Well, the playoffs are in full swing and many of the end of season awards are settled. My prior predictions were a bit off as Peyton Manning received the MVP and Charles Woodson received the DPOY award. It's hard to argue with those choices, but I like arguing so I'm going to do it anyway.
The same flaws that I pointed out in my previous post surfaced with Woodson in their wildcard game against the Cardinals. Woodson got burned a lot in that Wildcard game, but he made some plays too (just not enough). His aggressiveness killed him a couple times in the game…but at least he’s got a trophy. Revis got flagged a couple times, but shut down Chad Ochocinco and grabbed a pick in the process. The Jets pulled the upset with a dominating performance and if they continue to advance everyone will question whether Woodson was the right choice.
I feel like Peyton's award might be like Dirk Novitzki's from a couple years ago. Best player on the best regular season team...but they get knocked out of the playoffs unceremoniously and everyone questions the MVP. No doubt, Peyton is the best quarterback in football and his team would be nothing without him but if you’re going to give him the award in what can be considered a down year for Peyton then why even wait to give out the award? We should just give it to Peyton at the beginning of every season. It’s just too easy to simply say that this guy is the best player on the best team. I think that Favre’s story is more interesting and quite simply his numbers are better. You can talk about the Vikings possibly making the playoffs with Tavaris Jackson, but I just don’t see them being anywhere near where they are. They had a tougher schedule than they had last year for one thing. Adrian Peterson wasn’t his usual dominant self. And I cannot honestly say they would’ve swept the Packers if Brett Favre wasn’t on this team. I think the voters just shimmied their way out with the easy choice in manning instead of giving it to the 40 year old guy who is simply playing his ass off.
Anyway, I was right about Chris Johnson but that award probably should have been unanimous. The only award left now is coach of the year and Norv Turner should be a lock for that. But who knows? These voters might mess around and give it to Marvin Lewis out of pity. If they do, then you can bet I’ll be back on my soap box.
Until next year…
