The best player award doesn't go to the best player

Why are Jaxon Smith-Njigba and Myles Garrett only in the running for consolation prizes?

Fans debate who deserves the MVP every year around this time, but it won’t matter much between us unless your name is Emmanuel Acho or Dianna Russini. Then you would actually have a very valuable vote. Arguments for Matthew Stafford against the field are merely ways to express a feeling into the ether, unless you are Pete Prisco, Mike Silver, or Mike Florio. It might also help if you were Dan Orlovsky, an MVP voter who was teammates with Stafford for three years and won’t be critical of him as an analyst for ESPN.

Tom Brady has a vote and he seems very qualified…he’s also part owner of a team which seems like a huge conflict.

There are only 50 voters for MVP, Offensive or Defensive Player of the Year, and All-Pro lists. They don’t just put awards on mantles, their votes impact paychecks, bonuses, and potentially a player’s future. I don’t know who should vote for MVP, that’s another debate entirely, but I know who doesn’t have a say in whether someone like Jaxon Smith-Njigba should be considered:

Jaxon Smith-Njigba.

JSN is one of two players having a historic NFL season who won’t be considered for MVP because neither of them are quarterbacks. Is that right? Does it matter?

We may not have a choice, but you do have a voice: Here are some of your comments left after the Seahawks’ 30-24 win over the Titans on Sunday.

News Update: Vikings to start Max Brosmer vs Seahawks (probably)

Before we get to the comments, I wrote after the game that J.J. McCarthy was so bad that the Vikings would probably bench him if they had any other choice. I guess they didn’t have any other choice but to put McCarthy into the concussion protocol; there was no indication that McCarthy suffered a head injury in Minnesota’s game and even the Vikings claim they don’t know when it happened. They’re just now saying on Monday, “Yeah, we think he has a concussion”.

So it looks like in fact Brosmer will start against Seattle in Week 12.

The 24-year-old undrafted rookie spent 5 seasons at the University of New Hampshire and 1 season at Minnesota after transferring. In 2024, Brosmer had 17 touchdown passes and 5 interceptions with a 7-5 record as the starter.

Brosmer is the first University of Minnesota QB to play in an NFL game in 23 years. He now faces a defense that some think is the biggest hell in the NFL for opposing quarterbacks.

Mike McD: JSN = MVP. Best player in the league.

To paraphrase the reactions in the comments: There should be a QB award and an MVP award, which some people consider to be the same as the MVP is the QB award and the Offensive Player of the Year is the “everybody else” award.

Awards are meaningless time-passers, but the debate has me thinking about this and my thoughts are that it’s unfair that only quarterbacks are allowed to be “MVPs” and everyone else has to fight over second place, which is exactly what an offensive player award is seen as. Also, what about defensive player of the year? Myles Garrett has 18 sacks!!! Yeah nobody’s going to win MVP on a 3-8 team but even if the Browns were 11-0 Garrett still wouldn’t win MVP.

The thing is that when you make MVP “the quarterback award” you lower the value of every other honor. I can name most, if not all, MVPs over the last 25 years, maybe even going back to the 90s. Offensive and Defensive Player of the Year awards largely go in one ear and out the other.

In a way, separating the awards also lowers the impact of winning MVP because…what? What are we doing here? How is the MVP not the player of the year? When Shaun Alexander won MVP in 2005, he was also the Offensive Player of the Year. If the awards made more sense, maybe Alexander should have won MVP and Walter Jones should have won OPOY. Or maybe the other way around. But offensive linemen can’t win ANY awards.

We’re basically saying that one award is an abstract assigning of “the most value” to a quarterback and the other offensive award is a reward for a non-passing statistical achievement; the last six offensive player of the years have been 3 WRs and 3 RBs. It seems like voters (which has become a fairly random group of 50 people that basically no fan would agree with entirely and they each get 2% of the power) simply want to award as many people as possible rather than vote along lines of who deserves it that season.

At this point, 3 players are running away with awards:

• Matthew Stafford, MVP

• Jaxon Smith-Njigba, OPOY

• Myles Garrett, DPOY

Two of these players are doing remarkable things and they could end up crushing previous NFL records that have a lot of prestige, while the other is a quarterback having a really good season on a first place team.

By the way, I have nothing against Stafford winning MVP and after last night’s 34-7 win over the Bucs he emphasized to all 50 of those voters that he’s on a streak of 25 TD/0 INT which tells me that the award is inevitable. One could also argue that Stafford is finally in this position because he has a number one defense for the first time in his career, which brings me back to “What if Myles Garrett played with a number one offense?”

JSN is having a wide receiver season for the ages. Unlike “WR seasons of the ages” of recent past, JSN has the deep threat element that Michael Thomas and Cooper Kupp — and even Justin Jefferson — were lacking. When Thomas won OPOY in 2019, he had 149 catches for 1,725 yards which is remarkable, but he also had 0 catches of 50+ yards; JSN already has 4 of those.

JSN has 10 catches of 30+ yards, which is already twice as many as Thomas.

When Justin Jefferson won the award in 2022, he only had one catch over 50 yards. JSN is on pace to have more 20 and 30-yard catches than Jefferson and Kupp too.

JSN curently has 21 catches of 20+ yards, which have gained 730 yards and scored 3 times. The next-most is George Pickens at 17 catches for 519 yards. Emeka Egbuka is the only other player over 13 catches and 400 yards.

• Jefferson was the only player with more than 21 such catches in 2024 (he had 28 for 852 yards)

• Kupp is the only player to have 30 such catches in a season over the last 5 years, at least

Does that mean JSN should be “MVP”? I don’t think the Seahawks would be over .500 without him. He should at least be considered, but we all know that he isn’t even in the conversation. And maybe that’s why something that always felt meaningless could objectively also be meaningless.

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Paul G: Also, there’s nothing like seeing Ken Walker in person to appreciate how talented he is. He’s like George “Iceman” Gervin: he puts a move on a defender with every stride!

Kenneth Walker has quietly increased his yards per carry by almost a full yard compared to 2024 (from 3.7 to 4.6) and just had his fourth game of the season with over 100 total yards. He’s probably not getting as much credit for his improvement and healthiest season so far because the Seahawks haven’t entrusted him with goal line situations.

Walker was so good at scoring touchdowns in college and I don’t mean that he scored a lot of touchdowns…I mean he was good at scoring touchdowns. I don’t think he’s able to hit that edge or dip through would-be tacklers with the same level of comfort or success against NFL defenses.

I’ve written extensively on the topic of Walker’s future after this season, including in the recent past, so none of my opinions have changed there. Of course I think Walker could leave and become a bigger star somewhere else but Seattle has to be careful to not overspend out of fear of missing out. And another thing I’ve said: All free agent forecasting is subject to change!

What if Walker levels up in December and the playoffs? Players often don’t cash their checks until the end of the season and Walker’s production has seen an uptick in the last three games: 205 yards, 5.0 yards per carry, 7 catches for 77 yards.

That’s on only 51% of the team’s offensive snaps.

The issue for the Seahawks might be the Walker prices himself out of Seattle or that he doesn’t want to share the ball as much on his next contract. The Seahawks may just decide to get cheaper and younger at the position next year. We’ll see, but we can appreciate the rest of his games this year just the same.

Scott M: Mental lapses, undisciplined play, a few tired players at times, missed tackles, missed blocks, missed opportunity, but it’s a win. I still want to see better play. I still think we are further along than what was expected by most of us here. I’m trying to be critical while also acknowledging that this is still a very new team with half (1/3) very new coaching. Keep learning, keep growing and I’ll keep watching with optimistic thoughts.

If we break it down week by week, the Seahawks have essentially let the Steelers, Cardinals, Jaguars, Texans, and now the Titans crawl back and make a blowout into a game. And that’s just the times that the Seahawks have still won!

The Seahawks are so close to being the best team in the league. They can’t seem to get out of their own way yet but I’d rather Seattle be close to the best team than how far away they were the previous 10 years.

Maxx: The READY SQUAD were so, indeed! Pili, Bohanna, O’Connell, Bell...every one of them played fantastic today! Coach Mac has another road win. Could be a huge edge in the playoffs if the standings remain this way. After the return leg vs. Rams, we finish away at Carolina and SF. We got some football left to play!

Randall Murray: SJ you wrote sometime back that Coach Mac defense takes time. We saw some of it last year. I’m just impressed. How many teams can lose guys like Love, JReed, Jones, Spoon at times, and bring in practice squad players like Ty and Drake. O’Connell and Jobe. Pili. And see the team not only survive but thrive? 16 for 27 yards rushing sans Ward scrambles for FDs. 1.5 YPC. Passing game only 9 yds per. Depth. Quality play. Half of Titans offense was after play broke down. Ward not fast, this game isn’t even this close.

18 players got defensive snaps on Sunday and I would say that 10 of them were “starters” we all expected to contribute this year. Here are the other 10:

• Drake Thomas, 100% of snaps

• Josh Jobe, 78%

• D’Anthony Bell, 55%

• Patrick O’Connell, 55%

• Ty Okada, 36%

• Brandon Pili, 24%

• Mike Morris, 14%

• Quinton Bohanna, 5%

Pili had a career-high 4 tackles (all were counted as assisted tackles) which is as many as he had in his first two seasons combined. O’Connell had 9 tackles, which is more than all his other career games combined (7 tackles), plus a sack. Bell had a season-best 4 tackles. Drake Thomas had a career-high 10 tackles. When you make the practice squad, you really do make the Seahawks roster.

I have to remind myself that Jobe really had to compete in training camp for a job and most people assumed that he would lose out to someone like Shaq Griffin or even Shemar Jean-Charles. You could not really say that Jobe was that far ahead of Jean-Charles before training camp and now he’s kind of ahead of Tariq Woolen.

Jobe has the best stats on the defense for all defensive backs.

28-of-59 passing against him, 47.5% completions, 5.3 yards per target, 62.3 passer rating allowed

I hate to do any comparisons because everyone’s roles are so different. The point is that Jobe was essentially a street free agent who is now a priority to keep away from free agency.

Love and Eric Saubert are eligible to return this week. Jarran Reed is eligible to return next week against the Falcons.

Mike Macdonald said after the game that he’s hopeful Julian Love can be activated off of IR this week, but he’s not sure and that the team will continue to be cautious with his return. Ty Okada suffered an oblique injury against the Titans. Ernest Jones had a chance to play this week and didn’t, so maybe he will return against the Vikings. Tyrice Knight didn’t go on IR so it would seem like there’s a chance there too.

Rusty: I think the D would have looked and performed a bit better if they’d had either Jones, Knight or Love back. I decided today that I’m good with Mafe leaving after this season. Although he had a sack, to me, it looks like he’s out of position too many times.

Funny enough, Derick Hall and Boye Mafe combined for a sack in Week 9 but the NFL awarded it to Mafe. Then they combined for a sack in Week 11 but the NFL awarded it to Hall. In any case, two pass rushers, two sacks, 11 games.

I’ve long expected this to be Uchenna Nwosu’s last season with the Seahawks, at least on his current contract. The fact that he was able to return to the game yesterday was hugely welcome news and given the probability of the team to move on from Mafe, it’s probably not Nwosu’s last season with Seattle.

There were more comments but I’ll cut this one off for timeliness. More to come! Share with other Seahawks fans and subscribe!

Seaside Joe 2458