Tag: NFL Honors

Lamar Jackson is league MVP for 2nd time with nearly unanimous vote

Jackson received all but one of the 50 first-place votes to win his second MVP award.

While there was a lot of debate during the 2023 season as to who was the league’s Most Valuable Player, once votes were cast, there was no question. Baltimore Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson was one vote shy of being a unanimous MVP.

He received 49 of the 50 first-place votes, running away with the win, his second MVP award of his career. His last win, in 2019, was unanimous. he was one vote short from being the first-ever two-time unanimous MVP in NFL history.

He is the 11th player in NFL history with multiple MVP awards.

Jackson led the Ravens to a league-best 13-3 record.

He completed 67.2% of his passes for a career-high 3,678 yards. He threw 24 touchdown passes and only seven interceptions.

He also rushed for 821 yards and five touchdowns, leading the NFL with a 5.5-yard per-carry average.

He faced the Arizona Cardinals in 2023, beating them 31-24 with 157 yards and a touchdown pass.

Listen to the latest from Cards Wire’s Jess Root on his podcast, Rise Up, See Red. Subscribe on Apple podcasts or Spotify.

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Browns QB Joe Flacco is 2023 Comeback Player of the Year

He wins the award over Bills safety Damar Hamlin despite not having the most first-place votes.

The league’s Comeback Player of the Year is Cleveland Browns quarterback Joe Flacco. It was announced at the NFL Honors award ceremony Thursday night in Las Vegas.

Flacco, who had not been a full-time starter in the NFL since 2017 with the Baltimore Ravens and was the New York Jets’ back up in 2022, was signed off the streets by the Browns in late November.

In five starts, he led the Browns to a 4-1 record down the stretch, throwing 13 touchdown passes and eight interceptions. The Browns made the playoffs.

Flacco won with 151 total points but did not have the most first-place votes. He only had 13 first-place votes. Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin, who nearly died on the field in 2022 with cardiac arrest, had the most first-place votes with 21 but was on only 21 other ballots, finishing with 140 points.

The Cardinals did not face Flacco even though they faced the Browns in 2023.

Listen to the latest from Cards Wire’s Jess Root on his podcast, Rise Up, See Red. Subscribe on Apple podcasts or Spotify.

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49ers’ Christian McCaffrey wins Offensive Player of the Year

He led the NFL in rushing, yards from scrimmage and total touchdowns scored.

San Francisco 49ers running back Christian McCaffrey was named the NFL’s Offensive Player of the Year for the 2023 season Thursday night during the NFL Honors awards ceremony in Las Vegas.

It wasn’t a surprise.

McCaffrey led the NFL with a career-high 1,459 rushing yards on a career-high 5.4 yards per attempt.

He also caught 67 passes for 564 yards and seven touchdowns.

His 2,023 total yards from scrimmage and 21 total touchdowns also led the NFL.

It was his first Offensive Player of the Year win.

His award was most certainly affected by two huge games had against the Arizona Cardinals. In two games against Arizona, McCaffrey rushed for 221 yards and four touchdowns and also had 12 catches for 143 yards and three touchdowns.

Listen to the latest from Cards Wire’s Jess Root on his podcast, Rise Up, See Red. Subscribe on Apple podcasts or Spotify.

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Kevin Stefanski edges out DeMeco Ryans for Coach of the Year

Stefanski beats out Ryans in a tiebreaker.

After leading an injury-riddled Cleveland Browns team to the playoffs, head coach Kevin Stefanski was named the 2023 NFL Coach of the Year at the NFL Honors awards ceremony Thursday night in Las Vegas.

Stefanski’s Browns, despite losing their starting quarterback, starting running back, starting left tackle and others to season-ending injuries, went 11-6 and made the playoffs.

They had the league’s No. 1 defense.

It is Stefanski’s second Coach of the Year award. He became the 13th coach to win it multiple times.

He won on a tiebreaker. He and Houston Texans head coach DeMeco Ryans, who led the Texans to a surprise 10-7 season and AFC division title, both had 165 total points. Because Stefanski had 21 first-place votes to Ryans’ 20, he won.

Stefanski and the Browns faced the Arizona Cardinals in 2023, beating them 27-0 in Cleveland, holding them to only 58 total yards.

Listen to the latest from Cards Wire’s Jess Root on his podcast, Rise Up, See Red. Subscribe on Apple podcasts or Spotify.

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Texans sweep rookie awards as Will Anderson is Defensive Rookie of the Year

Anderson was drafted by the Texans with the selection that once belonged to the Cardinals.

The Houston Texans had the NFL’s two top rookies. Quarterback C.J. Stroud was named the 2023 Offensive Rookie of the Year Thursday night during the NFL Honors ceremony in Las Vegas, and then only a little while later, Texans defensive end Will Anderson won Defensive Rookie of the Year.

Anderson was selected third overall by Houston in the 2023 draft with the pick that originally belonged to the Arizona Cardinals. The Texans traded up to the third pick, giving up their first-round pick in 2024 and more.

Anderson played in 15 games as a rookie. He had 45 tackles, seven sacks, 10 tackles for loss and 22 quarterback hits. He was selected to the Pro Bowl.

Six of his seven sacks game in the final eight games of the regular season and he had one in the playoffs, as the Texans won the AFC South and won their first-round playoff game.

The Cardinals faced Anderson and the Texans. Anderson had two tackles, one of his seven sacks, two of his tackles for loss and two of his quarterback hits against them in a 21-16 Houston win.

Anderson won the award with 16 first-place votes out of 50 and a total of 151 points. In second place, Eagles defensive tackle Jalen Carter had 122 points with 14 first-place votes.

Listen to the latest from Cards Wire’s Jess Root on his podcast, Rise Up, See Red. Subscribe on Apple podcasts or Spotify.

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Dan Campbell didn’t win Coach of the Year and fans aren’t happy about it

Detroit’s Dan Campbell didn’t win Coach of the Year and fans had a lot to say about it

Dan Campbell was one of the finalists for the NFL Coach of the Year at the annual NFL Honors. The Lions head coach was a great candidate, leading Detroit to a division title and a 12-5 record.

Alas, Campbell did not win the award. Kevin Stefanski of the Browns was the winner, followed by Houston’s Demeco Ryans and then Campbell in third.

The lowly finish for Campbell did not sit well with a lot of fans.

Dave Canales takes note of Keegan-Michael Key’s Panthers-Taylor Swift joke

Comedian Keegan-Michael Key roasted the Panthers at Thursday’s NFL Honors, and it didn’t get by HC Dave Canales.

Dave Canales may have just pocketed his first receipt as the head coach of the Carolina Panthers.

During his monlogue at Thursday night’s NFL Honors show, actor and comedian Keegan-Michael Key delivered a punchline at the Panthers’ expense. Take a look:

Well, Canales definitely saw it—and it appears as though he’s taken note . . .

The Panthers finished at an NFL-worst 2-15 in 2023. That, obviously, placed them far outside of Super Bowl contention. Get it?

Unfortunately, the franchise is no stranger to being the butt of the joke—especially this season. But Canales, who is quite active on social media, hopes to use his platform to turn that around.

“What’s important to me is that we all grow to have a relationship,” Canales recently said of his interactions with fans online. “And as we have a chance to get into more detail about what we’re lookin’ for from a football standpoint, my hope is that I can show you what to look for in what we’re trying to become.

“My hope is that if I put this out there and I say, ‘This is who we’re gonna be,’ that we’re able to have this relationship where, like, you keep me accountable. ‘You said we’re gonna play this brand of football, you guys are crazy about the ball—we had three turnovers last week. We were -2 or we were -3.’ And I’ll be able to say, ‘That’s a great point. That’s not the kind of football we wanna play.’ So my hope is that we can kinda grow in that relationship as we have that expectation of who we’re gonna become.”

Remember that, Keegan-Michael.

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Keegan-Michael Key’s outstanding 2024 NFL Honors hosting job should land him a future Oscars gig

The 2024 NFL Honors proved one thing: Keegan-Michael Key should host the Oscars one day.

It’s not often you can point to the host of the 2024 NFL Honors ceremony and say, “Now, that person should host the Academy Awards.”

However, that’s how good Keegan-Michael Key was at hosting this year’s NFL awards ceremony.

From his absolutely biting-yet-genial monologue to actually clever bits with the audience, Key managed Thursday night’s awards show with an effortless charm.

He kept the show rolling, got the audience genuinely engaged in the ceremony and knew exactly how to nail those little transitional moments in the awards that people take for granted when watching broadcasts like this.

Hosting an awards show can be one of the toughest jobs in show business, but Key earned an A+ for hosting a football awards show. Imagine what he could do with the Oscars.

There comes a time, after you’ve watched so many awards shows over the years, where you really value the good hosts.

Key’s genuine excitement for the moment certainly helped, as he used his Detroit Lions fandom and general understanding of the NFL to deliver a monologue that got in the right digs at the right people.

Using Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce’s status as a couple as a conduit to poke fun at Bill Belichick is the kind of unexpectedly hysterical monologue joke that shows like the Oscars are desperate to find.

Comedian Trevor Noah has long earned raves for his Grammys emcee work for this same reason: the vibes are affable, the jokes are smart, the genuine passion for the occasion shows through the performance.

In contrast, comedian Jo Koy’s Golden Globes hosting duties earned wide jeers because his monologue was awful, and he didn’t know how to navigate the room when those jokes weren’t working.

Hosting the Oscars is incredibly tricky, as people have soared and bombed in equal measure. If the Academy wants to see someone absolutely nail a typically static awards show, look at how well Key did on Thursday night.

While comedian John Mulaney might be atop many wish lists in the industry, Key really should be in major consideration in the future.

He knows the movie world, and he’d know how to find the right jokes for the room that are actually funny and find a nice balance between satire and goodwill.

Let’s give Jimmy Kimmel a break and get one of the great sketch comics of the 2010s and one of the industry’s most likable people in as 2025’s Oscar host. Key absolutely deserves it after such a brilliant turn at the NFL Honors.

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Cowboys leaders shut out of major awards at NFL Honors

From @ToddBrock24f7: Dak Prescott, CeeDee Lamb, Micah Parsons, and DaRon Bland came up empty in the biggest end-of-year awards at NFL Honors.

The 2023 Cowboys were well-represented in the major awards handed out at NFL Honors in Las Vegas Thursday night. But they went home empty-handed in the night’s biggest categories.

Quarterback Dak Prescott, wide receiver CeeDee Lamb, linebacker/edge rusher Micah Parsons, and cornerback DaRon Bland were up for three of the evening’s top accolades. And while Lamb did collect the trophy for the Next Gen State Moment of the Year, that was the only piece of hardware to go to someone wearing the star.

Parsons and Bland were both up for Defensive Player of the Year, but Cleveland’s Myles Garrett was recognized instead. Parsons finished third in the voting; Bland finished fifth.

Prescott and Lamb were finalists to be Offensive Player of the Year but lost to the 49ers’ Christian McCaffrey. Lamb came in third in voting, while Prescott finished in fifth place.

Prescott was also in the running to be the league’s Most Valuable Player, but that honor went to Baltimore’s Lamar Jackson in a runaway vote. Prescott was the runner-up for that award, earning 17 second-place votes, 13 third-place votes, 11 fourth-place votes, and six fifth-place votes.

A couple other Cowboys were also shut out during the evening’s presentations. While DeMarcus Lawrence was the team’s nominee for the Walter Payton Man of the Year Award, the Pittsburgh Steelers’ Cameron Heyward became the latest deserving recipient. And Cowboys legend Darren Woodson was denied entry into the Pro Football Hall of Fame after eight times as a semifinalist or finalist.

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Browns’ Myles Garrett wins Defensive Player of the Year

Garrett had one of his 14 sacks against the Cardinals.

Cleveland Browns defensive end Myles Garrett is the NFL’s Defensive Player of the Year for 2023. It was announced at the NFL Honors awards show in Las Vegas Thursday night.

It was the first time he won the award in his career.

Garrett had 14 sacks, 17 tackles for loss, 30 quarterback hits and four forced fumbles in 2023, playing in the league’s No. 1 defense.

He beat Pittsburgh Steelers linebacker T.J. Watt with 165 total points and 23 first-place votes. Watt had 140 total points with 19 first-place votes.

The Cardinals faced Garrett in 2023. In a 27-0 Browns win, Garrett had just one tackle but it was a sack. He also broke up a pass and recovered a fumble.

Listen to the latest from Cards Wire’s Jess Root on his podcast, Rise Up, See Red. Subscribe on Apple podcasts or Spotify.

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