peters. Brandon Brooks is a free agent. They extended Jeffrey, but even before they did that, he was making $9.5 million. Wence, obviously, is on a second.

rookie contract, which helps, but he's the number two pick in the draft. This isn't Russell Wilson making 500 grand. You go to the other side of the ball. Essentially, everyone has been given deals, but Cloud's a free agent. Jenkins was extended. Fletcher Cox, obviously, Jernigan, they had on a rookie deal. They just extended him. Brandon Graham is on a second contract, Vinnie Curry. All these guys have been given deals. This is not a team full of rookie contract guys. And I think the way that they worked around that in order to get cheap deals is just a fascinating job by Howie. I mean, it's they did it. It's a perfect team building exercise. One thing I will say is that it's a lot easier to have a bunch of guys in your second

contract when the starting quarterback who was going to be the MVP until he got hurt in early December is counting $7.2 million against the cap. Exactly. But it's not 500 grand is what I'm saying. This is not Russell Wilson. It was funny because when I did the salary cap story a couple of weeks ago, essentially one of the things they the folks, the experts I talked to praised Howie for is

understanding the window and the Seahawks understood us with Russell Wilson who made less than the Seahawks long snapper the year they won the Super Bowl that's all you need to know about Russell Wilson's contract but he under a lot of the ways that these contracts have been structured

are by the way you know the quarterback market in 2020 or whatever we have to extend when is going to be so ridiculous that we have to spend a lot of money on him, but we're going to maximize our window. That's what the NFL is about. That's why I'm surprised, you know, the Cowboys have not gone out and just spent a ton of money,

and maybe they will, and, you know, maybe they've paid so many of their guys internally the last couple of years and it's been hard for them. But, you know, they have Dak Prescott on a rookie contract, on a great rookie contract. And I think you have to move heaven and earth and find a way, to maximize that rookie contract because a good quarterback

on a rookie contract a quarterback can win the Super Bowl on a rookie contract is the most valuable thing perhaps in sports. Yeah, absolutely. And they did a really good job of understanding that.

And the other thing he deserves credit for is the fact that they were able to get Jernigan and Jeffrey before they hit the market to sign extensions. I mean, that's just really well done. That's how you get guys at a relative bargain.

It's going to be an interesting offseason for them, though, man. I'm looking at the table right now. It's hard to find a guy where you're going to be able to save some money. Tori Smith will get cut because none of his contracts guaranteed. They'll save $5 million there. But that still leaves them $2.7 million over the cap. There's going to be some gymnastics that need to happen. But if you win the Super Bowl, who freaking cares? Like, I mean, that's what this is all about. We sometimes criticize, you know, the Flacco contract's a great example. Okay, they won the freaking Super Bowl. And like, are you okay with being in purgatory now because you won the Super Bowl five years ago?

I'm okay with that. But this isn't even five years from now. I mean, it's not as if they're going to hand out a contract because they won the Super Bowl. It's that they're going to win the Super Bowl because the contracts they handed out. No, I'm talking about the Flacco deal. Would you pay $120 million for a Super Bowl essentially? Oh, that I'm less okay with. That's a conversation for a different time.

Yes, it is. Most improved player. I'm going golf. You're not. Make a case. People don't remember how not good Carson Wentz was over the second. half of last season. The flashes were clearly there.

But, I mean, this is a guy who was not accurate at times, you know, just had a really steep drop off. And he was the MVP of the league for three quarters of the year. I'm not trying to knock on who Carson Wentz was as a rookie, but I think we need to put this in perspective. He was significantly better. And I understand that golf made a similar jump. But I just think average to below average NFL quarterback to MVP is about as big a jump as

you can make. So this is both statistical and eye test for me. Carson Wentz spent the first month of the season last year looking like a franchise quarterback. We talked about it over and over again. I said he was the top 10 quarterback in October of 2016 and had to gradually back off of that. And he looked like at the very least, even in December when people were saying his mechanics suck or whatever, at the very least he looked like a guy who was not only going to start throughout his contract, but get a second contract and be in the hunt for, you know, being a decent NFL quarterback.

Okay, that's what a ceiling. That's what a ceiling looked like. Goff, I forget the exact statistic, but I believe that among rookies with, or players maybe, with over 200 attempts that the only player worse, I think it was by adjusted yards per attempt, the only player worse was Andrew Walter.

Oh my God. In his rookie season. Okay. That's all you need to know, Walter and Goff. And that's what I think of when I think, of golf is just the idea that he looked like he was on his, I mean, did we think he was getting a chance to start in 2019 if he looked as bad as he did in 2016, 2017? I mean, at that point,

I was worried for his future when I saw him last year. I thought he was not even a starting NFL quarterback at sometimes last year. And I know you have to give a lot of credit to Sean McVeigh. I know you have to give a lot of credit to Andrew. Whitworth, that improved offensive line and the weapons around him. But, I mean, Goff is the guy who made those throws. I'm not sure there's a lot of guys who can, I mean, I don't want to say it's similar. But, you know, when I profiled Blake Bordles last month, there's a lot of guys who, if they had gone through what Gough went through, and I would say the same for Bordles,

even though it's completely different situations and golf is much better than Bordles. But there's a mental toughness there that I was impressed by with Gough, because he could have easily not improved. I mean, he was really bad last year. And so I was impressed by his, his ability to bounce back, his ability to get better, his ability to, you know, essentially be a joystick in the Sean McVey offense, because that's what it was. McVeigh controlled Gough as much as any quarterback has been controlled by a coach in years. And Gough was up for the task. And so I'm in on golf. Two things about what you said. One, you swayed me. I agree I think you're right.

I'm going to give that to you. Just to be clear, just to be clear, Wentz is a much better quarterback than golf. I don't want anybody to misread this. No, no, no. But I think, yeah, I understand the conversation. And I think you're right. I think that's totally fair.

I feel like that jump maybe was bigger, even if Wentz probably was the likely and worthy MVP. Something I wrote about this, after the first week of the season, when we saw how well golf played. And I talked to Greg Olson, who's the quarterback's coach there, and now is the offensive coordinator

in Oakland. And he said something really interesting. He said that seven games was perfect because it wasn't enough time to leave indelible marks. There were no scars they had to deal with. It was the perfect kind of stretch where he got to play and he got his feet wet a little bit, but it wasn't a scarring experience. And I thought that was very interesting. And I think that that's it is what happened to Blake Bortles. Blake Bortles played too many games. I mean, he just got beaten down to the point where it did leave those scars. And I think that that's an interesting thing to consider with quarterbacks when you're trying to figure out whether you want to throw a rookie in there at times or not.

It's the thing I wanted to take into account with Trubisky. Is this many games with this infrastructure a bad for him? And it's something you always have to think about. With golf, it wasn't. It's just about the jump. And that's what I feel like most improved player is. Yeah, I think you're right. Biggest surprise crush of the season.

Go ahead, Robert. I mean, this is kind of cheap, but it's just because I didn't expect to see him. him play in this situation that he got to play in, it's Garapolo. I mean, is this a looks thing? Is this a looks thing? Is that what I mean by biggest crush? It might be.

It's Garapolo for me. I just feel like we didn't know this was going to happen. I mean, who thought that I would have gotten to see him play four games in a Kyle Shanahan offense? I mean, it's just, that was never on the table. And the fact that it was, and by the end of the year, he looked like one of the best quarterbacks in football. I mean, there was no way to anticipate that.

That was kind of cheap, though. The other two that just kind of guys that jumped off the screen to me every once in a while, I thought Marquis good one was really good for them. And this is kind of tied to Garoppel. But even before that, when Garsohn went down and they really needed somebody to play wide receiver to be their guy, he did. He could. He didn't just look like a speed guy. He looked like a piece that you could build with going forward.

And the other guy for me was Keenan Cole in Jacksonville. Or Keel and Cole, excuse me. It was Keel and Cole in Jacksonville. That's how surprising he was. I don't know his name. I accidentally on like a three hour of sleep night called him Keenan Cole to his face and I didn't realize it until I walked away. I just figured, I just thought he was really fun. I mean, a guy who clearly has a ton of just physical talent, but once a Kentucky Wesleyan, those guys slipped through the cracks.

And this is why he's interesting is because we talked about this on Tuesday show. They don't have a ton of money and they're losing all of their receivers to free agency. The fact that you're paying him next to nothing. I mean, I don't know what his contract is, but I guarantee you it's not very much. Those are the types of things that allow you to pay a small fortune to your defense. He'll make $55,000 next year. That helps.

Totally agree. So for me, and this is a weird one, but I'm going case Keenum. And the reason I'm going case Keenum is that of all of the players who emerged this year, at quarterback because it was such a weird year, whether that's Nick Foles. You know, obviously we saw some real, real bad ones as far as Brett Hunley goes and some of the guys we had to see step in because there's such a weird year for injuries at quarterback. With Keenham, I think he proved he's a starting NFL quarterback somewhere, whether it's

Minnesota or not, whether they bring back Teddy Bridgewater, have a competition or whatever it is. You know, again, we've talked about the trade market and the free agency market this year being the most interesting in years because of how many quarterbacks are going to be floating around. But Case Keenham did a really, really nice job. 7.4 yards per attempt, 11 yards yards per catch,

you know, a rating at about 100, completing 67% of his passes. I just think that we slept on him for a long time because he had digs in Thielen and for a large, you know, for the first half of the season, had Dalvin Cook as well. And so I think we a couple of times joked about how he was, basically replacement level

in the sense that he was putting the ball in Diggs and Thielen's hands and that's that. Keenham, first of all, the throw that he made that gave us the best moment of the season was a big time throw. And there were a lot of those

over the course of season. Is Case Keenham Kurt Warner and is he going to go to the Hall of Fame now? No. But I feel like he has at least proven to me that he's another starting quarterback and in a league where we've worried about the future of starting quarterbacks.

I'm glad Case Keenham exists. I totally agree. And he was a fun player too. I mean, just the extending a place he could do, his willingness to let it rip. I mean, his viability is a long term starting quarterback. That's a different conversation. But I feel like just for this season, he was really enjoyable. A couple other guys I want to throw out there just because this is a fun category and honorable mentions are important. I really liked watching Brandon Brooks play for the Eagles this year. He's a phenomenal guard. And I just didn't know he was that good when he signed with Philly. And another guy, for the Eagles. If you had given me a hundred names and I had to pick the five best corners in the league in 2017,

Patrick Robinson would not have been mentioned. And how well he played for that team is just remarkable. And just, you know, good guy, you know, just has been kicked around the league for a while and it's just fun to see him succeed.

I talked with him last week just about kind of coming to Philly and the season that it's been and everything else. And, you know, that's fun. And I just feel like a guy who was a first,

round pick that struggled early to kind of see him come into this, you know, seven years into his career. That's cool. If there was a crush we had in a unit, it would be the Jaguars defense. Yeah, that's fair. They were the most, I was thinking about somebody like Jalen Ramsey, but the problem is, you know, he was just too good coming into the season for it to be some sort of surprising crush. Exactly. You can't do that. You can't just do that. And so, but generally, I think the Jaguar's defense as a whole was a surprise. So I do, I think we all developed a crush on them. I mean, talented, can score on defense at any point in the game. Complete shit talkers.

Good on all three levels. That was the unit crush I developed this year. That's your Jalen Ramsey is my Ruben Foster, by the way. I love watching Ruben Foster, but like, who cares? He's a first round pick. That's not surprising. First round pick that everyone thought should be a top 10 pick. Exactly.

All right. Red zone MVP. Kamara. I don't like. Alvin Kamara was the most. All right, here's what I'll say. Alvin Kamara was the most fun player in the NFL this season. But I feel like we would be remiss if we did not mention Sean Watson somewhere in this conversation.

Like four weeks of Deshawn Watson might make him the Red Zone MVP. So there's a couple things. Number one, Deshaun Watson was going to have this award if he played, what, 10 games? I mean, the bar, the bar was low for Deshaun Watson to win this award. And I'm upset he didn't. I'm going to go. Obviously, Kamara is, it's a one A one B deal. But what I just want to mention Kareem Hunt because the way he played, even though he had the slump, the broken tackle marks, which essentially were set all in September and October, his high, his peak was the best

peak of any player in the NFL. I mean, the stuff they did offensively, the fact that, um, What did he? Yeah, I think he had, he had 37 broken tackles in his first seven games. That's on 124 carries. Okay. The ability that he has when he's, when he's at the top of his game is better than I think anyone in the league in 2017. Um, you know, I saw some visualization charts of how much better he was at yards after contact and breaking tackles. And it's, it's truly absurd how good he is at that. And that's to me, one of the most fun things you can have. Just to get. Just to. guy. Why do we love the Beast mode run, right? It's because he bounced off five people. That's the most visually arresting thing running back and do. Why do we love, you know, Barry Sanders, whatever. And I think that Kareem Hunt has the highest ceiling of these guys because if that's sustainable and, you know, maybe he had a rookie wall or whatever, I have no idea. But if he can do that over 16 games next year, we're going to look at some historically exciting stuff because it's a mixture of Andy Reid's offense. You know, you get Mahomes back there.

if they choose to do that. I mean, that's a, that's, that's some red zone shit, man. You don't have to tell me. I think he's going to be a really good player. He's also obviously much different than Kamara. Here's my retort about Kamara, though.

Against the Rams, 11 touches 188 yards. Like that game just in and of itself gives you this award. The race between Deshaun Watson and Patrick Mahomes to see who's going to win this next year is going to be fascinating. Because if that Mahomes game is any indication, that is going to be a roller coaster. I really am excited to take part in all of next year.

Like that dude has just an endless pool of talent. I don't know if he's good at quarterback, but he's going to be fun. Yeah, I totally agree with you. I mean, they're a top. I do the Red Zone Power Ranks every year. They were number one, I think, this year because I did the rankings in November. But they are penciled in at least top five next year. I mean, think Hunt, Mahomes, Tyree Kill, Travis Kelsey.

Like, good Lord, that's going to be fun. Love it. All right. Coming up, Danny Kelly will announce the winners for best fan base. Are we really letting Danny Kelly vote on this? Yeah, why? Mr. 12. Mr. 12. I don't understand this.

I hate everyone that's a Bears fan. I feel like I should be the one to dole this out. Best celebration. We'll give our picks for MVP. It's the Ringer NFL show on the Ringer Podcast Network. Robert, the big game is almost here. And there are a ton of ways to cash in at mybooky. This is a really fun weekend of bet on football.

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And right now, my bookie is giving away up to $1,000 to every new player. And sign up today, you'll score an instant 50% bonus on your first deposit. That's right. If you join with $100, you'll get $150 bankroll to play with. Use the promo code ringer NFL at mybooky.orgie.ag to activate the offer. Play, win, and get paid. We welcome in now our One Man Academy, Danny Kelly. Danny, we were just talking about this off the air. You're angry about it. I'm angry about it. Bob's angry about it. It's that the Associated Press is going to start calling the Super Bowl, referring to the Super Bowl as the year that it happened. So this Super Bowl will be the 2018 Super Bowl.

Apparently, what we've been doing, what's been working for 51 years is no longer acceptable. Danny, you seem to be the most angry about this. Get angry about it. I'm not sure he is. I would definitely put myself in the running. Uh-oh. All right, go, Robert, go. I'm getting Mays fired up.

Let's hear it, Mays. I want to hear what you have to say about this. the idea that we would refer to the Super Bowl as the year the Super Bowl took place and not the season that that Super Bowl pertains to is utter insanity. Like, Danny, the Seahawks won the Super Bowl in 19, in 2000, the Seahawks won the Super Bowl in 2013. The 85 Bears won the Super Bowl. It's not the 86 Bears. Like, this is, we've done this forever.

Why would we change it now? It's going to be the most unnecessarily confusing thing ever. I mean, especially like when you're a few years away from it, like down the road, It doesn't make any sense to refer to the actual year. Like, it was January or February 3rd of whatever year. Like, it just doesn't make any sense. It's a reference to the season in which they were champions of the league. Yes, exactly.

And somebody said, well, what about the NBA? You know, it's the 2017, you know, Warriors won the title. Do you understand that six months of the NBA season happens in the year that the championship happens? That's why they do that. It's the exact opposite in football. only one month happens in that year. Why wouldn't we do it for the five months? No regular season games happen to them.

Yes, exactly. So it's so dumb. I just can't even understand why they would even consider doing this. It's just unnecessarily confusing to me. I just don't get it. Danny, speaking of unnecessarily confusing,

one of the awards you're going to pick in a second is best fan base despite being Mr. Seahawk. But we're going to start out with best celebration. Hit us, Dan. Well, this was a tough one. Mays wrote about it. I actually went back and re-read it, and there were some good ones in there.

I like the lion's idea for doing a curling thing, but the execution wasn't very good. So I had to go with the Chief's potato sack race, which I thought was hilarious. I just rewatched it, and it made me laugh out loud. So I think that's a good sign. If you try and be funny to me, that's the key to a good celebration rather than, I don't know, like trying to be too, like coordinate and, you know, do some crazy thing. Like it just gets too complicated. Just be funny.

Make me laugh. That's the thing. The duck, gray duck thing for me wins because it started a national conversation on what duck, duck, duck goose is actually called. That's like the most anger I've ever been with Megan Schuster. I think that that's,

I mean, that's my definition because I've never been angry with her before. But that's just, this is ridiculous. Like, why would that make that? any sense. It's ducked a goose. Come on now. Is it just Minnesota that does the gray duck thing? Yes. It's just Minnesota.

That's so weird. I still think my favorite is the vike or is the lion's ping pong because that's the one where Graham Glasgow just walked up and had no idea what he was doing. He was just like a very awkward lineman. So I think that one gets it for me. I think linemen low key make, loki make the like they're the ones that make those celebrations the best because they just so awkward. They're not used to celebrating, I think, as much as like receivers and running backs and stuff. So they're just like...

Exactly. They just want to hang out. You know, they're just like there to hang out. Danny, fan base of the year. This was a tough one. And this is definitely not a pity vote, but I got to give it to the Texans fan base because of what they had to go through this year.

Number one, J.J. Watt, you know, healthy at the beginning of the year. So we thought. And then he ended up not, you know, playing the whole year. I think it went out after week five. And then, you know, After that, then what happened with Deshaun Watson where he, like, you know, shot into like the stratosphere in terms of superstardom, like, the best thing that happened to the NFL literally all year, probably. And then he got hurt at practice and, you know, missed the rest of the season. So just for having to ride that roller coaster and kind of like, you know, get through this season, I got to give it to Houston.

And obviously, this is a little bit of a shout out to Shea Serrano because he's just hilarious on all things Texans. So that was my choice. Got to go to Houston on this one. I think that's fair. I mean, it's a little bit of a easing of the blow, having the Astros win the World Series. But I think that everything that city has been through this year and then just what their football team has been through.

I'm very okay with that. I just want to say the moment, this is one of those creepy coincidences, the moment that you said the name Shea Serrano, I got an email promoting the fact that Jean-Claude Van Damme is releasing a sequel to Kickboxer this weekend, which is the ultimate Shea Serrano movie. and apparently Mike Tyson's in it.

This is incredible. Mike Tyson's in a kickboxer movie? Oh, man. I will say my honorable mention for the fan base is the Minnesota Vikings. I mean, I was in that building for the Minneapolis Miracle, like the reaction,

how that stadium was the entire just game, that week being around that city and just kind of, again, how much heartbreak it ends in for them. I feel for them. That state is full very just good, nice people. Like the Minnesota nice thing is very real. And it's, again, just a tough end for them.

Except the duck, duck, gray duck thing. That's the only thing that's unacceptable about Minnesota. Everything else I'm okay with. I saw one of my old blogger friends from SP Nation talking about this, actually. It was funny because he was talking about how it was in perfect Minnesota fashion that they would have to go through two of the most devastating losses in imaginable, even though they actually ended up winning the first one, you know, because no one really expected that. that digs played of work.

So anyways, that was pretty funny, but I agree with that. Worst play of the year. A lot of candidates. I actually almost put all the people that tried to reach across the goal line and fumbled into the end zone as like one collective worst play of the year. Yeah. Well, I came up with three. The first one I came up with was the Ravens giving up a touchdown to Tyler Boyd on

fourth and 12 to end their season. I mean, I can't imagine. and they gave up a touchdown on 4th and 12 for midfield to lose the to like miss the playoffs. That is I think as low as you can get. A couple of my honorable mentions though were Travis Benjamin with a negative 10-yard punt return that ended up as a safety

and Marcus Cooper pulling the Leon Latt. How do you not have John Fox challenging the ball away from his team? That is the worst play of any year. Oh my God, I forgot about that one. That's a really good one. So now we have two Bears plays on here. Thanks, buddy.

Hey, Hey, Danny, go to hell. I don't. Hey, man. I'm excited about the next to you. I'm creative here. I don't understand why you have to do this to me. My life is bad enough as it is.

I could have thrown on some Blair Walsh field goal attempts on here just to make you feel better if you wanted. That would have helped a little bit. Yes. All right. Danny. Most surprising plot twist. Well, I wrote about this today on the ringer.com a little bit interesting to me and it's really surprising just based on how like the rules are and and kind of the trend over the last decade or so. But scoring was way down this year compared to, you know, basically the last 10 years or so.

Average points per game dropped to 21.7 per team, which is the lowest since 2009. It was a full point off of last year. You know, there was 45 fewer touchdown passes than last year and 101. fewer touchdown passes from the year before that. You know, it was just across the board. It was kind of crazy how few touchdowns were scored and how, you know, how the points went down this year. So I don't know if that'll be like an extended trend or... It was true before the injuries too.

I mean, people say, oh, Rogers is out, XYZ. That, this, this trend was year long. This was from week one on. And everyone gets mad at me when I talk about, uh, the lack of, uh, offensive of superstars in the pipeline. So we're not going to get, I, I will save that for another day. But I don't want to trigger anyone. I can't with you.

No, it's just, you have to go through this thing again. And it's like, I'll do, I'll do it next week. I get all these people angry at me. Think about the final four. I mean, you have three defenses that were in the top three or four in the entire league. I mean, defense kind of defined the season in a really weird way. And I mean, I think that's tied into just defensive players having advantages over offensive linemen in this era. I mean, there are a lot of things to unpack there. But I agree, Danny.

I just think that with the last five years, it kind of is strange to see the pendulum swing back a little bit. I'm really busy right now, so I can't get people mad at me because it floods my mentions and my emails. One of the things about, I don't know if I've ever told the story, but one of the things about the Dalton Rogers thing, the only reason it actually bothered me was I was moving that weekend. And so I needed to communicate with people. But every time I pulled out my phone, it was like 50 mentions and like 20 emails about how much of that. moron I was. And so it interfered with my moving.

And so like that's what I was like whatever. So and so like if I if I did my whole like there are no good quarterbacks coming up the pipeline thing, it would just it would flood my mentions in a very busy time for me. I'll do it like next Friday. All right. Game of the year, Danny. Well, I had to go with kind of an easy one. The Steelers Jags I thought was one of the most fun and crazy games.

Obviously you could probably put the Saints Vikings in there. too, but with just the amount of, like, lead changes and crazy plays and insanely awesome catches and just so many different things. You know, the division around Steelers Jags game, I think, was, like, a lot of fun. Hopefully that's not too much, you know, just recency bias or whatever, but that game was insane. The one that I was going to also put in for an honorable mention was that early season Seahawks Texan shootout, which was, you know, kind of when everyone, like, sat up and was like,

whoa, Watson is legit. Yeah, like he's attacking Earl Thomas downfield, you know, or Richard Sherman or whatever. And so that was a really fun one too. So those are the two that came to mind. Yeah, that's the Hawks, Texans game probably takes it for me. Obviously, the stakes for, you know, Jacks Steelers are so much higher. But that's the Cox Texans game. Just a random Sunday night game, you did not, or Sunday afternoon game,

you did not expect to be like that. And that game is fun as hell. I also think that I know that we just mentioned it, but I do think that the Saints Vikings game was just as a game also awesome. Oh, yeah, I agree. It's overshadowed by the end, but just kind of breeze, like, dragging them back in the second half. And, I mean, the fact that when, what's his name? When Forbath kicked that field goal to put the Vikings ahead, I mean, that wasn't a lead change that needed to happen.

The back and forth at the end of that game was phenomenal. Unbelievable. Yeah, that's definitely in the top three for me. Oh, yeah. All right. Danny, MVP. I'm going to start. For me, it's Tom Brady. the Patriots defense ended up not being nearly as bad as they looked in the first month of the season.

But Brady's ability to essentially weather that storm and then continue to get the Patriots better in sort of a weird year. He made another adjustment. I've talked a million times about how many mid-career adjustments he's made. He made another one with finding running backs in the passing game. They had three running backs in the top 15 and DVA as far as the things. passing game goes. He just, he's perfect. And he has, this is only going to be his third MVP award. I think he should probably have more. I mean, Bill Simmons talks a lot about how Michael Jordan should have had more. And he didn't because basically voters got bored. And I think there's a little bit of that over the

past 18 years and some, you know, some fluke years as well. But I just, I got to give it to Brady. I was just so impressed with what he was able to do this year. And I have no idea when it's going to end. But it's not now. We've talked about this a bunch. I think this is a conversation about the nature of the MVP award itself. And I'm going with Todd Gurley because I think that the MVP award, the NFL goes to the most outstanding player. I think in the regular season, it was Todd Gurley. I mean, just the year he had, that end of season run that he had, I just think that I'm going to remember more from the 2017 regular season about who Todd Gurley was than Tom Brady.

But again, if we're lumping in the playoffs, Tom Brady's been the best player. in the NFL this year. I mean, I think that those two games and what he's been able to do, it's just absolutely ridiculous. I mean, just dragging, again, dragging them back in the second half against Jacksonville and the throws that he made,

everything else. I mean, the guy's absurd. But if it's a regular season award, which is kind of how I'm giving it out because this one, we don't get to make it up, then I'm still getting into GERLY. He has a slate, slight edge. Danny, break the tie.

I'm going with Brady. I'm sorry, Robert. Yeah. If you're a defensive coordinator and you have to game plan for one player, I can't imagine having to figure out how to game plan for Tom Brady. You know, he just, he can beat you in so many different ways. It's insane.

Like, he can, you know, just the ways he can pick a part of Blitz, the way he can pick a part of defense, the way he can hurry up. I mean, he's the best sneaker, you know, the best quarterback sneaker in the world. Yeah. I mean, there's just so many things that he does at an elite level. And he's been, you know, he just does it so.

consistently doesn't turn the ball over. Yeah, I don't know. To me, there's definitely an argument to be made for Gurley, but in my mind, I kind agree with that whole like Michael Jordan sort of thing. It's like we're getting, we're thinking about it too much. Like Brady is the best, you know, he was the best player in the NFL this year. And so I can't imagine a more valuable player to his team than Brady. Somebody was asking me about the Jordan conversation yesterday.

I think it was Ross Tucker, actually. And we were discussing it. And I feel like it's interesting just chat and overall thought about how great Tom Brady's been just over the course of his career. But Michael Jordan was so much better than every player in the league during the regular season for the course of that 10 years. And I just think that there are years where Brady isn't even the best quarterback in the league. You know, I feel like his playoff greatness is unassailable and what they've been able to do. But just his performance has not necessarily overshadowed every quarterback every year. I mean, he's the greatest quarterback of all time.

I mean, it's not even a conversation anymore. But I just feel like it's not as big of a gap that he should rule the MVP conversation. Sure. So I think my counter argument to that is how much of Matt Ryan's award last year should we have attributed? And maybe we didn't realize it at the time because I think we all here picked Matt Ryan. But he had Kyle Shanahan. He had an incredible supporting cast. He had obviously Julio Jones, too good running.

Tom Brady has Bill Belichick every year. No, but what I'm saying is that if you look at the balance of that, you had Tom Brady without Rob Grunkowski for the second half of the season. I mean, what were his weapons last year? Julian Edelman and nobody else? I'm just saying if you just go back and reverse engineer it, it's probably true that Tom Brady was more impressive in most of the seasons than the MVP winner. Like, I regret having done all the research I did on the Brady column a couple weeks ago,

and looking at a season last year, I regret not fighting for Brady more for MVP last season. Aaron Rogers completed 66% of his passes through for 4,400 yards and 40 touchdowns last year with no one. Yeah? Aaron Rogers was the most valuable player in the NFL last year if we're giving it to the most valuable player. But that's my problem with the award in and of itself.

I think that it's often given to the most outstanding player. So that's just how the knotty needs. begins to me. Because again, if we're giving it to the most valuable player, it was Rogers last year and it's Rogers a lot of years.

I mean, Tom, I mean, so this year, so this year, Tom Brady led the NFL in passing yards, yards per game,

completed 67% of his passes, 1.4 interception rate. By the way, last year's interception rate was 0.5, which was the second best in history. And he only played 12 games, though.

That also should be taken into consideration from last year. With the intercept. reception rate? No, no, no, just overall. I'm just saying I just remember that he only played 12 games last year. Yeah, but he played 16 a year later at age 40. And I mean, the only thing it did was just hurt his counting stats. He only had 3,500 yards last year, as opposed to 4,500 yards this year. Tom Brady was the most valuable player in football this year. That is not denied. That's that that is 100% true in my opinion. But I just don't think we give it to the most valuable player every year. That's why I gave it to Gurley. That's what I'm saying. I would rather give it to Aaron Donald. I would rather give it to Aaron Donald than Todd Gurley. That's fine.

I'd do you want better. I might rather give it to Jalen Ramsey than than Todd Gurley. I may put Gurley like fifth or six. If you're going most outstanding player, I think there's better ways than to just give it to the running back if you're not going to give it to a quarterback. I just think that I agree with you. Todd Gurley was obviously hugely influential on his team around this season.

But I just think that generally, I think if we're going by that rubric, he was not my MVP. I think the quarterback situation in itself, like, complicates the MVP award because it's so, I mean, it's such an important position, like relative to every other sport and every other. I mean, like, is there a more important position in any sport? No.

I mean, quarterback, by definition, is the most valuable player every single year. That's my problem with the award. Yeah, I mean, maybe the solution is just, to have a non-quarterback MVP award. I've been saying that for like three years that we need to kind of we need to figure this out. We need to redefine the lines of these awards. Yeah, no doubt.

I mean, that's, but the awards are what the awards are. And D.K. and I have Tom Brady is the MVP. So he's the ringer MVP. That's fine. If that's going to be like the one I lose, I'm okay losing it. Tom Brady winning the MVP award is like not the worst thing that's ever happened. I could just keep adding Patriots fans until, and even if I lost this one,

I would just ask Bill and Kevin O'Connor to vote. I'm going to lose this one and I'm okay with it. That's fine with me. That does it for us. We're going to be back next week and get you all set for Super Bowl 52, not Super Bowl 2018, or over the hell of the Associated Press wants to call it. As always,

thanks for listening to the Ringer NFL show on the Ringer Podcast Network.