The Ringer NFL Show - The 'NFL Show' Season-long Awards | The Ringer NFL Show

Episode Date: December 26, 2019

It’s the holiday season, and we celebrate by giving out our season-long awards, including MVP (spoiler: It’s Lamar Jackson), non-quarterback MVP, Defensive Player of the Year, Coach of the Year, Executive of the Year (3:50), Assistant of the Year, Defensive Rookie of the Year, personnel move of the year, game of the year, and play of the year (33:15). Hosts: Robert Mays and Kevin Clark Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Today's episode of the NFL show is brought to you by State Farm. When you need a game plan for protection, State Farm agents are here to help. With personalized service, agents are available to talk in person, over text, and through the State Farm app. So go with the one with coverage and agents you can count on. Find an agent in your neighborhood today. State Farm. Talk to an agent today. To the Ringar NFL show, I'm Robert May is joined. As always by Kevin Clark. Kevin, how you doing, buddy?

Happy holidays, Robert. It's good to be back on with you, buddy. Happy holidays to you. It's good to be back. want to say thank you to everyone that filled in to both of the dannies, to Brian Curtis, to Roger. I sincerely appreciate it. I want to say thank you to everyone who reached out and asked if I was okay. I am very okay. And I'm glad to be back on the show. And this is going to be fun. So let's get going. We are going to do season long awards today because it's Christmas

week. And we're recording this on Monday, full disclosure, because we have families and we're going to go do all that over the next couple days. But it will be out on Thursday. To be clear, I, I, I'm not seeing my family. I'm just going into the taped end. Get ready for the playoffs. You're just going to rewatch that Bengals Dolphins game a hundred times? Yeah. I just have a few questions about the Bengals secondary and overtime.

And I'm going to spend the next couple of days just diving through that. All right. So for 30 seconds, let's talk about that game because I really just want to know what it was like to be on the ground watching one of the greatest sporting events that's ever happened. Yeah. So I'd had this circled on my calendar. I talked about on the pod about going to this game.

And what I realized then, and I wrote a little bit about this today on the runner com this week is that there's just no way to tank in the NFL because these guys care so much. They were probably in overtime. They were probably, I don't know, 5,000 people in the crowd. I put it on Instagram, an actual photo of what it looked like during overtime. And it was ludicrous. It did not like an NFL game.

And these guys, when Zach Taylor was talking after the game, you could hear just frustrated screams from the Bengals locker room because they cared so much in a season where they clinched first overall pick. They're going to get Joe Burrow. I think that the fans are generally okay with it. But because of the way the NFL is set up, for whatever reason, it was still very emotional game. Listen, I'm a magic fan.

I've been to many games where the magic were losing and the magic, you know, game 82 of a tanking season and there's not a whole lot of emotion in it. I don't know what's a lot of differences, a lot of little differences. But the one thing I learned yesterday is if you try to tank in the NFL, you'll probably screw it up somehow, so you might as well just try to win as many games as you can. The dolphins are going to be fine. They have four wins. I'll have a top five pick. But it was

quite a game. That's all say. I mean, even, you know, there was some, there was an interception in the fourth quarter where I think was a guy named Darius Phillips goes over to the sideline and like they were acting like they had just clinched a playoff spot. Like it was a very funny, emotional, juiced up game that I actually quite enjoyed. I agree with

you to a certain extent, but I also think that they're going to have a top five pick. They have an extra first round pick. They have two extra first round picks over the next couple years. Yeah, two this year, another one next year. So it's, I think there's a way to smartly do this, even if you're going to stumble into enough wins where you don't get the number one pick. I still think that what they've done is the right way to do things.

The dolphins, I completely agree with you. I'm just saying they were never going 0.N 16. Oh, yeah. Well, right. And then beyond that, even if you go, oh, in 16, I mean, you actually look at the top quarterbacks in the NFL and the vast. majority of them were not even the top quarterback taken, let alone the top player taken. So you can, as long as you have the draft capital, you can spend it wisely and the rebuild

and go forward there. All right. That's all we have on Bengals Dolphins, because this is a celebratory show about what happened this season. I could do 40 minutes on that. I know you could. That's why I'm moving us on. All right.

Do you just want to start with the big one here? Yeah. All right. MVP, is there really a conversation? Bangles Dolphins is not the big one? All right. The MVP of the NFL this season. Do you think it will be, here's the more interesting question rather than who should win MVP.

Do you think it will be unanimous? Yeah. So great question. I think the answer is probably no. My guess is it's something like 48 to 2 and someone kind of gives Russell Wilson or two people give Russell Wilson the argument that we've been making occasionally on this show, which is that the Ravens did everything they could. to put Lamar Jackson in position to succeed,

and the Seahawks have not done that. Having said that, Lamar Jackson is the MVP of the league. It will be a massive blowout. It actually ended up being exactly what we talked about a couple of months ago, which is a close race on December 1st that was not a close race by January 1st.

And there's a lot of reasons for that. One of them is Lamar Jackson just kept it going, and Russell Wilson did not have any marquee, prime time Heisman level performances. But yeah, I mean, this is essentially as close to a no-brainer as it gets. Lamar Jackson is the only player in NFL history with 3,000 pass yards and a thousand rush yards in a single season. That's, that's pretty much all you need to know.

And he's going to blow those numbers away. It's, I mean, he has how many passing yards right now? Oh, is it, oh, it's only 3, 127. Yeah, I was going to say, I was going to say, you went past that yesterday. I guess I was thinking more of us on a 16 game level. He's not going to play next week. But when I was, I wrote this, you know, in October, I was saying that, you know, when we were talking about him in all these superlative ways and people were like, oh, you know, is he really doing something that's that different? It's like, yes, no one's ever done 3,000 and 1,000.

And if you let him play 16 games, there's a chance he could have done like 3,500 and 1,300. It's not even just that he's the first guy to do this. He has destroyed the numbers that other guys have put up. It's unbelievable. There are two people changing the way we think about football statistics this year. One of them is Lamar Jackson and the other is James Winston. It's so true. I want to talk a little bit about what you said when it came to marquee moments.

And I was watching the Ravens game with bated breath yesterday because Lamar Jackson is my fantasy quarterback. And the first, I would always be watching him, but the stakes were a little bit different yesterday. And I'm watching the first quarter and they're not moving the ball very well. He's getting bottled up, missing some throws outside the numbers, which, you know, it's a difficult throw for anybody to make. And it's one of those things like, man, maybe they just don't have it today. And he goes on two touchdown drives in like 90 seconds. And the second one where he hit Andrews in the back corner or in the back of the end zone,

just the plays he's making on those drives. And that is beyond how spectacular it's been. I think my favorite part about watching him this year is that it doesn't matter what you do. And even if you have him, there was a one play yesterday where he's just, he's like toying with the defender on the sideline. He ran up and he slowed down on purpose to get the guy's feet to stop and then just went right by him. What he's making NFL defenders look like and how he's solving problems in real time.

It is just so remarkable. I will remember this season in a way. I have not remembered many individual seasons from an NFL player ever. I mean, Mahomes last year, obviously. But a few, Mahomes last year, Rogers was awesome in 2014 when he won it. And, you know, Cam had a really nice season, but that team was just great. I think a lot of MVPs, you know, all the ones that made in the 55 touchdown Manning season, even watching that is not like this.

It's just different. It's just a different way of appreciating what a football player can. do when allowed to do it. You know, Michael Vick did this in spurts, but Lamar does it every single week with an efficiency that never existed with other guys. It's, I really will look back on this season as truly a, just a pivotal moment in how I think about the NFL. This is separate from this.

And I don't want to go down this particular lane today, but I do think we're all forgetting how good Patrick Mahomes is and was last year and is this year. I'm just, I'm just starting out there. It's totally different. And it's different. different in my appreciation of it. Mahomes yesterday. Some of the throws he was making and some of the arm angles he was throwing from, I was just laughing while watching and beat the bears. He is phenomenal. Are you excited that the bears, they hit a field goal yesterday, so the kicking situation

is solved? That's all that matter, man. That's all that ever matters. They shored up the kicking situation lost 26 to 3. And it could have been so much worse. It really could have been. Should have been. I was going to come up with a few more awards that aren't NFL awards, but I thought were fun. I've done them before when I've handed out awards at the end of a season. I've done like Red Zone MVP, most improved player, all that stuff.

There's no reason to do them because Lamar Jackson is all of them. I'm sorry, I got distracted because I just saw a headline says Dwayne Brown is having his meniscus trimmed and now I'm upset. What does that mean? Does that mean he can still play? No, no, no, no. I have no idea. It just sounds like an incredibly terrible procedure.

Yeah, I don't want anything trimmed. Aside from my fingernails and like my hair. The hair. Those are the two things I'd like trimmed. Just a trim. Okay. All right. Sorry about that.

So, yeah, I think that Lamar Jackson is exactly. I think there's going to be a legacy for Lamar Jackson, but I don't think it's going to be that everyone's going to be looking for the next Lamar Jackson in the sense, oh, who's the next running quarterback or whatever. I think that the legacy of Lamar Jackson, is that there are a lot of ways to win football games as special players. And I think that in the same way that Andy Reid and Patrick Mahomes seem like they were sort of destined to be together in the football heavens, so too are John Harbaugh, Greg Roman, and Lamar Jackson. This was written in the football stars, right?

And there's probably a lot of scenarios in which a really bad coach has no idea what to do with Lamar Jackson. This is not that. And that is, again, partly an argument for Russell Wilson to have more consistent. inspiration for this award, the fact that he has Brian Schottenheimer and he has a receiving core that is, you know, has struggled a bit. He has had at this point, I mean, look, he's going to the playoffs and obviously not in the regular season, but he's going to the playoffs going to be without Dwayne Brown, without two running backs. I, Marciaun Lynch, according to many reports is in the hunt to come back. This has been, it's been a lot different. It's been a little different for

Russell Wilson. But I think that you just, part of the MVP award is just taking advantage of your surroundings. And Lamar Jackson has done that by better than than anybody else this season. And so does the offensive line make a huge difference? Absolutely. Does the, do the tight ends make a huge difference? Absolutely. But Lamar Jackson has taken what he's been given, which is a very talented team and made it significantly better. They're the number one seed by a comfortable margin in the UFC. I don't think anybody expected that this year, except Adam Lefco, who said it in August. Congratulations to Adam. But it is, it is a football triumph. It is, if you're a, casual observer, you're pumped to see it.

If you're a football dork, you're pumped to see all the little cool details they do. This is the perfect football watching experience. Yeah, it really is. Okay, let's move on. Let's do your non-quarterback MVP. So obviously this award does not exist. So, but we've talked about it before. So let's divvy this up for a second.

Is this person also your offensive player of the year? It is different. And I think I made them different to make a point. Okay. Okay, so my non-quarterback MVP is your offensive player of the year, and my offensive player of the year is also my MVP. Do you go what I'm saying? Yeah, I like giving offensive player of the year to a different person.

I understand why that's silly. But the reason we're having this subcategories is because I want to talk about Michael Thomas. Okay, so let's talk about Michael Thomas. Per PFF, since arriving in the NFL, Michael Thomas, to lead the league in catches, first downs, catch rate, contested catch rate. Okay. That should be impossible. When Drew Brees throws to Michael Thomas, it is pretty much guaranteed.

It is one of the most amazing things in the NFL. His handle on Twitter is can't guard Mike, and that seems aspirational, but you actually cannot guard. And even when you do, it doesn't matter. It does not matter. Nothing matters. And it's remarkable. And in a season without Lamar Jackson, he'd be getting significantly more push for MVP. But again, Jerry Rice never won this award, and Jerry Rice might be the best football player in history.

So receivers are essentially not eligible for the MVP, even though they should, even though they should have gotten significantly more momentum than running backs during the areas in which running backs would win the MVP. But I think generally we're starting to appreciate Michael Thomas. He breaks Marvin Harrison's record for receptions in a season. They're going to, the sands are going to make a noise in the playoffs. Thomas is going to be a huge part of that. Michael Thomas is really good.

To lead the league in catch rate among wide receivers. and yards per route run. If you think about just the construct of the game and how it works should not be possible. You shouldn't be able to be the most efficient receiver in the NFL and the most high volume receiver in the NFL. Those two things should not compute. And he's done it while making it look easy and without Drew Breeze for half the year. I mean, it's just unbelievable. Watching them try to break the record yesterday, they were clearly just,

trying to break it. They were throwing it to him on every single play over the course of that drive. And they actually had a pretty ill-advised contested throw on third down to, I mean, essentially it would have broken the record. And it gave the ball back to the Titans in a really clutch situation in the game. And part of me thought, man, the game's not over, guys. You probably should be not throwing it to him like that. And then I stepped back and thought about it for a second. I was like, why not? It's probably your most efficient play, even when there's a guy in his hip pocket. That's the like the spot he's reached is that it just doesn't matter. You can throw it to him on virtually every single play and have it be the smart thing to do. It's unbelievable. Yeah. I mean,

it is really hard to think of a player who's, again, that efficient with that much volume. And listen, part of that is Drew Brees. Part of that is Teddy Bridgewater. Part of that is the Sean Peyton offense, all that. I understand that he is, he has benefited from some of that stuff, but so have a lot of players. And they haven't had this sort of efficiency. So this is a guy who is, I think, kind of runs away with, you know, 82% catch rate, 85% catch rate last year. This is a guy who runs away with the most valuable non-quarterback on offense.

I think that's probably right. The other guy I would throw in there, and again, it's just for sake of variety because this board doesn't exist and doesn't really matter. I talked about this on Saturday Night on Twitter a little bit whilst while. watching the Niners. George Kittle is in that conversation for me because of what he allows the 49ers offense to be. There is no player in the league like him in the sense of how his combination of blocking and

receiving. And the way he makes their perimeter running game go, the fact that he's the most important receiver on that team, they are very much in play to be the number one seat in the NFC and their defense has really started to struggle. It's not as if their defense has carried them to that. They've really needed to score. They're banged up on defense. Yeah, they're banged up, but it's, I mean, it's still, the results have been there with wins and losses.

And that's because their offense has picked up the slack. And their most important offensive player is George Kittle. So while I do think Michael Thomas is probably the right answer, I didn't want to not have George Kittle be a part of this conversation in some way. Yeah, I just wrote 4,000 words on George Kittle. I am, this is a pro Kittle podcast. I think that what George Kittle can do with the ball in his hands is unlike anything in football. and that statistically bears out because he gets 1.6 yards per reception after catch more than

anybody else in football. Number two, by the way, Evan Ingram, did not expect that. Congratulations to Evan Ingram for being the second best yak guy in the NFL. Evan Ingram is a very athletic tight end. By the way, I know, I know. By the way, if we're doing this, yards per route run in the NFL this year, Michael Thomas is not number one. Is it anything? That would be George Kittle. There you go. Two compared to 2.95 for Michael Thomas. I think George Kittle is going to become, he's already a star. I think he has their chance to become a real super duper star in the same way.

He should be. Listen, listen, I think the ability to break tackles and own people, which George Kittle at this point, now that Marshaun is retired for now. And when he does come back, he won't be vintage Marshawn as he was a decade ago. The ability to own people on national television is what is the quickest way to get famous. and if he just runs through people, which he does all the time, and he did against New Orleans, obviously, and he told me that Michael,

excuse me, Marcus Williams was lucky. He held on to his face mask because he was going to throw him to the ground. The ability to do that in a big game is going to make him as famous as anybody non-quarterback in football. So I'm really excited for the George Kittle's star turn. I agree with he was absolutely in the discussion

for most valuable non-quarterback. If you just really quickly, I did this list on Saturday. Who that's a non-quarterback for the next three years, are you sure you'd rather have than George Kittle? Aaron Donald, probably Michael Thomas, DeAndre Hopkins, maybe? For the next five years.

So who am I? Am I just a baseline average team? You are, you're starting a team. Like, this is a fantasy football draft where you get to have a pick, and the quarterbacks are like off the board. There's a separate quarterback draft or something. I would say Aaron Donald. Would I say Michael Thomas?

I think you probably say my, I mean, I don't know. It's a conversation for me, but I can understand why people would say Michael Thomas and D'Andre Hopkins and maybe Julio. But Julio is 30. I would say George, I don't know. This is a hard question. Is George Kittle up there with you for if you were to have 53 clones of a player? You would take George Kittle.

Absolutely. Who's stopping that team? I absolutely, because I think Gronk was probably that guy for a while. And I think that George Kittles in the same mold. So we don't need to have a definitive list. I just think it's an interesting exercise. We're running the option, every play. And it's basically a rugby team.

And we average 22 yards of pop. I mean, God, I would love that version of football. The Ravens are like 62% of that right now. So I'm into it. If Lamar Jackson was 6.5-260. That's the George Kittle team. That's exactly right. I don't know how George Kittle throws, but it's clearly we will not be throwing on this team.

When I coach the 53 man George Kittle team, we will not be throwing. Throwing not allowed. Okay. So Michael Thomas is my offensive player. We already talked about that. Who is your defensive player of the year? Okay. So this is, this was hard for me.

It's not an easy one. Who will win the award by sort of the parameter set out for the award is probably Stefan Gilmore, right? Yep. He's the guy who, and I agree, he's an incredible corner. He is the face of a Patriots defense that has put up some incredible passing defense stats. I'm there with Stefan Gilmore. If he wins, you war, I'm not going to be angry about it.

Who is the best defensive player in the NFL, in my opinion, just regardless of everything else? It's Aaron Donald. I think it was Aaron Donald. It's Aaron Donald. No, Aaron Donald is the best defensive player in the NFL. So per pro football focus, he has 71 total pressures. from the inside he has 14 sacks. He obviously, it goes out saying that he had,

he pressured more sacks than anybody who plays in the interior. He had 13 hits, 44 hurries, two batted balls. Again, he's not an edge rush. Is T.J. Watt in this conversation? Sure. He has, T.J. Watt's probably not in this conversation. T.J. Watt had an incredible year. I will say that Aaron Donald lined up outside way more often this year than he had in years past.

I agree with that. But what I'm saying is that I think there's a, a second tier of really good defensive player of the year, candidates like Dinell Hunter or T.J. Watt, that kind of crew, but they're nowhere close to Aaron Donald when it comes to just wrecking a game. So is to find Gilmore's going to win?

But Aaron Donald was the best defensive player in the NFL in 2019. Yes, Aaron Donald is the best defensive player in the NFL every year that he's on the field. On Saturday, after he got his 12th sack, I noted that even if it hasn't seemed like Aaron Donald was this ridiculous force like he was last season, when he had 100 pressures or something ridiculous, that he's now the sixth interior defensive linemen of all ever, ever,

to have multiple 12-sac seasons. I mean, he's one of the best players. Why does PFF give him 14 when he has 12.5? Do they just do it differently? I think they do different stuff with half-sacks sometimes. So their numbers don't always line up with the official staff. Love it. Yeah.

So it's actually, it's intentionally confusing. And for a site that has a very, vigilant fact-checking team, it can often create confusion of the things that I write, which is always fun. Oh, you mean the ringer? Yes.

Oh, yeah, I agree. Yeah, yes. So, yeah, I mean, it's, I completely understand that. I'm going with Stefan Gilmore because sometimes with this stuff, I like to make a different choice for the sake of doing it.

And when it's close, what I will sometimes lean to is trying to tell the story of the season and what we'll remember and everything else. And I think that for this, year that's Stefan Gilmore, even if he's not the best defensive player in the league. And the reason that I picked Gilmore over other people is that I went back and I did my all pro team last week and I watched, you know, a decent amount of Gilmore snaps because I was like,

all right, how much does he really affect stuff? Like if we're kind of throwing out the, I mean, he has a bunch of interceptions, obviously. But if we're trying to argue about his overall impact on the defense, what is it? And there are plays, man, especially against the chiefs where they're playing a lot of one high and Harmon was cheating over to Tyreek Hill's side all the time, where you're looking at the structure of the defense, and Gilmore is just alone. He's all by himself with just this ocean of space.

And the fact that the Patriots can do that, it allows their defense to be so many different things. So while he can't wreck a game like Aaron Donald can, I think he can affect a game in a similar way. And that's why I'm giving it to him, because their defense has just been so good And I really do think he's the most important player on that defense just because of how he allows them to allocate their resources. Yeah, and he's going to win.

And he is, again, the face of a defense that has really done things we didn't think were possible in this era of football. And I understand he got, I understand he gave up. I guess we're going to blame him for the John Brown touchdown on Saturday. It was a little bit murky. Yeah, that was a ridiculous route. It was a ridiculous throw. That happens. And also, I was confused by the coverage on that particular one, whether or not it doesn't matter.

Even if he was solely responsible for that, Stefan Gilmore is still an incredible lockdown cornerback. Tredavius White, by the way, also an incredible cornerback. He's just in a different set of circumstances. Had so much fun going back and watching him last week because I really tried to put in like, I didn't want any of my choices on that team to be frivolous. I watched every single guy that I put on there at least one full game of snaps. And a lot of just like, well, I would go through the game pass, like, wherever they were mentioned, like what sort of impact plays they're making,

stuff like that. And White is so fun because he just is not afraid to be physical with guys that are so much bigger than him. He's just a really interesting player. I'm excited about where he's going to go. We've talked about this just in terms of sustainability with cornerback play and how difficult it is. It's hard to be great every year as a corner in this era. And White, to me, has been really good pretty much every single season he's been in the league. strong agree here.

All right. Who's your coach of the year? I had a really hard time with this. I didn't. It's John Harbaugh for you. It's John Harbaugh. So I thought it, for most of this season, I thought it was going to be Sean Payton. See, that's kind of, that's my, I don't know what, I don't want to pick.

I really don't want to pick. I, Sean Payton was, unfortunately, I have to pick the award show. You have both enlisted? I, like, on my doc. I have John Harbaugh and Sean Payton co-coach of the year. Co-coach of the year. Well, you can't, the co-coach and co- MVP and all that stuff comes from the actual tie-in votes.

You can't actually just name two people. No, I've decided that I'm naming two people. Name one. It's John Harbaugh. But I really want, I really wanted to not go through this conversation without mentioning Sean Payton. That's it. No, of course.

We both have now. I think that there's a couple of people who, who've done a really nice job coaching this year. Sean McDermott is one of them. I think that Mike Vrable is probably one of them. I think that Kyle Shanahan

include, obviously if you're making a list of people who've crushed it this year, Kyle Shanahan's there. I think Matt O'Fleur, who no one's really talking about, the Packers 11 and 3, looks like they might be on the way

to getting a buy. And then, you know, again, Sean Payton is right there. I don't think, I'm looking at the standings right now. I'm not totally sold on Matt Nagy.

Yeah, you're not totally sold quite yet. I think... Need to see more from him. John Harbaugh has done an incredible job in building that team. I just think that what Sean Payton managed to do without Drew Breeze was remarkable. And I just, the Saints are in such an interesting spot to me. I'm going to write a little bit about this today in whenever I do like the playoff scenarios. But can you remember a team that's about to go 13 and 3 that we've talked about less than the same?

Saints? Yeah. Well, the Packers might be doing it. Yeah, but it seemed like with the Packers, yeah, I guess that's true. Everyone in the NFL is 13 and three and nobody's talking about it. But like with the Niners and with the Ravens, the Patriots, we've had, we've talked a lot about those teams. And I just don't think that I think the Saints, because they've been good the last couple years and because Breeze was out and everything else, they've really kind of gone under the radar in a way that's really hard for a 13 and three team to do. They're really good, man. They're really, really good. I think they probably have more talent than any team in the NFC.

And they have Drew Breeze back now. And he looks really fresh because he didn't play for half the year. Yeah. I think that that's that's kind of the curse of being relevant for a handful of years. And everyone kind of knows the deal. And there's not a huge sort of Patriots-level drama where someone like Tom Brady is battling through a ton of stuff and we're trying to figure out if they still have the offense. I mean, the Patriots seem to, because they remit themselves so much, they seem to have all

these wrinkles, these midseason crises and all that stuff. The Saints haven't had that. And so I think there's probably a lot of reasons that they are not talked about enough. I think that Drew Breeze himself is not talked about enough. There is not nearly enough talk about how good he has been compared to his era. The fact that he is, you know, in a passing boom, he is among the boomiest. And there's, you know, we just don't talk about that enough. You know, we've discussed in the past, how, ridiculous it was that he was setting passing numbers, you know, kind of 2000, 10 years ago, he was setting passing records and nobody was talking about it at all because the team wasn't good or the defense wasn't good and they were going eight and eight and Drew Brees is putting

up numbers we'd never seen before and everyone's gone, eh, that's fine. It's just, it's the, for whatever reason, they will probably, both Peyton and Brees will probably end their careers underappreciated for what kind of offenses they built and what kind of numbers they put up. I tend to agree with you. All right. Do you want to do assistant of the year? The NFL Broils Award that doesn't exist? Well, can we do executive of the year?

Oh, okay. We can do executive first. Okay. Is this just an old Raven show? Because that's what it seems like it's going to be. Oh, no. That's not what I, that's, that's not mine. Oh, okay.

Who's yours? Brandon Bean. Okay. Walk me through this. I can understand the reasoning. So I do want to point out that part of the, if Eric Dicasta took over the GM job four years ago, it's Eric DeCosta. Eric DeCosta was there.

I understand that in Baltimore. But Ozzie Newsom was the general manager for a lot of the talent that was put into place here. So are you giving the GM award to Eric DeCosta? Yes, because I think that it's the overall vision

of what this franchise has done. I understand that. I understand, but that's why you give coach of the year to, that's why you give coach of the year to John Harbaugh. See, I think that's so hard to parse. Right? I get it.

How you deliver credit in this situation to me is hard. So, and that's why I gave it to DeCoste, just because, again, it's the organizational vision that I'm so blown away by. And I think that that's a top-down thing. I think John Harbaugh probably deserves a lot of credit for it. But I also think that I don't know if John Harba, this is John Harba's sole vision, if that makes sense. Yeah, no, no, no. I'm with you. But I think that the fact that News someone's responsible for that, I think it makes it

extremely hard. Yeah. Okay, so walk me through Brandon Bean. I can understand you. I can understand why you'd say that, but I'm curious what your reasoning is. Okay. So Brandon Bean made a ton.

So first of all, he took Josh Allen last year. I don't think Josh Allen is particularly good quarterback. Let's separate that because the award is typically who did the best job this year, right? Who built the best team, et cetera, as far as just going out and getting these guys.

Brandon Bean, despite the fact that, again, I don't think Josh Allen's very good. quarterback. Let's separate that. Josh Allen was the best Josh Allen. He could be in 2019. He wrote a lot of words about it. It was great on the murder.com. But he goes out and he gets John Brown. He goes out and he gets Cole Beasley. He goes out and he gets Mitch Morse. If you're going by the way that this award is typically given, even though I believe it not to be an official award, but the way this is official award, it goes to guys like Mike McCagnan. It goes to guys like

Reggie McKenzie, that kind of guy. Went to Ryan Pace, I believe last year. I think it did. Yeah. It goes out to guys. who were just really smart in a handful of personnel moves. And when I think about a guy who did that this year and went out and got the guys, even a guy like Frank Gore, who there just wasn't a whole lot of competition for, he went out and he added something to the Buffalo Bills. I think that as far as adding value to the roster via specific personnel moves, there was no Chris Ballard this year who went out and just had such a historic draft,

he vaults to the top of the list, okay? I don't think Brandon Bean is the best GM in football. I don't think the bills are the best team in football. But if I'm looking just the 2019 season and the moves that were made to improve their team, Brandon Bean for me, would probably get it. I can understand that. And I do think that the way they spent their money this offseason was really smart. I feel like, again, if we're talking about vision, we're talking about plan.

I like what they've done with that. They still have a ton of cast space next year to kind of load up if they feel like they can take the next step. And Josh Allen's a player worth doing that for I like it. We've talked a lot on this show over the last six to eight months about what that team has done and how we've enjoyed it. So I don't disagree at all. I just think that, again, organizational vision, it's hard for me not to award the Ravens in some way. Yeah. I mean, I also think that if we just, I think there's a real chance we would just give the Ravens every single award in the show.

That's probably true. And I'm tempted to do it. I understand that's boring. But it's when you consider what this season has looked like for them, it's, again, it's tempting to do it. Before we move on, let's take a quick break. The Google Assistant is ready to help you get more done with just your voice, in the car, at home, everywhere you take your phone. You can ask your Google Assistant to help with routines throughout your day.

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Just say, hey, Google, to get started. All right. Assistant of the Year, the Bros Award that exists for college but does not from the NFL and probably should. Why doesn't it exist? I don't know. It's a strange thing. I have no idea. All right. Are you going to give it to Greg Roman?

Yes. But again, it's a strange thing. You said Brandon Bean for this. I think Brian Dable is in the conversation for this as well. I actually agree. great. But what they've been able to get out of that group of players has been really impressive. It's kind of funny because Don Martindale, Wing Martindale's in the mix, too.

He is. I definitely think he is. I would give it to Roman, though. I think you have to. I'm giving it to Bill Belichick. Are you really, though? Yes. Who's called?

You can't do that. You can't do that. Who's been a better coordinator of this season than Bill Belichick? I understand that, but that's breaking the rules. You can't do that. Okay, I'll give it to Steve Belichick. Who's apparently calling the defensive calls. No, I'm giving it to the hive mind of Patriots people.

I think that Robert Saleh is in the mix there, although that the Niners have obviously had some injuries and come back down to Earth. I think those two teams having created defenses that seem like they wouldn't exist in 2019, I think that's really admirable. I think if you had to give it for vision and all of our, all sort of style, I think you would, you would have to give it to Greg Roman, however. Yeah, and I think Martin Dills in there. If I have to pick one person, it's going to Greg Roman. Yeah, I think we do. Because if I couldn't pick two coaches of the year, then you have to give it to one person.

I'm going to Boba. It's going to Bobelichick. All right. How about this? Okay, this is a smaller kind of secondary one that I wanted to piggyback off the executive of the year. What's your favorite personnel move of the year? One just player transaction that sticks out to you that was your favorite. Oh, boy. I think that the Jamie Collins thing. That's a really good one. So funny to me because it's the classic Belichick arc, trade him for value before he gets expensive, let him go make a bunch of money somewhere else, bring him back on a minimum, and all of a sudden he's playing at the same level he played at four years ago but did not play for the team that gave him a bunch of money in the Cleveland Browns.

I put him second team all pro. I mean, he's been really good. That is absolutely what I think about when I think about how to create value in the NFL. That's a really good one. I picked the clowny trade just because I think it's a perfect example of taking advantage of a team. It's in a terrible spot. I mean, convincing them to pay half his salary.

You see what that defense looks like when he's not on the field. They really struggle to create pressure. He's been one of the more important. important players in the league when you consider what he means to his unit. And to get him for a third round pick and a couple million bucks on the eve of the season, I mean, that's the type of move that can swing a year for a team. And it has been away for Seattle. So that's my favorite one.

But the Jamie Collins move is definitely a good one. I should have thought of that too. Hey, you know what? Wasn't my favorite move? Huh. Anything the Rams did in the last five months. I think that's fair. Okay.

Offensive rookie of the year. The golf extension. Okay. Are you going to say Josh Jacobs here? I am going to say Josh Jacobs. I think Josh Jacobs is going to win, but I'm confused as to why he is considered to be such a favorite over Kyler Murray. I think that Josh Jacobs has been much better at his position than Kyler Murray has been at his.

Okay. I get that. But what I'm saying is that Kyler Murray, first of all, 544 rushing yards over 3,000 passing yards. He has some, you know, 10 interceptions. wasn't perfect for him. But I think that if you're looking for kind of degree of difficulty, the quarterback position's harder to play. And then, you know, we've seen a lot of good young rookie running backs.

We haven't seen a ton of rookie quarterbacks quite like this. I'm in on Kyla Murray as having the best future of any rookie. I guess, given the parameters of the award, I guess Josh Jacobs is the choice here. I have no problem with somebody picking Kyler and Murray. I guess I'm picking Kyler Murray. that's fine. I have no problem with that. I was talking to Meg Schuster yesterday as we were planning on what we were going to write. And it was during the afternoon games.

And I just kind of offhandly said, I am so, so excited to watch Kyler Murray for the next however long. And that offense is going to be thrilling when they get the right players around it. Just because he's there. He's such an exciting player. And I'm really pumped about what his career is going to look like. That being said, I think you could argue on a per touch basis, Josh Jacobs was the best running back. in football this year. No one here is denying that Josh Jacobs is a really good player.

I'm just saying that Kyla Murray is going to be a more impactful player over the course of his career because he plays the most important position in sports. Of course, he absolutely is. But I just think that if we're talking about this season and this season alone, Josh Jacobs was a more efficient, better rookie than Kyler Murray was. I mean, of course, Kyler Murray is going to be more important. But I mean, Josh Jacobs averaged 3.48 yards after contact per row. rush. That was the fourth highest mark in the league. I mean, he was just making people look silly.

He was really good as a receiver when they gave him the chance to do that. I just think that he was great. I mean, he was right there with the best players at his position in his first year. That's it. Man, I'm looking at some of these running backs who have won rookie the year. It's not great. Anthony Thomas, I think is on that list. Yeah, so Barclay, Kamara, Gurley, fine. Eddie Lacey, 2013. Wow. Didn't Anthony Thomas win it in 2000?

Of course. Hold on. Cadillac Williams won it. That's an injury thing, though. You can't blame that on Cadillac Williams. Clinton Port is fine. Anthony Thomas 2001. Mike Anderson, 2000.

Man. Just the Edron James. Shane-A-Han machine. Man. Carl Pickens, won rookie of the year in 1992. Carl Pickens, because of the age I am and maybe you as well, always seem like a crafty veteran. He always seems 30.

Remember Carl Pickens? Well, because he was on the Titans team that was pretty good. So he just... Oh, that's right. He had that one year with that 2000s team. I don't remember him at all with the Bengals. So in my mind, he's just a veteran on the Titans. If you were to tell me right now that Carl Pickens is still on the Titans, I would, I'd look into it.

That's kind of how I feel about Derek Mason. Like, it felt like Derek Mason was always 38 years old, even though he's only 45 now. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. He came as a grizzle veteran. There are other guys like that, too. I wrote about Marshall Yonda last week, and I said his game is essentially like watching a 40-year-old dude play pickup, except he's always played it that way. When he was 22, he seemed like a grizzled veteran.

Absolutely. There are dudes that just have that. All right, defensive rookie of the year. I don't even think this is a conversation. Yeah, Nick Bosa. It's Nick Bosa. So the reason that we were hesitant on Nick Bosa when we initially did our award predictions is because he was nursing an injury for. all of training camp when we made them.

And so health and availability and all that stuff is by far the most important thing in an award like this. And none of us doubted that Nick Bosa had the capability to be the best defensive player in the draft. But the reason I remember not being high on him, I believe I picked the Jaguars, Josh Allen, to win the defensive rookie year. Who did you pick? I picked Devin Bush. Devin Bush, right.

We neither have picked Nick Bosa because we thought the injury might be a little bit serious because it was kind of one of those weird injuries where there were no positive updates for a very long time. Yeah, exactly. His timetable was completely murky. I mean, it was just really hard to understand when he'd be back and how effective he would be when he got back. Well, I have some news for it. He was extremely effective and extremely good. He's really good, man. That inside move that he hit on Saturday night, I mean, just, I was talking to a couple people just, you know, on text that have had to play against guys like this. And it was just like that he's the real deal, man. There's just nothing you can do. when you that's the type of thing when I don't know what I'm always watching but when you talk to people who know what they're looking at and they're the ones that are like this dude is a monster that's when I have like really start to appreciate people and he's already at that level it's that's a really impressive to do in your first year yes I would say and that's the fact that he's still able to you know he's moving he moves around a lot on that d line there was that play where he actually got caught up a little bit against the Rams on Saturday night where essentially he's able to determine where he wants to go and he ended up going to the wrong spot. But I think it's a net positive that he's able to move around so much.

And especially as the injuries keep piling up on that defense, the ability for Nick Bow said a wrecked games gets more and more important. Absolutely. I mean, because that's what you need. When you're less effective play to play, you need a couple of guys that are going to be able to swing the game for you. And I think he's getting to be in that conversation. So, yeah, his playing style, you talk about the moving around thing,

you know, you can take advantage of him in certain ways. He really bites hard on playfakes. And he's not always in the right position. position, but I think that that's something he'll get a better sense of as he continues playing in the league and he gets more experience. But I think you're right. I do think it's a net positive to kind of let him play freely and kind of determine how he wants to go after certain things because he does have that level of ability. Okay, a couple more that don't exist. What is your game of the year?

So we have different games. We talked about this. We do. morning. I think that the game that established what football was in 2019 was Baltimore at Seattle. I think that's correct. That's the game where Lamar Jackson went forward on fourth down because he wanted to. That's the game where we kind of figured out that this Ravens team was instead of being for real was super duper for real. And that is the game where I think we all realized how special Lamar Jackson could be. even more special than than we thought initially.

And both of us were extremely high on Russell Wilson, excuse me, Lamar Jackson, both last year and this year, but I think that that game took it to another level going on the road in Seattle. So that would be my pick for game of the year,

just an exciting, awesome back and forth game. That's a really good choice. That's probably up there for me. I just loved watching the Saints Niners game. I feel like Sean Peyton and Kyle Shanahan are two of my favorite coaches. to just watch what their plan is, everything else.

The fact that Kyle Shanahan stole one of the Saints plays for one of their biggest gains of the game when he had this fullback pitch the ball. It's stuff like that. I just watching guys like that go back and forth and just try to one up each other when it comes to design and have it be a game where it came down to the very end. Kittle makes that play to just that shouldn't even be possible as he's just running with people hanging on him to essentially win the game. I just love games like that.

It reminded me in some ways of the Rams Saints game or Rams Chiefs game last year. And I know some people, that's not their favorite style of football to watch. But when really good coaches are going at it and, you know, offenses are playing well against defenses that are typically pretty good. I don't mind watching that at all. So that to me was the most exciting game. But I feel like Seahawks Ravens is a really good choice too. A lot of good games.

What is your play of the year? Another category that does not exist in our last one for today. this one is easy. So facing fourth and goal from the one-yard line, the Miami Dolphins tried out their field goal unit. They go into this insane formation that looks vaguely similar, but not exactly like the terrible fake punt

by the Indianapolis Colts. And the punter through a touchdown pass to the kicker. the dolphins, we all thought were tanking and they weren't. There's a lot of ways to be boring and bad. The dolphins were not that. We saw that on Sunday. The dolphins were still trying creative stuff like this against the damn Philadelphia Eagles who won the NFC East.

They were two and nine, the dolphins at this point. Second quarter of a random game at home in December. This is creative perfection. This is going for it when you don't have to go for it. Yeah, I can understand that. It was really cool. I did love that in the moment, but I still think that the throw that Russell Wilson

hit to Tyler Lockett in the back of the end zone in that We have five game. When you watch, I've really enjoyed the rise of the dots and how the dots allow you to see the game in a slightly different way when you consider just how players move on the field and everything else. When you watch the dots on that play, it just doesn't make any sense.

It's just like, how is that even possible? And Wilson's had a few of those this year where it seems like he's throwing it away and it's a touchdown. And there was nothing like that one, though. I just thinking just in terms of how awe-inspiring it was, I think that was my favorite play of the year. I think there are 10 Lamar Jackson plays that are probably in this conversation. The spin move in the middle of the field. I mean, all of those, but the Wilson completion, that's the one where I just kind of sat back and was like, what the hell just happened? I also think not from a scheme standpoint,

but from an individual performance standpoint, obviously George Kittle against the Saints is the most miraculous thing I've seen from a skill position guy in a football field. I think, again, Lamar Jackson probably wins that award with a handful of plays, but when you're not talking about Lamar Jackson, you're talking about George Kittle

as just someone who went above and beyond our particular play. I hear you. I agree with you. All right. That's all we got, man. That is all we have until week 17 is settled. We will be back next Sunday night. I will be back next Sunday night. Again, it's great to be back. Thank you guys for sticking around.

And as always, thank you so much for listening to the Ringer NFL show on the Ringer podcast network. We'll talk to you soon.