It's Super Bowl week, which means it's also time for NFL Honors. On Thursday night, we will find out who was the best of the best from the 2023 NFL season. Over a dozen awards will be presented, including MVP, Coach of the year, Offensive and Defensive Rookie of the Year and Comeback Player of the Year.
It's sure to be a special night for the NFL. Some awards are pretty predictable, but others appear to be up in the air. Below, we will attempt to predict the winners for seven of the biggest awards at NFL Honors, but first, here's how to watch the event.
How to watch
Date: Thursday, Feb. 8 | Time: 9 p.m. ET
Location: Resorts World Theatre (Las Vegas)
TV: CBS | Stream: Paramount+
Most Valuable Player
The Ravens were the best team in the regular season, and Jackson was their best player. He registered his second 13-win season, while completing a career-high 67.2% of his passes for a career-high 3,678 yards, 24 touchdowns and seven interceptions. Jackson also added 821 rushing yards and five touchdowns on the ground while averaging a league-leading 5.5 yards per attempt.
Jackson registered a QB-record eight wins by 14 or more points vs. winning teams in the regular season, while Baltimore registered the best point differential (+178) vs. winning teams in a season in NFL history. If Jackson were to win MVP, he would become the 11th player in NFL history to win multiple MVPs, and would become the second-youngest player at the time of his second MVP behind Jim Brown. Jackson would also become the first Heisman Trophy winner to win two NFL MVPs.
Coach of the Year: Browns' Kevin Stefanski
The Browns were decimated by injuries in 2023, and started five different quarterbacks. But that didn't stop Cleveland from going 11-6 and making the playoffs. The Browns became the first team since the 1970 NFL merger to play a playoff game without their Week 1 starting quarterback, running back, left tackle and right tackle. The Browns ended the year with 27% of their salary cap on injured reserve, which was the highest of any playoff team.
Stefanski is an offensive-minded head coach who took 38-year-old Joe Flacco off the street, and had him playing like one of the top quarterbacks in the league. He led the NFL in passing yards (1,616) and ranked ninth in yards per attempt (7.9) from Weeks 13-17. On the other side of the ball, the Browns finished the regular season with the No. 1-ranked defense in yards allowed per game (270.2), while Myles Garrett had a monster year with 14 sacks and 30 QB hits to go along with four forced fumbles.
Comeback Player of the Year
Hamlin was always the favorite to win Comeback Player of the Year, and for good reason. On Jan. 2 of last year, Hamlin suffered a cardiac arrest during a game against the Cincinnati Bengals. He was resuscitated on the field, and taken to the hospital in critical condition. Hamlin recovered, and was even cleared for football activities this year. The walking miracle played in five games in 2023.
Offensive Player of the Year
McCaffrey is undoubtedly one of the best players in the NFL, and while Tyreek Hill had a great campaign, this award belongs to McCaffrey. The Stanford product won the rushing title this past season with 1,459 rushing yards and 14 rushing touchdowns, which ranked fourth. Even while McCaffrey rushed a whopping 272 times, he still ranked second in the NFL in yards per attempt (5.4). McCaffrey also led the league with 2,023 scrimmage yards, as he recorded the 14th individual campaign which included 2,000 scrimmage yards and 20+ total touchdowns.
Defensive Player of the Year
An absolute monster, Watt led the NFL in sacks for the third time in 2023 with 19 QB takedowns. No other NFL player has led the league in sacks three times before. Watt has recorded a total of 96.5 sacks in his first seven seasons, which ranks third-most behind Reggie White (110.0) and DeMarcus Ware (99.5). Watt also led the league with 36 QB hits in 2023.
If you're looking for another stat to show you how good Watt is, consider that Pittsburgh is 1-11 when he doesn't play since he was drafted.
Offensive Rookie of the Year
The Texans were thought to be in the midst of a major rebuild, but the front office crushed the 2023 NFL Draft, which landed Houston atop the AFC South and in the playoffs. Who would have thought? In the playoffs, Stroud became the youngest quarterback to win a playoff game with the upset of the Browns.
Stroud threw for 4,108 yards, 23 touchdowns and five interceptions, and led the league in passing yards per game (273.9) and TD-INT ratio. Only two other quarterbacks have done that over the last 50 seasons. The Ohio State product was simply one of the best rookie quarterbacks in NFL history, and ranked first in EPA per dropback vs. zone coverage.
Defensive Rookie of the Year
This is a tight race, but I'm going to lean to the No. 3 overall pick. In 15 games played, Anderson recorded 45 combined sacks, 10 tackles for loss, 22 QB hits and seven sacks. He recorded the third-most pressures by a rookie in the last five seasons with 59. Micah Parsons had 67 in 2021 and Nick Bosa had 80 in 2019.
What would be cool about a Texans sweep is that this would be the second straight season we saw a clean sweep by one team, as the New York Jets saw wide receiver Garrett Wilson and cornerback Sauce Gardner win these awards last year.
