The 2023 NFL regular season has come to a close. With a few days between the end of Week 18 and the start of the playoffs, now seems like a natural time to put together my award ballot for what we saw during the season.

Keep in mind that these picks are my selections for who I believe should win the actual awards, not who will win when the actual voting is revealed before Super Bowl LVIII. I try to use objective data, what I've seen from watching all of these players and teams on film as much as possible throughout the season, and my thoughts from talking to people in and around the league to form my opinions about these award winners. In many cases, these races are so close that there isn't much of a difference between those who finish No. 1 and No. 2 or even No. 1 and No. 3.

I'll start with Coach of the Year, work my way through the offensive and defensive awards, then finish up with a lengthy look at MVP.

Jump to an award:
MVP | Coach of the Year
Best rookies: Offense | Defense
Players of the Year: Offense | Defense

Coach of the Year

This was a race with four candidates for three spots. Thankfully, two of them were playing in the playoff eliminator on Saturday night, so I decided to award third place to the winner of that matchup.

3. DeMeco Ryans, Texans

Ryans and the two players the Texans took in the first round accelerated Houston's rebuild dramatically. While C.J. Stroud and Will Anderson Jr. raised Houston's ceiling on both sides of the ball, Ryans excelled by getting more out of the players he inherited than prior regimes. On defense, seven of the 11 players who played at least 500 snaps were on the roster for Lovie Smith a year ago. The guys who weren't included journeymen such as Sheldon Rankins and Denzel Perryman.

If anything, the players on the offensive side of the ball made even bigger strides, a testament to the work done by Ryans and offensive coordinator Bobby Slowik. Nico Collins morphed into a superstar, finishing second in the NFL in yards per route run. Tank Dell was supposed to be a gadget player and instead played like a WR1 for most of the season before fracturing his fibula. Shaq Mason was a salary-dump acquisition and should have gone to the Pro Bowl. Devin Singletary played the best football of his career. When you think about what this team has with Stroud and how promising Ryans looks as a coach, the Texans might be the league's most exciting young franchise at the moment.

2. Sean McVay, Rams

McVay is going to be in the Hall of Fame one day. This might stand as the best coaching job he ever pulls off. This Rams team was left for dead by most observers heading into the season. In an effort to rebuild their young core and clean up their salary cap, they moved on from well-known veterans and almost entirely sat out veteran free agency. They had 13 picks in the 2023 draft but no first-round selection and only one in the first 75. When Cooper Kupp's hamstring acted up just before the season, it felt like an ominous sign for what was probably going to be a frustrating season.

Editor's Picks

Instead, McVay and his team have thrived. The Rams have used players with four years of experience or less at the second-highest rate in football, and many of those players have played well. Puka Nacua had one of the best rookie wideout seasons in league history. Second-year running back Kyren Williams won the starting job and was a Pro Bowler. Rookies Byron Young and Kobie Turner emerged as valuable pass-rushers next to Aaron Donald.

It wasn't just the draftees. The Rams traded for Steelers guard Kevin Dotson and unearthed a Pro Bowl-caliber season from a guy who had never played at that level in Pittsburgh. Ahkello Witherspoon, signed for close to the minimum, allowed a 76.2 passer rating in coverage. Safety John Johnson rejoined the Rams and helped take the defense to the next level during their late-season win streak.

Like all the great coaches, McVay reinvented himself. The Rams hired new coaches and installed a new gap-heavy rushing attack to replace the zone-first scheme he had run during his first ascent to the top with Jared Goff and Todd Gurley. The move unlocked Williams and coaxed a comeback season out of Matthew Stafford, whose QBR on play-action passes jumped from 22nd in 2022 to fifth this season. McVay looked exhausted and ready for the television booth a year ago. Now, he looks primed for another decade on the sidelines.

1. Kevin Stefanski, Browns

When Stefanski won the actual Coach of the Year award in 2020, it could have been chalked up to a product of solid coaching and, COVID absences aside, good fortune. The Browns were outscored by their opposition and went 7-2 in one-score games. It wasn't sustainable, and despite massive hype heading into 2021, they disappointed.

The 2023 team has gone 6-2 in one-score games, but it would be hard to argue the Browns have been lucky, or that Stefanski hasn't needed to earn those victories. The former Vikings assistant lost starting right tackle Jack Conklin to a knee injury in Week 1 and star back Nick Chubb to a torn ACL in Week 2. Left tackle Jedrick Wills Jr. has been sidelined for half the season, while replacement right tackle Dawand Jones hit injured reserve in December.

And then, of course, there was the small matter of losing starting quarterback Deshaun Watson after six games. You can debate Watson's level of play, but it's certainly clear the Browns prepared for the season as if he would be their primary starter under center. Jeff Driskel's start in a meaningless loss to the Bengals on Sunday made him Cleveland's fifth starting quarterback this season, the first time a team has started five passers in a single season since the strike year of 1987.

It was remarkable, then, to see the Browns marching up and down the field on the excellent Jets defense in Week 17. Without all those players above and wide receiver Amari Cooper, Joe Flacco was carving up his former team while throwing to David Njoku, Elijah Moore and Jerome Ford. That's not supposed to happen.

Should Stefanski get credit for hiring the right assistants? The move to bring in Jim Schwartz as defensive coordinator transformed the defense, as a unit that seemed sloppy and overwhelmed last season morphed into the league's fastest, most dominant defense in 2023. Schwartz would be a viable candidate for coordinator of the year if we were handing out that award; as it stands, the Browns' dominant defense and their success despite injuries on offense are enough for me to hand this award to Stefanski.

My pick after Week 4: Kyle Shanahan, 49ers
My pick after Week 9: Mike Tomlin, Steelers

Defensive Rookie of the Year

The 2023 defensive class has been really impressive, especially in terms of depth. Day 2 picks Brian Branch (Lions), Tyrique Stevenson (Bears), Keeanu Benton (Steelers) and Yaya Diaby (Bucs) have stood out with big plays. The best rookie linebacker in the league is Vikings standout Ivan Pace Jr., who went undrafted and signed for $20,000. He's going to be a pro for a long time. There are a lot of fun Day 3 players who have popped up for stretches. It's been a season in which a different rookie seems to stand out each week.

At the same time, there hasn't been that Sauce Gardner-caliber rookie who runs away with this award, in part because of injuries. Calijah Kancey (Bucs) played 11 defensive snaps over the first month of the season. Devon Witherspoon (Seahawks) has looked like a superstar when healthy, but he has basically missed 4½ games with injuries. Branch missed two games and was a part-time player in three others. Christian Gonzalez (Patriots) was holding his own against the league's best wideouts before suffering a season-ending shoulder injury in Week 4. Joey Porter Jr. (Steelers) has been one of the league's top corners over the second half of the season and didn't get hurt, but he was a backup until Week 7. Porter or Witherspoon might be the NFL's best rookies on a snap-by-snap basis, but they missed too much time to make it into the end-of-season top three.

I ended up with three pass-rushers in my top three. If we were going by who will have the best career, I might have chosen three defensive backs. That makes for a difficult award to hand out, but it bodes well for the careers to come of all these guys.

3. Jalen Carter, DT, Eagles

One of the few players on the Eagles' defense who hasn't disappointed this season, Carter has been exactly what general manager Howie Roseman & Co. hoped they would be landing in the top 10 of the draft. The Eagles needed an interior disruptor who could take many of Javon Hargrave's snaps and serve as the team's primary defensive tackle after Fletcher Cox retires. Carter has mostly been up to the task, as his 15.6% pass rush win rate on the interior ranks sixth among defensive tackles. Notably, he's three spots ahead of Hargrave.

I'd argue it has been more flashes than consistently dominant play, as Carter's 6 sacks are underpinned by 8 tackles for loss and 9 quarterback knockdowns. If you put his best snaps on a highlight reel, he looks terrifying. He embarrassed Anthony Bradford on a late-game sack of Drew Lock against the Seahawks two weeks ago. The Eagles' defensive line has three sacks over the past four games and two of them are Carter's, which should tell you how he's playing and how poorly they have performed up front over the second half of the season.

2. Kobie Turner, DT, Rams

Turner, on the other hand, has caught fire over the past two months. The third-round pick finished with eight sacks over his final nine games, including 2.5 takedowns of Tyrod Taylor in the Week 17 win over the Giants. He has shown a real aptitude for beating offensive linemen as part of twists and stunts, where he has managed to show both the power to get linemen off their spot, the agility and acceleration to stunt and beat the engaged lineman to his spot, and the final burst to take down opposing quarterbacks.

Does Turner benefit from having Aaron Donald in the mix? Of course. Every pass-rusher who plays for the Rams does. As the Bengals did in the Super Bowl a couple of years ago, you'll see teams as a rule slide their pass protections Donald's way. Coordinator Raheem Morris moves Donald around to create both one-on-one mismatches for his star and opportunities for the players around him to take advantage of the attention sent Donald's way. Even accounting for that, Turner has been a difference-maker during L.A.'s 7-1 stretch.

1. Will Anderson Jr., EDGE, Texans

In the end, the top-drafted defender in the class did just enough to sneak through and claim the top spot in his class. Anderson's top-line numbers of seven sacks and 10 tackles for loss aren't good enough to single-handedly run away with this award -- and he has missed meaningful time over the past month with an ankle injury -- but the closer you look, the more impressive he gets.

He finished the season third in pass rush win rate among edge rushers, just ahead of T.J. Watt and also ahead of Nick Bosa and Maxx Crosby. He racked up 22 quarterback knockdowns, which hints at more production to come, as pass-rushers typically turn about 45% of their hits into sacks. Those figures suggest Anderson is winning quickly at the line of scrimmage and getting to the quarterback but just narrowly missing more sacks. Jonathan Greenard's career year (12.5 sacks) likely owes something to the attention paid to Anderson.

What might be most telling about Anderson, perhaps, is what happens to the Texans' defense when he's not on the field. Ryans' unit has posted a 46.3 QBR allowed and a 33.5% pressure rate with Anderson between the lines. When Anderson has gone to the sidelines or been inactive, the Texans have dropped to a 67.6 QBR mark with a pressure rate at an even 30%. That's the equivalent of falling from the league's third-best pass defense to comfortably becoming the NFL's worst pass defense. They've needed to blitz more without Anderson on the field and have still seen their pressure rate drop by nearly four points. He has been essential for the Texans.

My pick after Week 4: Christian Gonzalez, Patriots
My pick after Week 9: Devon Witherspoon, Seahawks

Offensive Rookie of the Year

The OROY case is essentially the opposite of what's going on with the defensive side of the ball. With all due respect to Darnell Wright (Bears), Jordan Addison (Vikings) and De'Von Achane (Dolphins), there are four strong candidates for this award. Those four players have been superstars and among the best players at their respective positions. I had two of them as second-team All-Pros when I put together my column last week.

The one who just misses out is Jahmyr Gibbs (Lions), who outplayed Bijan Robinson in his rookie season and has to be one of the most exciting running backs in the league. Gibbs averaged 5.2 yards per carry, and while his success rate was below average, you'll take marginal efficiency on a per-carry basis when it comes with his sort of explosiveness on the big plays. Gibbs averaged just under 1.0 yards per route run; if he can command more targets and do more with them on a weekly basis, the 12th overall pick has the potential to be the leaguewide RB1 next season. Here, he misses out to his teammate for third place.

3. Sam LaPorta, TE, Lions

I had LaPorta as my second-team All-Pro tight end, in a tier with Travis Kelce and Evan Engram, all of whom were a level behind fellow Iowa product George Kittle in the tight end mix this season. As a rookie, LaPorta was already a red zone terror; he led all tight ends in touchdowns (10), with seven of those scores coming in the red zone. The last rookie tight end to have more touchdowns in the red zone than LaPorta is Rob Gronkowski, who had nine for the Patriots in 2010.

LaPorta averaged 1.83 yards per route run, which is the sixth-highest mark of the season among tight ends and the sixth-best mark a rookie has posted with at least 200 routes run during his debut season. The guys ahead of him: Mark Andrews, Kyle Pitts, Gronkowski, Zach Ertz and Aaron Hernandez. Drops are a concern -- and we're waiting to see whether the injury he suffered Sunday will keep him out for the postseason -- but he looks to be every bit of the No. 2 receiver the Lions needed behind Amon-Ra St. Brown.

2. Puka Nacua, WR, Rams

There's a good chance Nacua just finished the best rookie season by a Day 3 wide receiver in league history. While acknowledging that this is a pass-happy era, the prior record for the most receiving yards posted by a player drafted after Round 3 during his rookie season was 1,131, a mark hit by Bill Brooks in 1986. Just four players taken after Round 3 had topped 1,000 yards during their rookie season, with Marques Colston as the most recent example.

Nacua finished with 1,486 receiving yards, a staggering total for a player who was the 20th wide receiver taken in his class. In a draft in which four wideouts were selected in Round 1 and 14 receivers were included among the first 100 picks, Nacua is the only wideout who topped 1,000 yards. We won't see a season like this one for a very long time.

And frankly, watching Nacua play, this doesn't look like some fluke or gimmick. He's strong and fast -- you don't muscle through an NFL tackle and run 80 yards after the catch like he did against the Giants in Week 17 without having that combination in reserve. He commands targets at all three levels of the field and runs well with the ball in his hands. His drop rate needs to come down after putting eight balls on the turf this season, but as long as he can stay healthy, everything about his performance suggests he's a special talent and a cornerstone player for the Rams.

1. C.J. Stroud, QB, Texans

Nacua isn't a franchise quarterback, however, and Stroud just had the sort of season that suggests the No. 2 overall pick is about to be one for the next decade. Forget promising or hinting at stardom; Stroud already looks like one of the 10 best quarterbacks in the league on a week-by-week basis, and he has brought along Nico Collins and Tank Dell (who would have been in the Rookie of the Year conversation if not for injury) along the way.

There are teams that protect their rookie quarterbacks by having them throw mostly safe passes and ones that trade the benefits of deep shots with the risk of lots of turnovers by letting them spray the ball across the field. Stroud is the rare quarterback independent of experience who combined deep passes with a low interception rate. His average pass traveled 8.7 yards in the air this season, which was the league's second-highest rate (behind Will Levis). And Stroud threw interceptions on only 1.0% of his pass attempts, which finished as the lowest rate in the league and the second-lowest interception rate for a rookie in NFL history, behind Dak Prescott's debut 2016 season.

They're round numbers, but if we take just the guys since 2006 who have 400 pass attempts while averaging more than 8 air yards per throw and an interception rate below 1.5%, we're looking almost entirely at seasons from stars. Five Aaron Rodgers campaigns. Three Tom Brady years. Two seasons each from Lamar Jackson, Patrick Mahomes, Matt Ryan, Russell Wilson and Tyrod Taylor, who both stands out as the obvious outlier and was criminally underrated at his peak. And then a handful of single seasons from Prescott, Ben Roethlisberger, Brett Favre, Joe Burrow and others. It's rare and special to be able to pass deep regularly without throwing interceptions, and even more impressive to do it as a rookie.

Stroud ranks fourth in first down rate (37.7%), third in adjusted net yards per attempt (7.3) and fifth in EPA per dropback (0.12). About the only thing he's not doing at a high level is completing passes (63.9%. If he can take a stride forward and get his on-target rate up to league average, he's going to be an MVP candidate in 2024.

My pick after Week 4: Nacua
My pick after Week 9: Stroud

Defensive Player of the Year

This was a year for the edge rushers. With the possible exception of Justin Madubuike and DaRon Bland, all of the top candidates for the DPOY award are edge rushers. I tend to think a dominant pass-rusher is the most important position outside of quarterback, and the league pays top pass-rushers more than any other position besides signal-caller, so I don't have much of an issue focusing on those guys here.

As was the case with the first-team All-Pros, there are too many edge rushers to go around. It seems unfair to sort through this award without making a case for Trey Hendrickson (Bengals) and his 17.5 sacks or Khalil Mack and the 17 he racked up for the Chargers. Josh Allen has broken out and kept the Jags' defense afloat for most of the season; he was the one who got them the ball back for that final drive on Sunday. Aidan Hutchinson has been the entirety of the rush in Detroit. Maxx Crosby has been a one-man show in Las Vegas for three years and somehow keeps getting better.

Simultaneously, it feels like there's only three players in the top tier this season who could really be considered here, given how they propel their respective defenses forward. They're each worthy Defensive Player of the Year winners, but there can be only one.

3. Myles Garrett, EDGE Browns

When Garrett wasn't a first-team All-Pro for me last week, Browns fans were furious. Many pointed out Garrett will be the likely Defensive Player of the Year winner when the voters make their pick, and I suspect they're right, as the market on ESPN BET has Garrett as a comfortable favorite at minus-275.

At the midway point of the season, he was also my pick, owing to both his presence on the league's best defense and his incredible production. At that time, he had 9.5 sacks and 27 pressures on 188 pass-rush opportunities, for a sack once every 19.8 rushes and a pressure once every seven rushes.

Garrett added 3.5 sacks over the ensuing two games, but likely owing to an injured shoulder suffered in Week 12 against the Broncos, his production has cratered since. He had 13 sacks, 23 knockdowns and four forced fumbles before the Denver game. He had one sack, seven knockdowns and no forced fumbles over the next six games before sitting out a meaningless Week 18 matchup on Sunday afternoon.

Has Garrett been more productive than that lone sack? Yes, I think so. He managed 18 pressures over that six-game span, which was tied for 12th in the league. His pass rush win rate was still an impressive 32%; that was the third-best mark in football, albeit well behind the two guys ahead of him on this list. The Cleveland defense is still the best in the league over the whole season, but it has slipped from first in points allowed per drive before the Garrett injury to fifth, even if we leave out Sunday's loss to the Bengals.

On the whole, Garrett has a strong case, but the other two players ahead of him have stronger ones. He's tied for seventh in sacks, but T.J. Watt is first. He's second in pass rush win rate, but Micah Parsons is first. He's 10th in pressures, behind both Watt and Parsons, despite rushing the passer 13 more times than the Cowboys star. His average pressure came in just 2.25 seconds, which was the second-fastest rate for any regular rusher in the league. Parsons was fastest. Garrett forced four fumbles, but so did Watt. Garrett has been double-teamed at the third-highest rate in the league for edge rushers at 28.8%; Parsons has been double-teamed a league-high 35.4% of the time on the edge.

The numbers aren't everything, but I'd argue the others have made more dramatic plays with the game on the line. Parsons' pass rush won the game against the Seahawks, while Watt returned a fumble for a touchdown to seal a win over the Browns and came up with a fumble recovery and a fourth-down sack in the fourth quarter against the Ravens. Garrett single-handedly blew up the Colts in a victory and had a fourth-quarter sack with nine minutes to go in the narrow win over the Steelers, but his case is built on broader production as opposed to one dramatic play.

Sacks aren't everything for great pass-rushers, but when there's such stiff competition, it's very tough for a player to go nearly two months with just one sack to his name and still finish first, even if it's unfortunately caused by an injury. Garrett will probably win the award because he's the best player on the league's best defense -- and it will be great for a future Hall of Famer to get some hardware on his mantel -- but other players have a stronger case this season.

2. Micah Parsons, EDGE, Cowboys

I'm not sure there's a more devastating player in the game, regardless of position, than Parsons. As I mentioned in the Garrett section, Parsons led the NFL in hurries despite rushing the passer just 429 times; Watt (483) and Garrett (442) both rushed the quarterback more often, and there was a significant gap between Parsons' opportunities and the ones afforded to players such as Crosby (585) or Hutchinson (548). He also did that while being double-teamed more often than any other edge rusher. And while this is a rare occurrence, I can't recall seeing any defender triple-teamed in pass protection more often than Parsons was this season.

The speed with which Parsons operates is astounding. His average pressure came after just 2.18 seconds, which allows him to blow up just about any passing concept an opposing team is going to run. No player over the past five seasons has at least 20 pressures and an average time to pressure under 2.2 seconds. Not Watt, not Parsons and not Garrett in any other season before now.

1. T.J. Watt, EDGE, Steelers

I still have to lean toward Watt, though, because he has been more productive across the board beyond hurries. Watt has 19 sacks to Parsons's 14. He has 36 quarterback knockdowns to Parsons' 33. He has four forced fumbles and three fumble recoveries to Parsons' one. He has an interception, a defensive touchdown and six batted passes. Parsons has zeroes in those categories. Run stop win rate appraises them as roughly similar, although we've seen teams take advantage of Parsons' aggressiveness when they've run on the Cowboys this season.

In terms of season-changing plays, Watt has made more big plays in close games for the Steelers than Parsons, whose rush to win the game against the Seahawks stands out as a notable exception. The Steelers wouldn't have a winning record if not for Watt, who has far and away been the best defensive player on a team that's been utterly dependent on its defense to win games. (Porter came closest, but even he didn't get going until October.) Again, if Parsons or Garrett were your pick, I wouldn't bat an eye. To me, however, Watt has been the most productive and impactful edge rusher in football over the full season. It's tough to imagine the Steelers being competitive without him in the postseason.

My pick after Week 4: Parsons
My pick after Week 9: Garrett

Offensive Player of the Year

With the MVP award becoming the domain of quarterbacks, I always reserve this award for the best non-quarterback on the offensive side of the ball. I don't think there's much controversy about the three guys in their own tier competing for the top spot; the only player I'd consider making a case for otherwise is George Kittle (49ers), who was the league's top receiving tight end while maintaining his usual excellent level of blocking. Instead, his teammate jumped out in front and into third place ...

3. Christian McCaffrey, RB, 49ers

This feels like a vintage season for McCaffrey, but upon closer inspection, he has been much more of a traditional back than it seems. That's not a criticism or a complaint, just an observation: McCaffrey is less of the hybrid sensation we saw during his first breakout with the Panthers and more like a great runner who has a standard role in the passing game.

It's pretty easy to make the case that he has been the best runner in football. He leads in the league in attempts (272) and rushing yards (1,459) and is second among backs in rushing touchdowns (14) behind Raheem Mostert. He leads the league in rush yards over expectation (346), with his league-best workload pushing him 70 RYOE ahead of second-placed De'Von Achane.

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McCaffrey's 47.1% success rate is second among backs with 200 carries or more, and as I mentioned in my All-Pro piece, his 114 first downs are 38 more than any other back has. He turned 33.6% of his touches this season into first downs or touchdowns. Going through 1994, the only backs with 200 or more touches in a season with higher first down rates than McCaffrey are Marshall Faulk in 2000, Priest Holmes and Charlie Garner in 2002, and Alvin Kamara in 2020.

As a receiver, McCaffrey was more solid than superstar. He ranked fourth among backs in yards per route run with a solid-but-unspectacular mark of 1.48. He was at 1.99 last season, including a 1.93 mark after joining the 49ers. That's the difference between T.J. Hockenson and Tyler Conklin at receiver. McCaffrey was more of a threat near the goal line, where he scored seven receiving touchdowns, and I don't doubt that the threat of him kept defensive coordinators awake at night. But Brock Purdy didn't use McCaffrey as a receiver anywhere near as often this season, and that's why he lands at No. 3 for me.

2. CeeDee Lamb, WR, Cowboys

Last week, I wrote about how Lamb led the league in catches and receiving yards from Week 6 onward. He then subsequently had his best game as a pro, catching 13 passes for 227 yards in a narrow win over the Lions, including a 92-yard touchdown on a scramble drill. Leaving Week 18 aside to allow for more comparisons to the past, he had the 10th-most receiving yards in NFL history between Week 6 and Week 17.

There were questions once upon a time about whether Lamb might be best in the long run as a slot receiver. It's become clear he can play anywhere. He ranked ninth in yards per route run out of the slot, but he was actually better on the outside, where he finished fifth. He was also second in open score behind Keenan Allen; he has settled in as a more explosive, toolsy version of the Chargers standout.

1. Tyreek Hill, WR, Dolphins

Hill was in a class of his own. While he didn't end up setting the single-season receiving record after battling injuries in December, he produced a season of spectacular, perhaps record-setting, efficiency. The former Chiefs star averaged 4.03 yards per route run, becoming the first player since at least 2007 to produce a season starting with a "4" by that metric.

We don't have data on routes going back before then, but if you were more efficient than Randy Moss in 2007 or Calvin Johnson in 2012, you're doing something right. Hill has been uncoverable for long stretches of the season and absolutely essential to the Dolphins' offense; Tua Tagovailoa's QBR drops from 63.4 to 47.5 when his star wideout hits the sideline. Hill was on pace to be a viable MVP candidate, but after his late-season decline, he'll have to settle for merely being the easy pick for Offensive Player of the Year.

Most Valuable Player

And then there was MVP. With a few weeks to go in the season, I thought Hill would be my pick. He was on pace to become the first wideout in league history to rack up 2,000 receiving yards, the Dolphins were in position to have a shot at landing the top seed in the AFC, and every one of the quarterbacks had flaws. That fell apart when Hill had a quiet final month. I'm tempted to give Watt some consideration, but the great pass-rushers are so close to one another this season that it's hard for any of them to stand out as MVP candidates.

So, it's quarterback or bust, and many of the players who seemed like candidates before the season weren't candidates by the end. Joe Burrow, Justin Herbert, Aaron Rodgers and Deshaun Watson all went down injured. Jalen Hurts' and Trevor Lawrence's teams melted down in December. Patrick Mahomes' receiving corps hasn't been able to catch passes. Josh Allen has thrown too many passes to the other team. Jared Goff ran too hot and cold. Tua Tagovailoa led the league in completion percentage and passing yards, but more people seemed willing to attribute the success of the Dolphins' offense and their potential MVP votes to Hill. And C.J. Stroud was brilliant, but he missed two games in December, which was just enough to bump him from the list.

In the end, there were four candidates for three spots. My last quarterback off was Matthew Stafford, who looked like a new man with Puka Nacua, a running game and an offensive line that didn't include players the Rams were signing off the street in midseason. Stafford had some of the best throws of the season, but with no running impact, I'm not sure he was such a better pure passer than the other players ahead of him to justify jumping into the top three.

3. Dak Prescott, Cowboys

This was Prescott's best season as a pro. He was better by most metrics as a rookie in 2016, but that was when he was in a run-first offense and threw the ball just under 29 times per game. He threw the ball nearly 35 times per game in 2023 and posted his best full-season figures for EPA per dropback and Total QBR since that debut campaign.

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Even the most adamant Prescott hater would have to admit he made strides. The interception rate spike that drove months of offseason conversations unsurprisingly regressed back toward the mean, as he threw just nine interceptions across 17 starts. He led all qualified starters in completion percentage over expectation (CPOE) despite seeing his receivers post the second-highest drop rate for any quarterback. Nobody had better touch on their throws; there were so many times this season when I saw Prescott drop a ball directly into his receiver's hands 20 or 30 yards downfield, even if it meant splitting double coverage to do so.

The popular perception was that Prescott was spiking his numbers against a soft midseason stretch of opponents for the Cowboys. I won't argue with the schedule being mediocre, but he comfortably outplayed other quarterbacks who played those same opponents. After he led the Cowboys to a comeback victory in a prime-time shootout win over the Seahawks, then threw for 271 yards and two scores in a blowout win over the Eagles, it felt like Prescott was ready to launch his MVP campaign.

It didn't quite take. He had one of his worst games of the season in getting blown out by the Bills in Buffalo. The offense was inconsistent over the next two weeks. Prescott lost a fumble and went most of two quarters without scoring before getting hot late in an eventual loss to the Dolphins, while he threw an interception and again went nearly two quarters without scoring in a controversial win over the Lions.

Over that three-game stretch, the Cowboys went 1-2 and Prescott posted a 55.8 QBR, which was good enough for only 15th in the league. The Cowboys still ended up winning the NFC East by virtue of the utter collapse occurring in Philadelphia, but in a tight race, Prescott needed to be playing his best football against those future playoff teams to win MVP. He did not.

2. Brock Purdy, QB, 49ers

We're going to look back at 2023 in 20 years and be very confused. Purdy's season is either going to be a historic outlier, in line with something like what Nick Foles did for Chip Kelly in 2013 or Andy Dalton's 2015 campaign, or we're going to be totally confused about how and why he didn't win MVP. I don't think anybody has ever had a season like Purdy's and not won this award.

One of my favorite ways to measure QB performance across eras is an adjusted stat called ANY/A+, or adjusted net yards per attempt index. Adjusted net yards per attempt is a Pro Football Reference stat that serves as a better version of passer rating by incorporating more accurate impacts for interceptions, as well as sacks and the yardage lost on those sacks. The index element compares ANY/A to what the league average was that season and then normalizes that comparison, so a 100 ANY/A, regardless of year, is league average. A 115 mark is very good, and a 130 ANY/A+ would be a historic season.

Purdy finished the season with an ANY/A+ of 146. Among passers with at least 400 pass attempts in a season, that's the fourth-best mark in league history. The three guys ahead of Purdy all won MVP: Peyton Manning in 2004, Dan Marino in 1984 and Aaron Rodgers in 2011. The guys immediately following Purdy also did well. Tom Brady's 2007 season is fifth. He won MVP. So did Matt Ryan's sixth-place season from 2016, Steve Young's eighth-place performance from 1994 and Manning's 2013 season in Denver, which finished tenth. The seasons in 11th, 14th, 15th, 16th, 17th and 20th also won MVP.

Leaving Purdy aside, 13 of the other 19 player-seasons in the top 20 here won MVP. Of the six seasons in the top 20 here that didn't win MVP, three were because two players in the same season posted top-20 all-time ANY/A+ marks, and the player with the higher rating won MVP each time. The most comparable season that didn't result in an MVP might be Randall Cunningham's 1998 campaign with the Vikings, where a player who had been written off posted career-best numbers while throwing to two Hall of Fame receivers (Cris Carter and Randy Moss), an accomplished third wideout (Jake Reed) and a great back (Robert Smith).

The stats, almost universally, point to Purdy as the MVP. He led the league in QBR, yards per attempt, yards per dropback, first-down rate, passer rating and EPA per dropback. He was the starting quarterback all season for a team that went wire-to-wire atop its division and came within one midseason losing streak of doing so in the conference. Surpassing Jimmy Garoppolo doesn't make a player an MVP, but Purdy has been far more productive in 2023 than either Garoppolo or Purdy were with McCaffrey & Co. a year ago.

Of course, that supporting cast is being given a ton of credit. I had McCaffrey, George Kittle, and Trent Williams as first-team All-Pros as their respective positions. Brandon Aiyuk and Deebo Samuel weren't far off at wide receiver. Kyle Shanahan's propensity for getting Purdy the right call undoubtedly factors in here. The 49ers averaged 6.4 yards after catch, trailing only the Chiefs, who threw the shortest average pass of any team.

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The 49ers had the league's best playmakers when I ranked each team's unit before the season. That's not unprecedented. Was Purdy's supporting cast really better than what Mahomes enjoyed in his breakthrough season in 2018? He had prime Tyreek Hill and Travis Kelce, a $16-million-per-year third receiver in Sammy Watkins and a star running back coming off a Pro Bowl season in Kareem Hunt. I'd probably take the 49ers there, but it's not a dramatic difference, and nobody batted an eye at Mahomes winning MVP that season.

Two factors led me to drop Purdy from first to second. One was how he declined in October when Trent Williams and Samuel missed a pair of losses to the Vikings and Bengals. We've seen other quarterbacks decline when their best tackle gets hurt -- take any Eagles quarterback with Lane Johnson -- but Purdy's QBR dropped by more than 10 points without Williams on the field. He was blessed to have McCaffrey and Kittle all season, but it did seem telling that he went from dominating to struggling overnight once he lost two of his stars for a short stretch.

The other one was a matter of bad timing. It's one thing to have an ugly performance at 1 p.m. ET on Sunday in September on local television. It's another to have your worst game of the year in prime time on Christmas against an MVP rival in what might have been the most anticipated game of the season. Purdy wasn't as bad against the Ravens as his final line indicated, as some tipped passes and screens that might have fallen incomplete on a friendly day fell into Baltimore's hands on a bad one, but you can't throw four interceptions in the Game of the Year in Week 16 and not expect it to crush your MVP hopes. A decade from now, if Purdy continues to play at or near this level, not giving him this award will look silly. Right now, though, I can understand why the mood has shifted toward my pick.

1. Lamar Jackson, QB, Ravens

When Jackson was my MVP pick at the midway point of the season, it was almost by default. The Ravens had been too sloppy with drops and fumbles, some of the latter belonging to Jackson himself. They had to tighten things up, survive a brutal AFC North and hope Jackson stayed healthy all season after bowing out in December with injuries each of the prior two years if the Ravens quarterback wanted a shot at claiming his second MVP award.

That's exactly what happened. Jackson became the passer anyone who paid close attention to him at Louisville believed he could be. Given a much larger menu in the passing game by new coordinator Todd Monken and a group of new playmakers in Zay Flowers, Odell Beckham Jr. and Nelson Agholor, Jackson thrived and posted career-best figures for completion percentage and yards per attempt, all while enduring the league's fifth-highest drop rate.

With the threat of Jackson and the running game terrifying opposing defenses, the hope was always that a new coordinator would unlock him as a play-action passer. After ranking 11th in QBR on play-action attempts between 2021 and 2022, Jackson thrived there this season. His 84.2 QBR on play fakes was second behind Derek Carr, who attempted them only half as often. Jackson averaged more than 10 yards per dropback off of play-action, threw nine touchdowns against two picks and threw in 17 scrambles for 120 yards for good measure.

As I wrote about this midseason, Jackson also owned the intermediate zone of the field. His 95.9 QBR mark on those throws in the 11- to 20-yard range was the best of any quarterback, as he averaged a league-best 12.5 yards per dropback on them. He has often been good here as a pro, but his ability to hit receivers in stride helped a Ravens offense that didn't always hit its deep shots march downfield.

Jackson's ability to improvise and work out of structure played up with better receivers. He ranked second in QBR on throws after holding the ball for four or more seconds, trailing only Prescott. He ranked 11th in that same category between 2021 and 2022.

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And for a player who was once regarded as a problem throwing outside the numbers, Jackson showed he had no issues hitting those throws in 2023. His 77.3 QBR on those throws ranked seventh in the league, and he attempted them more than 14 times per game. That's way more than Purdy, who averaged just over 11 throws outside the numbers per game in 2023. Jackson was fourth in yards per attempt on those throws, trailing only Purdy (who was excellent when he did throw out there), Stafford and (of all people) Desmond Ridder.

Jackson wasn't as explosive on the ground as he was at his best in 2018, but he still led all quarterbacks in rush yards over expectation (177) and converted eight first downs over expectation on his carries. His success rate was actually just below league-average for quarterbacks when you take out kneel downs for everyone, but his volume and the threat of Jackson running helped get the Ravens offense out of tight spots and created opportunities in the passing attack.

There were two key contrasts between Jackson and Purdy that both earned him my vote and will probably swing the race in the real balloting. One is what Jackson did with the spotlight in December. First, he outdueled Purdy, throwing for 252 yards and two touchdowns in a comfortable Ravens victory in late December. The following week, facing a Dolphins team that handed the Ravens a crushing loss after a comeback last season, Jackson torched Vic Fangio's defense for 321 yards and five touchdowns. After so many other MVP favorites had disappointed in their close-ups, Jackson elevated his game and played his best football in the spotlight.

The other factor is seeing how Jackson has been able to sustain and even elevate his game without key players in the offense. J.K. Dobbins tore his Achilles in Week 1, and while the Ravens have cobbled together a competent attack with Gus Edwards and Justice Hill, Baltimore didn't have any explosiveness on the ground until it incorporated Keaton Mitchell. The undrafted rookie then tore his ACL in December.

While the Ravens landed a difference-maker in Flowers and got productive weeks out of Beckham and Agholor, both Beckham and 2021 first-round pick Rashod Bateman missed time earlier in the season. More crucially, tight end Mark Andrews has been sidelined for the last month and a half with a fractured fibula, while left tackle Ronnie Stanley has seen his role reduced into a rotation out of concerns about his health and a season in which he has allowed six sacks and 61 pressures at left tackle.

Unlike Purdy, who struggled after losing Williams and Samuel earlier this season, Jackson has continued to play at a high level. Without Andrews, the Ravens have simply inserted backup Isaiah Likely, who had five touchdown catches in the final five games. Hill had 64 receiving yards against the Dolphins. Agholor and Patrick Ricard caught receiving scores down the stretch from Jackson, who simply never stopped working and kept finding open receivers when his most prominent targets broke down. Jackson outlasted the field, which is how he ended up as my MVP for 2023.

My pick after Week 4: Tagovailoa
My pick after Week 9: Jackson

Ranking nfl mvp candidates awards picks best rookies players coaches 2023 season

2024-01-08 22:01:09