Detroit Lions defensive end Trey Flowers is the team’s nominee for the Walter Payton Man of the Year Award. Flowers will represent the Lions at the NFL’s awards along with the nominees from the other 31 teams.
The Walter Payton Man of the Year Award is a very big deal for the players, honoring the off-field work players do in the community to make America a better place. The winner receives a $250,000 donation to the charity of his choice, while all nominees are granted a $40,000 donation to their respective charities of choice.
Flowers has been incredibly generous with his time and money since joining the Lions in 2019. He’s been a leading advocate on the social justice front, an issue that has galvanized the Lions players. Now on injured reserve, Flowers offered a statement via the Lions,
“Walter Payton was a great person, what he stood for. A legacy lives on forever. It’s about the things that you do with the time that you have on this Earth. I just hope that a long time from now, people can remember the impact that I had on their lives and the impact that I had on the community. I hope that my foundation can continue to do great things in the community. I just want to inspire, I want to encourage because I know how important it is. This world, in order to get better we have to inculcate the things that we’ve experienced and the knowledge that we have on to the youth, which leads them to be even better.”
From the NFL’s press release,
Representing the best of the NFL’s commitment to philanthropy and community impact, each player was selected as his team’s Man of the Year and is now eligible to win the national award. Considered the league’s most prestigious honor, the Walter Payton NFL Man of the Year Award presented by Nationwide recognizes an NFL player for outstanding community service activities off the field, as well as excellence on the field. First established in 1970, the national award was renamed in 1999 after the late Hall of Fame Chicago Bears running back WALTER PAYTON.
Fans can vote for Flowers to win on Twitter by using #WPMOYChallenge hashtag followed by their favorite nominee’s last name, Flowers.