We're having an SB Nation NFL Mid-season Awards vote and I wanted to solicit reader(s) thoughts on who has been stud/dud thus far this season. I'm not going to include any nominees since I think that stifles creative responses, so I'm going to include categories here and want you guys to fill them as best you can. I'm looking for justification for picks in the comments section, as anyone can pull a name off of NFL.com, but a true internet word warrior backs it up with thoughtful banter. Awards:
THE STUDS:
NFL MVP
Offensive Player
Defensive Player
Coach
Rookie
THE DUDS:
Worst Player
Worst Coach
Worst Rookie
Some quick thoughts on how these should be answered, though these are just how I would approach the questions and you are free to answer it differently. In my opinion:
- NFL MVP should go to the player who is the most valuable to his team, not to the best player on the most valuable team (although the most valuable team may very well depend upon one player at the exclusion of others). If this were simplified, it would be which team owes its success the most to one single player, stated differently, if any single player was removed from a roster, which player would hurt his team the most as a result.
- Offensive player should go to the best offensive player in the league. This has nothing to do with relative value to those around him. If the best offensive player in the league is on a team with lots of great offensive players, he's still the best offensive player in the league. The tendency is always to put the MVP, if it's an offensive player, here. That may or may not be proper.
- Defensive player is ditto above except the correct answer is Sean Taylor.
- Coach is a function of a whole bunch of things. The most winningest coach in the league is good, but is he better than a coach on a team with less talent that is overachieving?
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Best rookie is self explanatory. Where a player was drafted should be irrelevant to this inquiry.
- Worst player is not literally the worst player in the league, as it would be hard to distinguish between the practice squads or deep benches of each team. Worst player is for someone who is underachieving thus far in the season and it is killing their team. This person should have demonstrated that they suck by actually playing a game as well, you can't just choose someone who isn't good enough to play.
- Worst Coach is expectation based, though also feel free to rely on exceptionally bad examples of coaching. Clock management, how sloppy your team is, and poor play calling are all important towards deciding the worst coach in the league. I wouldn't limit this to head coaches, either.
- Worst Rookie is not like best rookie. Where they were selected is important since the worst rookie is probably some undrafted scrub who barely made a roster. This question is focused on who the biggest bust is thus far this year, and should favor players who are underperforming where they were drafted.