Name: The 2024 NFL Honors Are a Joke
Brand: narcissisticpenguin.com
SKU: narcissisticpenguin-com-1
Availability: OnlineOnly

critic

The 2024 NFL Honors Are a Joke

preview

Some years, the award winners are obvious. When Adrian Peterson came back to life after destroying his knee and nearly set the single-season rushing record, all while carrying Christian Ponder and the Minnesota Vikings to the playoffs, that was a gimme. When the likes of Patrick Mahomes, Tom Brady, Aaron Rodgers, and Peyton Manning have gone on ridiculous tears and had record-setting seasons, everyone knew who was taking MVP.
Every now and then a receiver will have an insane season, like Cooper Kupp in 2021, or a pass rusher will tease or set the all-time sack record, like Michael Strahan did 20 years earlier, and you just know they’re taking home the offensive or defensive player of the year award. 
In 2024, we don’t officially know the award winners yet, but if rumors are to believed, the Associated Press will ignore PFF, film, stats, and common sense before just giving it to the biggest name with the most hype. Here’s why the 2024 NFL Honors are a joke. 
If I can speak my mind for a moment, I love Myles Garrett. Coming out of college, I said he was like Khalil Mack but better, and that meant something back then because #52 was still a Raider. Until the Deshaun Watson trade, I considered the Cleveland Browns to be like my second team, a scrappy underdog I always pulled for, unless they were playing my Raiders. I have pounded the table for this absolute monster of a man to be Defensive Player of the Year on many occasions. Look up just about any “Debacle” article on this website, and I’ve picked MG95 to take the award home. 
But this year? HA! As if. 
I’m gonna list a few pass rushers anonymously, and I want you to tell me which one is Garrett, the overwhelming favorite to bring home Defensive Player of the Year. 
Surprise, your defensive player of the year is Player 2. Not Player 4, reigning DPOTY TJ Watt, not Player 5, the versatile Maxx Crosby, not Player 1, media darling Micah Parsons, or even darkhorse Player 3, Jacksonville’s Josh Allen. Garrett had the fewest tackles, the fewest for a loss, the fewest QB hits, and the fewest sacks, but the only one with odds even close to him is Micah, who was barely better than Myles in most categories. 
Why is he gonna win Defensive Player of the Year? Because he’s “the best player on the best defense.” And they were the best defense… in yards allowed. They still gave up the 13th most points, but there’s something to be said for a defense that thrives with a bad offense, which obviously the Browns had with all the injuries, except… They were 10th in points scored, and outside of a few turnovers, weren’t all that bad. 
He had an injury during the season, and maybe we should be celebrating how brave he was to keep playing through it. But if we’re giving someone the award to a player based on grit, maybe give it to Maxx Crosby, who had an objectively better season without the supporting cast that Garrett had… and a septic knee. 
Is it just a legacy award? A “we owe you this” makeup vote for all the years where he was the best and the associated press missed. 
And sure, a player can be dominant without showing up on the statsheet, maybe all five offensive linemen conspired to stop Myles on every single play and he still put up these numbers. Or, that the effort put into voting matched Garrett’s in the playoffs, where they tried and tried but couldn’t quite hit the mark. 
Christian McCaffrey is an example of a player who deserves his award, and I can break that down for you. Despite missing a game, San Francisco’s running back led the league in rushing yards, scrimmage yards, and total touchdowns. In an offense that was top 5 in basically every category, who was the engine? Was it Mr. Irrelevant, Brock Purdy, who is prone to absolute meltdowns when he has to play the position? Was it George “Greg” Kittle, who barely scraped by 1,000 receiving yards? Maybe hybrid dynamo, Deebo Samuel, who barely had more recieving yards than his running back?
Nope, the 49ers go as RUN CMC goes. His versatility and talent out of the backfield don’t just help him pad stats, but free up his teammates. The 49ers rely heavily on mismatches and miscommunication, and absolutely none of it is possible without their engine in the backfield. He’s too good as a receiver to be treated like your Dad’s running back, and too physical and shifty to be stuck with a corner. Once you’ve stopped him, the likes of Kittle, Samuel, and Brandon Aiyuk are just too good for a single defender to cover.
That isn’t to say that he doesn’t have competition for the award. Miami’s impossibly fast Tyreek Hill became the latest in a long line of receivers to chase 2,000 yards in a single season. He got close, catching 119 passes for a league-leading 1,799 yards. 800 yards isn’t a terrible season for a receiver, so to add a cool 1,000 on top? He has a place at the OPOTY table, even if Tua Tagovailoa stopped him from hitting the mark. 
As I sit and write this, Lamar Jackson has essentially locked up the league MVP award. He is set at -20,000 right now, meaning it isn’t even worth betting on him to win the award, it’s too much of a sure thing. So… why? Why is Lamar Jackson the most valuable player in professional football? Maybe the answer is in the box score, we should check his stats. 
A lot of “Lamar Haters” get cute and just feed you his passing numbers to make him look bad. I see why, it isn’t hard, even in year six, he has as many 4,000 yard seasons as I do. But that is cherry-picking. If you’re going to talk about what Lamar Jackson brings to the offense, you have to look at his passing, his rushing, and how he impacts everyone else ala McCaffrey. 
So just like with Myles Garrett, I will give you the total yards, that’s rushing and passing, of a handful of quarterbacks.
In order, Player 1 was Jared Goff, Player 2 was Jordan Love, Player 3 was Dak Prescott, Lamar was Player 4, and Player 5 was Derek Carr. Do you see what I did here? I posted a bunch of good-not-great quarterbacks, and slipped Lamar’s unobstructed statline in the middle. For fun, let me compare the usual suspects, ignoring the likes of Joe Burrow or Aaron Rodgers, who were hurt.
I don’t know about you, but I’m not blown away by Lamar’s numbers. He isn’t top five in total yardage or touchdowns, and it’s not like he’s super careful with the ball, he was just kinda there. He had two 100 yard rushing games, three 300 yard passing games, and had at least one fumble or interception in 12 of his 16 games. The Ravens had one of the best running attacks in football, but as an individual, Lamar was 22nd in between Dameon Pierce’s backup and Nick Chubb’s backup. 
And fine, like I said with McCaffrey, you’ve gotta look at how he impacts everyone. The same way that you can’t overlook McCaffrey as a receiver, you can’t overlook Jackson as a runner. You can’t double weapons down the field because you have to keep a spy on Lamar, and with guys like Zay Flowers and Odell Beckham Jr., as well as former All-Pro Mark Andrews and the up-and-coming Isaiah Likely at tight end, that can be dangerous. 
We can run out a hypothetical. Imagine Lamar Jackson, Gus Edwards, the starting 5 offensive linemen, Odell Beckham Jr., Zay Flowers, Rashod Bateman, and Mark Andrews. Jackson and Edwards are in the gun, Andrews and Odell are to the right, Bateman and Flowers are to the left. Jackson snaps the ball and pretends to hand the ball off to Edwards, and at this point, the defense is gonna tell on itself. The person responsible for Lamar and the player assigned to Edwards are frozen, peeking through offensive linemen for a glimpse of where the ball is going. 
Lamar keeps it and runs to his right, and in a matter of two seconds, he’s faced with yet another option. He can keep the ball and run, and at this point, he’s almost guaranteed a few yards. But while Lamar runs, the receivers run too, and for a defensive back, you’re stuck trying to cover your man while simultaneously working as run support. If the DB comes up, his receiver is open, if he stays with his man, there’s room to roam. 
It’s brilliant, and we’ve seen several variations of it since the option came back in fashion a little over a decade ago, but it isn’t perfect. If a defense plays smartly, and everyone remembers their assignment, they have to be good about their tackles, but it isn’t impossible. 
Because quarterbacks are used to playing like this, many of them struggle to stay put in the pocket and go through reads in the traditional sense. The book on a lot of these guys is to set the edge and keep them in the pocket, but there’s another way. If you blitz, you take away running lanes and force the quarterback to improvise, which… not to throw Mr. Jackson under the bus, isn’t for everyone. 
I guess my question about the Ravens offense is simply, where’s the beef? Where is the big explosion of  offense? Is it truly such a pick-your-poison that the benefits are spread evenly throughout everyone on offense? Because if so, where? The Ravens were number one in rushing yards, but they were also number one in attempts. They ran really efficiently between Jackson, Edwards, Keaton Mitchell, and Justice Hill. They were above and beyond the best running team in football… but not in passing. 
Lamar Jackson had his most efficient year as a starter, bumping his completion percentage up from 62.3% to 67.2% in just one season, and posted his best quarterback rating (102.7) since his previous MVP season (113.3), but that’s about it. None of his receivers had 1,000 yards receiving or double digit touchdowns, and as far as passing is concerned, he didn’t hit the top ten in yards or touchdowns. 
He took care of the ball and facilitated a great year from Baltimore’s run game, and to that end, that’s not something they could’ve done with 90% of the quarterbacks in the league. To say that Lamar Jackson is Baltimore’s Most Valuable Player isn’t a huge stretch.
But in the entire league? 
The Ravens were number one in rushing with 2,661 yards, which is impressive, but not really historical. It isn’t even in the top 25 all-time, despite having a whole extra game. In fact, in 2020, where Jackson wasn’t even a Pro Bowler, he had 3,762 total yards, 33 total touchdowns, nine interceptions, and four lost fumbles, the team actually rushed for 400 more yards in one fewer game. This year’s Ravens didn’t even rush for as much as the Chicago Bears did last year, and they were the worst team in the league. 
So what’s the difference? Well, the 2020 Ravens didn’t have the number one seed. In fact, they were a wildcard team, they didn’t win the division. That is the whole difference. That’s what separates a year you’ve never heard of and a league MVP, the success of the rest of the team. Because those 2020 Ravens averaged 29 points a game, and with an additional game, would’ve scored 497 points… two touchdowns more than 2023’s total. 
So why is Lamar the MVP? Frankly? Because they’re not going to give it to a running back, everyone knows MVP might as well be the “Quarterback of the Year” award. Last year’s winner, Patrick Mahomes, “struggled” in 2023, only throwing 27 touchdowns while posting a career-high in interceptions (14).  Aaron Rodgers, who won it the two years before, essentially missed the entire season. Tom Brady? Retired. Joe Burrow? Also injured. Josh Allen couldn’t stop turning the ball over and barely won his division. Everyone knows Brock Purdy is a product of Christian McCaffrey and Jalen Hurts was not immune to Philly’s collapse. 
Just like Myles Garrett is winning a Defensive Player of the Year award because he’s “the best player on the best defense,” Lamar Jackson is winning MVP because he’s the “best player on the best team, and also no other quarterbacks stepped up.”
Though as he threw the franchise’s first homefield AFC Championship game into triple coverage against Patrick Mahomes’ Kansas City Chiefs, maybe we should revist who the “best team” was after all.

Some years, the award winners are obvious. When Adrian Peterson came back to life after destroying his knee and nearly set the single-season rushing record, all while carrying Christian Ponder and the Minnesota Vikings to the playoffs, that was a gimme. When the likes of Patrick Mahomes, Tom Brady, Aaron Rodgers, and Peyton Manning have gone on ridiculous tears and had record-setting seasons, everyone knew who was taking MVP.
Every now and then a receiver will have an insane season, like Cooper Kupp in 2021, or a pass rusher will tease or set the all-time sack record, like Michael Strahan...

The 2024 NFL Honors Are a Joke

No article scores yet.

CRITIC REVIEWS

PUBLIC REVIEWS