Fox’s 2016 NFL Season Preview Part 3: Major awards
By jonfox
Who’s winning each 2016 NFL award and why?
MVP: Ben Roethlisberger, Qb Pittsburgh. Despite all the injuries/suspensions, I think that this is Pittsburgh’s year. The early reports on Sean Davis and Artie Burns could suggest that they could help fix their long running secondary issues and Sammie Coates and Eli Rogers looks primed to make up for Bryant’s production. When Le’veon Bell returns watch out. I would bet on a big season from Big Ben and their entire Steelers’ team.
Coach of the year: Pete Carroll, Seattle. Seattle has slowly been stripped of a lot of their talent and depth in recent years. Even though they have top 10 players at multiple positions, that they’ve lost defensive coordinator after defensive coordinator and seen almost no appreciable drop in defensive potency means that Carroll has been doing a great job for them. And he’s done well (along with the front office) making the tough choices on free agents and knows how to fill holes. This season, he’s going to paint his masterpiece. Despite losing Okung and many others, they’ll be a contender in the NFC.
Offensive player of the year: Ben Roethlisberger, QB Pittsburgh. see above.
Defensive player of the year: Aaron Donald, DL LA Rams. You almost always want to pencil in JJ Watt here year to year but with his injury, I think Donald will surpass him. Donald will have some tackle depth behind him so he doesn’t wear down like he did in 2015. Expect a giant season from him, even for any defensive player. He could surpass 15 sacks on the season, which would be the most from a defensive tackle since Dana Stubblefield did it in 1997.
Offensive rookie of the year: Corey Coleman, WR Cleveland. Ok, I’ll admit it: I was 1000 percent wrong about Coleman. I thought he’d be a 2nd rounder, I thought he would be a sure bust and I thought that Cleveland was being Cleveland when they took him. Granted, it’s just training camp but Coleman reportedly has been uncoverable even by Joe Haden. I wouldn’t count on him getting past 1100 yards as a rookie with Josh Gordon coming back but the Coleman-RG3 Baylor Express could be a problem for the AFC North.
Defensive rookie of the year: Myles Jack, LB Jacksonville. By all reports he’s 100 percent healthy and absolutely flying around the field for the Jags. I’d like to see more of him during the preseason but he’s one of the few defensive rookies who’s in an ideal circumstance: the Jags have a ton of talent on the line in front of and the expectation level for him is realistic and not an emergency.
Comeback player of the year: Robert Griffin III, QB Cleveland. In the real world, this award probably will end up going to Tony Romo. But RG3 will probably be much more deserving of it. He suffered through a year where the team that drafted him declared him unhealthy due to a fake concussion and then issued a gag order where he couldn’t speak to the media. He seems to have ended up in a good situation in Cleveland(words that probably have never been strung together). With Hue Jackson, Josh Gordon and Corey Coleman he should be able to put up 3300 yards passing.