Parsons got all 29 votes from the panel as they projected the year-end awards; he also received a vote for Defensive Player of the Year. | From @ToddBrock24f7
The league will hand out its end-of-season hardware this week with the 11th edition of NFL Honors. Along with the official reveal of the Pro Football Hall of Fame Class of 2022, fans will also learn who The Associated Press has awarded with its seven major accolades.
If the predictions made by the panel, composed of analysts from NFL Network and NFL.com, are any indication of the actual final tally, the Cowboys look to be well represented. Two players off the Dallas roster received votes from the 29 experts; one was the only unanimous selection of the year.
Micah Parsons is projected to be the Defensive Rookie of the Year by the panel, which includes notable names like Brian Baldinger, Judy Battista, Gil Brandt, DeAngelo Hall, Maurice Jones-Drew, Steve Mariucci, Willie McGinest, Kurt Warner, and Lance Zierlein.
Parsons got all 29 votes from the network’s panel as the likely recipient of this year’s award. Washington’s Chase Young was 2020’s winner; past honorees in the category include Nick Bosa, Darius Leonard, Aaron Donald, Luke Kuechly, Von Miller, Ndamukong Suh, Brian Urlacher, Derrick Thomas, Lawrence Taylor, and Mean Joe Greene.
“[H]e might be the best [linebacker] since Lawrence Taylor entered the league in 1981,” Brandt said of Parsons. “The only first-year pro to top 80 tackles and 10 sacks in the last quarter-century, per NFL Research, Parsons is, quite simply, one of the best I’ve ever seen as a rookie at his position.”
What made the Penn State phenom’s first pro season even more remarkable is that he excelled not only as a linebacker, but also when lining up at defensive end.
“What speaks to Micah this year is the versatility, playing some end and playing ‘backer,” said Dallas defensive coordinator Dan Quinn last month. “And having a chance to do that as a rookie, I think that is a challenge. And he has certainly answered that one.”
Parsons admitted the award had crossed his mind as well during the season.
“I mean, of course,” he said back in early December when asked. “For any football player, you have to have some personal goals as well as team goals. I feel like the way I’m performing, the way I’m playing, as long as I keep going and never let up, all of that stuff is going to come.”
Parsons had been talked about during the season as a potential candidate for Defensive Player of the Year, too, but his stats tapered off some as the team cooled down the home stretch of the season. He still received one vote for that award, which the panel ultimately forecasted going to Pittsburgh’s T.J. Watt.
Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott was considered a leading contender to win Comeback Player of the Year early in the season. He got off to a torrid pace in September, that after an eleven-month rehab from the ankle dislocation and compound fracture he suffered in October 2020.
Prescott missed a game in late October due to a calf strain; a midseason slump followed, and he never truly returned to award-winning form. Cincinnati’s Joe Burrow, meanwhile, bounced back from his own devastating 2020 lower-leg injury and took the Bengals on an improbable run to a conference title.
NFL Network’s panel gave Burrow the nod for Comeback Player of the Year; Prescott got six votes.
The panel chose Green Bay’s Aaron Rodgers as the league’s Most Valuable Player, the Rams’ Cooper Kupp as Offensive Player of the Year, Cincinnati’s Ja’Marr Chase as Offensive Rookie of the Year, and Tennessee’s Mike Vrabel as Coach of the Year.
These predictions have no bearing on who will actually take home the awards, but they may offer a glimpse into what fans can expect when the winners’ names are announced. NFL Honors will be broadcast live on ABC at 9 p.m. ET this Thursday.
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