Now that the NFL season has come to a close, social media has gone into a frenzy about who will win every NFL award given out at the end of the season. In this article, I will detail my opinion on what player should win each of the NFL’s seven awards.

MVP – Josh Allen (and Joe Burrow)

I’m already breaking the rules with this one but it isn’t unreasonable to say that Joe Burrow has a very good case for the MVP award. Joe Burrow led the NFL in yards and total touchdowns and was 3rd in QBR. Jamar Chase, his number one WR, earned the triple crown of WRs leading the league in yards, touchdowns, and catches. Only 6 other WRs in the Super Bowl era (1967-2025) have earned the triple crown. In most years Joe Burrow would be a slam dunk pick for the MVP award. Unfortunately, the Bengals would go 9-8 and miss the playoffs despite the Bengals having the best statistical QB, WR, and defensive lineman in the league. While I do not personally hold him responsible for what was a terrible secondary that couldn’t dream of stopping an opponent on a game-winning drive, the league does and will. 

Josh Allen had one of the best seasons of his career throwing for 3,371 yards, 28 TDs through the air, and only 6 interceptions. Josh Allen has always had a problem with turning the ball over but this season had very few mistakes for Allen. Those numbers don’t even include his rushing numbers which had him gain another 531 yards and 12 touchdowns along with a receiving touchdown against the 49ers. Allen broke multiple records this season and made history multiple times. He broke Thurman Thomas’s all-time rushing TD record, he was “the first QB to record a rushing, passing, and receiving TD in a single game, and also was the first player in NFL history to record multiple career games of 340+ yards passing, 60+ yards rushing, 2+ passing touchdowns and 2+ rushing touchdowns.” Allen led the Bills to a 13-4 record before losing to the Chiefs in the AFC championship game in a heartbreaker. 

Before I move on to the next award some people will also say that Lamar Jackson has a claim to the MVP award, the third of his career. I disagree with this take because while Lamar did have a great statistical season, he did all of it with a much better team surrounding him. The Ravens signed Derrick Henry in the off-season which made the offense in general work much better along with his receivers taking a major step forward as well. Josh Allen on the other hand did not have nearly as much talent on his team as Lamar did. Allen’s top receiver was Kahlil Shakir with only 821 yards and 4 tds. Josh Allen carried a team that before the season, was viewed as one of the worst in the league after letting Stefon Diggs go in a trade with the Houston Texans. 

Offensive Player Of The Year – Saquon Barkley (PHI) 

Offensive Player of the Year is a strange one because the MVP is 99% of the time an offensive player so they should technically be the OPOY as well but the NFL is extremely inconsistent as to what they want these awards to be.

Saquon Barkley was an absolute beast in New York while he played for the Giants and carried the franchise for the first bit of relevance they had seen since 2011 when they won the Superbowl. Unfortunately, Saquon was not a top priority to be re-signed when it came time for the Giants and him to work on a new contract. The Giants QB Daniel Jones had just been paid 160 million dollars over 4 years putting the Giants in a bad space with the cap money. Saquon would be put on a franchise tag for one more year to kick the can of his contract down the road for a year. But once the time came, the Giants and Barkley would not come to terms on a new contract leaving Saquon to free agency. The Eagles would, allegedly, tamper with Barkley before the free agent window opened; however, there was no punishment for the Eagles after the NFL finished investigating them and the Falcons. 

Saquon would immediately be a game-changer for the Eagles and would light the league on fire. He would rush for 2,005 yards, one of only 9 RBs to earn that honor. Barkley had 13 touchdowns on the ground as well and would probably have a lot more too if Jalen Hurts wasn’t calling for the “brotherly shove” every time the Eagles would get down to the 1-yard line. Barkley was exactly what the Eagles offense needed to get them over the hump and now Barkley will not be celebrating his birthday on the couch and instead playing in the Superbowl against the Kansas City Chiefs.

Defensive Player of The Year – Trey Hendrickson (CIN)

This award is extremely difficult to pinpoint who exactly deserves it. The front runner for the award, Aidan Hutchinson of the Detroit Lions, broke his leg in week 6 against the Cowboys and would miss the rest of the season. To put in perspective how dominant Hutchinson was in those 6 weeks, it took the rest of the NFL over a month to catch up to Hutchinson’s 7.5 sacks. 

Once Aiden Hutchinson went down, the next man up was New York Giants nose tackle, Dexter Lawrence. Lawrence was having a great season with 9 sacks… until he got injured after 12 games. So now we are just stuck with a lot of guys who don’t have a great case other than being a leader in one stat. The other choice I was considering for this award was Lions safety Kerby Joseph who led the league with 9 interceptions but as a Lions fan who watched him play at the end of the season, he didn’t do anything spectacular and certainly didn’t help the defense when it was consisting of guys who never saw the field for the Lions. So I’m just giving it to the sack leader for this season, Trey Hendrickson of the Bengals. He racked up 15.5 sacks in 2024 and was an all-around game-wrecker.

Offensive Rookie of The Year – Jayden Daniels (WAS)

This may have been the toughest award to decide a winner for… while also being the simplest at the same time. This season we had 2 incredible rookie quarterbacks, Bo Nix and Jayden Daniels, both lead their teams to the playoffs for the first time in years. Brock Bowers broke multiple rookie and historic NFL records for a TE on the Raiders which is an accomplishment in itself. 

But Jayden Daniels was truly special to watch on the field from the very beginning of the season. This was the first time that the Commanders had a true franchise QB for the first time since 2012 with Robert Griffin III. Both RG3 and Jayden Daniel share a lot of the same play styles and also both share the accomplishment of winning the Heisman trophy in college. 

The Commanders were expected to still be a pretty bad team despite their new shiny QB and were only slated to win around 6 games this season. Jayden Daniels had other plans leading a 3-14 team from the previous year to a 12-5 record and an NFC championship game. Daniels had so many electric moments this season from his first truly great game against the Bengals to the last-second hail mary against the Bears, and the last-second 80-yard TD to Terry Mclaurin against the Cowboys. Jayden Daniels has done so much for a franchise that just started its rebuild that it will be tough not to consider Daniels as one of the best QBs in the league soon.

Defensive Rookie of The Year – Jared Verse (LAR)

Defensive rookie of the year is another tough one to decide on because even NFL teams didn’t see a clearcut #1 defensive stud in this draft class with the first defensive player going 15th overall. One player, however, had massive shoes to fill and that is Los Angeles Rams D-Lineman Jared Verse. The Ram’s defense was headed up by future HOF and 3x defensive player of the year, Arron Donald until 2022 when he retired which left a gaping hole that people thought would be nearly impossible to fill.

While Jared Verse didn’t light the world on fire with his stats, his work on the Rams helped them get a 10-7 record and a home playoff game against the 14-3 Minnesota Vikings which they would end up winning. Jared has already made a huge dent in fixing the Arron Donald size hole left in LA and I have high hopes for him in the future.

Coach Of The Year – Dan Campbell (DET)

Before I start this I feel as a journalist I should state that I am a massive Detroit Lions fan and this could be seen as a slightly biased pick but what Dan Campbell has been able to do for the Lions cannot be left without recognition. The Lions have always been a bit of a laughing stock of the NFL from wasting the careers of two all-time greats to being the first team to ever go 0-16, to practically handicapping Matthew Stafford’s success levels. After a pathetic 5-11 season, the Lions would fire head coach Matt Patrica and bring in former TE Dan Campbell to be the new coach. Campbell’s first press conference with the team would set the tone for the culture that Dan would establish:

 “This city has been down, and it found a way to get up. It’s found a way to overcome adversity. So this team is going to be built on — we’re going to kick you in the teeth, and when you punch us back, we’re going to smile at you, and when you knock us down, we’re going to get up. On the way up, we’re going to bite a knee cap off, all right, and we’re going to stand up, and then it’s going to take two more shots to knock us down. And on the way up, we’re going to take your other knee cap, and we’re going to get up and it’s going to take three shots to take us down. When we do, we’re going to take another hunk out of you. Before long, we’re going to be the last one standing.” (Dan Campbell, 2021)

Campbell didn’t have the best start to his first season in Detroit, only going 3-13-1, but the ground was set for one of the greatest turnarounds in NFL history. The very next season would see the Lions start 1-6 and would probably be Campbell’s last year if something didn’t change… and that’s exactly what happened. Detroit would go on to win 8 of their last 10 games and just barely miss the playoffs. Dan Campbell had established one of the greatest culture shifts in only 2 seasons and he wasn’t done with biting kneecaps yet. In 2023 the Lions would continue to improve and win the NFC North for the first time since 1993, going 12-5 and making the NFC championship game. Detroit would go on an even bigger tear this season going 15-2 and breaking so many franchise records. Even though the season ended in complete disappointment and the team’s future is up in the air due to both offensive and defensive coordinators leaving for head coaching jobs, what Dan Campbell did to turn around one of the all-time worst franchises to one with legitimate Superbowl potential can not go unmentioned.

Comeback Player Of The Year – Sam Darnold (MIN)

CBPOY is another strange award because the NFL had to change the rules of the award to avoid players like Joe Flacco and Geno Smith winning the award. After all, the award is meant to congratulate players who came back after injury or a life-changing event. But now Sam Darnold is the odds-on favorite to win CBPOY and is completely throwing everything out the window. The past three years we have seen QBs that were cast aside due to their failing with their first few teams or in Joe Flacco’s case, being called off the couch. Sam Darnold was drafted in 2018 by the New York Jets and by all means it was a complete disaster. Darnold would be traded away to the Carolina Panthers for pennies compared to the top 3 picks the Jets used to originally pick Darnold. Sam would be cut from the Panthers and was basically seen as a backup after signing to the 49ers for a year and then going to the Vikings where he would either start for the season to let rookie QB JJ McCarthy get acclimated to the league more or be the backup for McCarthy. 

Fate would be on Darnold’s side as JJ would tear his meniscus in the Vikings preseason opener. All hope felt dead in Minnesota and even after a good showing against the Giants in week 1, we all expected Sam to just fall apart afterward… but he didn’t.

Darnold would throw for 4,319 yards, 35 TDs, and 12 interceptions. He blew his previous career highs out the window and destroyed all expectations for the Vikings by leading them to a 14-3 record. Darnold would come back down to earth in his last two games against the Lions and the Rams but I do not doubt in my mind that Darnold will receive a hefty contract from a team that needs a QB next season.