Recapping the 2018/19 NFL season
After the first week of the regular season, there were observations made for all 32 NFL teams and to wrap up the year, we should come up with a few points for the entire league. We put together eight statements about what we saw in 2018/19 and how that will affect next year or maybe even beyond that.
When doing so, I want to point out that these are my personal opinions and while I support them with statistics, not all of this is purely factual and a few of these are simply projections for what I believe in. So here are our two cents on this past year and with this, we are headed towards the draft season.
#1 For the first time, we agree with pretty much all the NFL awards
In several recent years, we thought the voters got multiple awards wrong and we expected to disagree with one or two of them once again, but this time around we truly thought they got the job done.
We have been saying that Patrick Mahomes is the MVP all year long, after throwing for a whopping 50 touchdowns and putting up mind-blowing numbers every single week, but more importantly, it was his ability to make the big play whenever his team really needed him to.
Aaron Donald was an obvious choice to win his second consecutive Defensive Player of the Year award as the most disruptive player in the league, leading the league in sacks, total pressures and tackles for loss once again.
Since we knew the writers wouldn’t hand an offensive guard the Offensive Rookie of the Year trophy (and Quenton Nelson truly deserved consideration) giving the hardware to Saquon Barkley was expected, even with Baker Mayfield winning seven games with the Browns. Barkley is a phenomenal talent and wowed fans with a crazy juke, hurdle or goal-line leap on a weekly basis.
On the defensive side of the ball, it was a closer race between Darius Leonard and Derwin James. Both are already in the discussion for the best players at their respective position, but we’ve been on the bandwagon for the Colts linebacker throughout the season, leading the league in tackles and making a multitude of impact plays in the passing game.
We were in with Andrew Luck as the Comeback Player of the Year as well. We thought his status was even more unclear than the one of J.J. Watt, who had a great resurgence himself, and Luck took a team with little-proven talent to the Divisional Round thanks to his heroics on the field.
We even thought the Miami Miracle was rightfully voted the play of the year because it took multiple players to convert that prayer into a game-winning touchdown over the eventual Super Bowl champs.
We're not going to speak on the Walter Payton Man of the Year award since we have no in-depth information on all the unselfish efforts these guys brought to the table. As far as Coach of the Year goes, we maybe would have rather seen Frank Reich or Anthony Lynn get recognition, but all in all, the press finally got all these awards right.