As the playoffs begin, awards have already been handed out in the form of Pro Bowl and All-Pro nods to Aaron Rodgers, Davante Adams and De’Vondre Campbell, but the game’s biggest prizes are still to be handed out at the annual NFL Honors ceremony.
After another 13-win season for the Green Bay Packers, it can be argued that the organisation boasts the MVP, Coach of the Year and Executive of the Year for 2021.
Aaron Rodgers is the MVP, dummies
As far as midway through the NFL season, there seemed to be no way Aaron Rodgers would defend his Most Valuable Player crown.
Rodgers started relatively slow, and even missed a game due to COVID-19. However, his almost faultless play in the back half of the season has forced the hands of voters.
Rodgers should be, and will be, the MVP.
The AP voters who decide the award are the same ones who just voted Rodgers as an All-Pro over Tom Brady, essentially indicating Green Bay’s QB will go back-to-back.
Any attempts to argue for another candidate at this stage feel forced, whether it be for Brady, Jonathan Taylor or Cooper Kupp.
Taylor and Kupp enjoyed incredible seasons at their respective positions, but there is no need for anyone to suddenly decide the MVP is anything other than a quarterback award.
When it comes to the QBs, it has a been a year of inconsistency across the board, with no passer putting together a true complete season.
Through that lens, it has been remarkable watching Rodgers work for most of the year. He simply plays the position on another plain than almost anyone else. All the man does is throw touchdowns and take care of the ball.
Rodgers has played with a broken toe for a good chunk of the year, and behind a patchwork offensive line, which he has accommodated by firing the ball out at an average clip of 2.59 seconds, the fastest of his career.
Rodgers threw four interceptions all year and none of them came in his final seven games. Tom Brady threw three times as many picks.
The Packers QB is now the owner of the six best single season touchdown to interception ratios in NFL history among players with at least 500 attempts.
The calls for Brady as MVP seem to have grown in recent weeks after he was made to play without an elite wide receiver corps for all of three games, managing to beat the lowly Panthers twice and the Jets (barely) in that time.
Brady has put up gaudy numbers for yards and completions in his first 17-game season, those stats simply aren’t that indicative of elite play, more the product of a pass-happy offense.
People may not like it, but Aaron Rodgers is the slam dunk MVP once again.
Give Matt LaFleur his damn flowers
It cannot be right that former Bears coach Matt Nagy has a Coach of the Year award and Matt LaFleur does not.
LaFleur has 39 wins in his first three seasons as an NFL head coach, the most in league history, and there is a growing sense that he may win the award this year on a sort of ‘lifetime achievement’ basis, and it would certainly be deserved.
The standard and ridiculous caveat to any suggestion of LaFleur ever winning Coach of the Year is that his quarterback is Aaron Rodgers. This is a lazy take and completely chooses to forget what the Packers, and Rodgers looked like when LaFleur arrived in Green Bay.
The Packers were coming off back-to-back losing seasons as the Mike McCarthy era fizzled to an end, and there were serious questions as to whether Aaron Rodgers was in an irreversible decline coming off his worst season in years.
LaFleur returned Rodgers to his best, and turned the Packers around almost overnight. It’s about time he receives recognition as one of the best coaches in the NFL and is rewarded with some hardware.
Brian GOATekunst (I’m sorry)
Another person who’s really good at his job is Brian Gutekunst, who navigated a stormy offseason with class and then worked his magic to put together a top tier roster.
Many of the moves Gute made during the offseason were questioned, none more so than bringing back Preston Smith and Dean Lowry following down years for both, with the Packers pressed up against the salary cap.
Both players proved him right and enjoyed terrific seasons on Green Bay’s defensive line.
The signing of De’Vondre Campbell was a masterstroke, giving the Packers their first All-Pro middle linebacker since Ray Nitschke and helping to create a more balanced and rigid defense, while another summer signing, offensive lineman Dennis Kelly has held down the fort at right tackle when called upon.
Injuries to a staggering number of the Packers’ star players threatened to derail The Last Dance, but Gutekunst responded again, plucking Rasul Douglas off the Arizona Cardinals practice squad and unearthing a tremendous playmaker on the back end.
Gutekunst has truly gone all in this season and set the table for the Packers to finally get over the hump. He is the Executive of the Year and it’s not close.
——————————————————-
Mark Oldacres is a sports writer from Birmingham, England and a Green Bay Packers fan. You can follow him on twitter at @Marko7LW.