Recap of the 2012 NFL Awards

The NFL Awards came out a week ago yesterday. I will be writing about the awards giving my opinion and explaining if I agree or disagree with the award choose. I will talk about the MVP, Offensive and Defensive Players of the Year, Rookie of the Year and the Offensive and Defensive Rookies of the Year. 

MVP & Offensive Player of the Year: Adrian Peterson of the Minnesota Vikings won these awards. There were many choices of this award like Peterson, Peyton Manning, Tom Brady, J.J. Watt and some others. Peterson came back after tearing his ACL at the end of last season. Also he helped the Vikings who wasn't supposed to be any good win 10 games. They earned a wild card spot and lost in the Wild Card Round to the Packers. For his stats he became 7th Player in NFL history to record 2000 rushing yards in one season. Peterson had 2097 receiving yards in this season.  He came up just 8 yards short of Eric Dickerson's season rushing yard record at 2105 rushing yards. Despite the great season he only had 12 touchdowns on the year. He had 100 or more rushing yards in 10 of the 16 games this year. On the season he also averaged 6.0 yards per rush attempt. Peyton Manning was definitely 2nd in my opinion after he missed all of last season. He became the first Vikings since Fran Tarkenton in 1975 to win both of these awards. 


Defensive Player of the Year: J.J. Watt of the Houston Texas won this award. I agree with this award choice. Watt had 20.5 sacks  which was 1st in the NFL. Watts forced 4 fumbles and recovered 2 of them. Watt had 81 tackles. Watt averaged 6.8 yards per sack. He also had 16 pass defended. Watt had a very great season and even had a chance to break the NFL season for sacks. His team went 12-4 and helped his team win their second straight AFC South Titles. He also helped his team make the AFC Divisional Round. He is the first Texan ever to win this award. 

Rookie of the Year: Russell Wilson of the Seattle Seahawks won this award. Along with Wilson, Robert Griffin III and Andrew Luck all put up great season to try to win this award. One reason Luck won neither of the two awards is probably because of his one-dimensional game. While Wilson and Griffin are both great dual threats. I agree with this award choice because all three rookie made the playoffs but only Wilson made the Divisional. Luck lost to Baltimore in the Wild Card Round. Griffin lost to Wilson and the Seahawks in the Wild Card Round. Luck passed for many more yards than Wilson and Griffin. Luck had 4374 passing yards (7th in the NFL), Griffin had 3200 passing yards (22nd in the NFL) and Wilson had 3118 passing yards (23rd in the NFL). Wilson had 26 passing touchdowns (tied for 9th in the NFL), Luck had 23 passing touchdowns (14th in the NFL) and Griffin had 20 passing touchdowns (tied for 19th in the NFL). Griffin did have far less interceptions with only 5, Wilson had 10 and Luck had 18. Griffin had 815 rushing yards and 7 rushing touchdowns. Wilson had 489 rushing yards and 4 rushing touchdowns. I think the big thing that helped Wilson win this award was he was drafted in the 3rd round with the 75th pick overall while Luck was the 1st pick and Griffin was the 2nd. He is the first Seahawk to win this award.

Offensive Rookie of the Year: Robert Griffin III of the Washington Redskins won this award. Even though I thought Wilson should have won Rookie of the Year I also agree with this award choice because offensive Robert Griffin was better. Griffin had 3200 passing yards (22nd in the NFL) and Wilson had 3118 passing yards (23rd in the NFL). Wilson had 26 passing touchdowns (tied for 9th in the NFL) and Griffin had 20 passing touchdowns (tied for 19th in the NFL). Griffin did have far less interceptions with only 5 and Wilson had 10. Griffin had 815 rushing yards and 7 rushing touchdowns. Wilson had 489 rushing yards and 4 rushing touchdowns. He is the first Redskin since Mike Thomas in 1975 to win this award.

Defensive Rookie of the Year: Luke Kuechly of the Carolina Panthers won this award. I agree with this award. Kuechly helping the Panthers defense which was very bad this year improve quite a bit. He had just 1.0 sacks this season. He had 164 tackles which led the NFL. He also had 3 fumbles recovered and 2 interceptions. He also had 8 pass defended. He is the first Panther since Julius Peppers in 2002 this win this award.