2008 NFL season awards

By Rick Morris

I recently participated as a voter in the Culture Popped NFL awards voting. Results of the voting should be appearing there within days, but I thought that in the meantime that I would unilaterally pronounce winners in The FDH Lounge balloting. Democracy is overrated!

MVP
1. Peyton Manning -- It's a tough category to determine a winner, but he battled more obstacles than usual and gave his team plenty of momentum heading into the playoffs.
2. Chad Pennington -- In this day and age of the NFL being a 12-month job, he parachuted into Miami like seven minutes before the start of the season and led a 1-15 team to the playoffs. Are you kidding me?
3. (TIE) Adrian Peterson/Michael Turner -- These super-backs meant so much to their team's playoff runs.

OFFENSIVE PLAYER OF THE YEAR
1. Drew Brees -- Statistically, he is now "The Man" among NFL QBs. If his defense didn't still stink and his team wasn't surprisingly in the league's newest meat grinder division, he'd have had a chance at some MVP votes.
2. Michael Turner -- Are there still any questions as to whether he's a legitimate lead back?
3. Adrian Peterson -- He's now the undisputed top fantasy back, and fantasy haters can't deny what that signifies in terms of on-field production.

DEFENSIVE PLAYER OF THE YEAR
1. James Harrison -- He became the linchpin to arguably the league's best defense.
2. DeMarcus Ware -- Much like Brees, it's not his fault his teammates let him down.
3. Ed Reed -- He took back the mantle (if perhaps temporarily) of league's best safety from the Samoan with wild split ends who's in his same division.

OFFENSIVE ROOKIE OF THE YEAR
1. Matt Ryan -- This rookie QB is leading one of '07's biggest garbage teams to the playoffs. 'Nuff said.
2. Joe Flacco -- This rookie QB is leading an '07 mediocrity to the playoffs.
3. Chris Johnson -- Although only the lead in a platoon, he might have won this distinction any other year; that's how explosive he is.

DEFENSIVE ROOKIE OF THE YEAR
1. Jarod Mayo -- Like Chris Johnson, his team reached to pick him in the draft, but now we see why the Pats wouldn't risk trading down to take him.
2. Curtis Lofton -- This force in the middle is a big part of the A-T-L's turnaround.
3. Chris Horton -- There were big shoes to fill in the D.C. secondary, but he was equal to the challenge.

COMEBACK PLAYER OF THE YEAR
1. Chad Pennington -- Not to rub it in, but who'd you think would get the vote, Brett Favre?
2. Jake Delhomme -- Like Pennington, he proved that he still had life in a beaten-down arm and led his formerly underachieving team to a first-round bye.
3. (TIE) Antonio Bryant/Kris Jenkins -- Bryant overcame his previous attitude and underachieving to play at a consistently dominant level for the first time. Jenkins overcame his knife and fork to return to his previous consistently dominating level.

COACH OF THE YEAR
1. Mike Smith -- These coaches are basically 1A/1B/1C because they were so great and were rookies! Smith gets the nod over the next candidate simply because he did not have The Tuna available for advice.
2. Tony Sparano -- Will he ever get the credit as his own man that he deserves? Hopefully.
3. John Harbaugh -- Between a spring chicken at QB and not a lot of spring chickens on defense, Harbaugh fashioned a return to the team's glory from earlier this decade.

EXECUTIVE OF THE YEAR
1. Tom Dimitroff -- He gets a narrow nod for this award out of awe generated by his rookie GM status.
2. Bill Parcells -- While not the day-to-day GM (that would be the highly underrated Jeff Ireland), Parcells generated "miracle worker" headlines for the umpteenth time in his storied career.
3. Jerry Reese -- In only his second year as Giants GM, he's clearly a top-tier exec already. Few will ever top his 2007 season (with ALL draft picks contributing in some way to a Super Bowl in his rookie season leading the front office), but he's doing as well in living up to that insane standard as anyone ever could.