It’s time that Jerry Rice had an award named after him.
Everybody loves awards. We watch the Oscars for Best Picture and Best Actor, but we even sit through friggin’ Best Animated Short category. In the sports world, pro hockey and college football have the most awards, including individual trophies for every specific positional group.
In my mind, the NFL can do a lot better in the awards department. There’s MVP (which almost always goes to the best QB) and “Offensive Player of the Year” (which is hard to distinguish from MVP anyway.) The Pro Bowl doesn’t help matters much because there are so many pseudo-injuries and declined invites that it ends up including way too many players to mean much.
I’m not suggesting we go full out and start naming the “Best Cornerback” or “Best Center” in the league. Quite frankly, the average fan (including myself) can’t really scout well enough to have a strong opinion on that aside from reputation and PFF grades. However, receivers…? Receivers, we can do. Receivers, we watch. Receivers have stats we can compare and wrap our minds around for a proper debate.
Despite being a high profile position, receivers rarely garner attention for those big awards. Since the Associated Press NFL MVP award started in 1957, a WR has never won. (Which is understandable, since it’s hard to claim a WR is more “valuable” than a QB.) But even the “Offensive Player of the Year” category rarely gives love to receivers either. Since its inception in 1972, a receiver has won twice — Jerry Rice, both times.
So with the idea of giving receivers some love, I propose the official JERRY RICE RECEIVER OF THE YEAR AWARD.
For the fun of it, I went back through some recent years and determined whom would have won the hypothetical Rice Award. Tell me if you agree or not with those picks, and then propose your favorite for the Rice Award this season.
2010
Nominees: Dwayne Bowe (72 catches, 1162 yards, 15 TDs), Brandon Lloyd (77 catches, 1448 yards, 11 TDs), Roddy White (115 catches, 1389 yards, 10 TDs)
Winner: Uh oh, this may not be the best starting point, because this wasn’t exactly a banner year for receivers across the league. Brandon Lloyd’s argument suffers from the fact that he only caught less than half of his 155 targets on a team that only went 4-12. Instead, I’m giving it to Roddy White, who helped the Falcons go 13-3. White benefited from quite a bit of volume (179 targets) but that made sense at the time given that he was a one man show in the WR corps. The 2-3-4 WRs (Michael Jenkins, Harry Douglas, Brian Finneran) combined for a grand total of 965 yards. Given that, it’s no wonder the team traded up for Julio Jones the following year.
2011
Nominees: Rob Gronkowski (90 catches, 1327 yards, 17 TDs), Calvin Johnson (96 catches, 1681 yards, 16 TDs), Wes Welker (122 catches, 1569 yards, 9 TDs)
Winner: Now we’re talking. We upped the ante in 2011 and even included a tight end like Rob Gronkowski who became a monster receiving threat. Combined, Gronk and Wes Welker helped the Patriots tear up the league en route to a 13-3 record. However, they’re going to split the vote here and allow Calvin Johnson to steal this Rice Award. Megatron’s efficiency (over 10+ yards per target) is even more impressive considering he faced so many double teams as he helped carry the team to a 10-6 mark.
2012
Nominees: Dez Bryant (92 catches, 1382 yards, 12 TDs), A.J. Green (97 catches, 1350 yards, 11 TDs), Calvin Johnson (122 catches, 1964 yards, 5 TDs)
Winner: This is another tough and controversial pick that shows you the fun in debating a Rice Award winner. Do you go with someone like A.J. Green who helped his team to a 10-6 record? Or do we go back to the well with Megatron, who put up the most memorable year despite the low TD count and the bad record (4-12)? I’m going to lean heavily to “winning” receivers for this award (in the same way you would for an MVP vote), but Johnson’s record breaking year is too difficult to ignore. Calvin Johnson pulls a Mike Trout and wins his second trophy in the process.
2013
Nominees: Josh Gordon (87 catches, 1649 yards, 9 TDs), Jimmy Graham (86 catches, 1216 yards, 16 TDs), Demaryius Thomas (92 catches, 1430 yards, 14 TDs)
Winner: Demaryius Thomas has a very legitimate argument to mark here as he logged 10.0 yards per target (on the dot, with 143 targets) as he helped the Broncos jump out to a 13-3 record. However, this was Peyton Manning‘s record-breaking year with 5477 yards and 55 touchdowns, so that Bronco team had more than enough production to go around; in fact, Thomas, Eric Decker, Wes Welker, and Julius Thomas each cracked 10+ touchdowns. In their place, I’m going with Jimmy Graham, who had become the hardest matchup in the league and helped the Saints go 11-5.
2014
Nominees: Odell Beckham Jr. (91 catches, 1305 yards, 12 TDs), Antonio Brown (129 catches, 1698 yards, 13 TDs), Dez Bryant (88 catches, 1320 yards, 16 TDs)
Winner: The most “memorable” season came from rookie Odell Beckham Jr., who set the NFL and fantasy leagues on fire with 1305 yards in 12 games. However, we here at the Rice Awards headquarters need to reward durability as much as spectacular play, which allows Antonio Brown to earn the first trophy of his stellar career. Brown’s team also finished with a better record (11-5 vs. 6-10).
2015
Nominees: Antonio Brown (136 catches, 1834 yards, 10 TDs), DeAndre Hopkins (111 catches, 1521 yards, 11 TDs), Julio Jones (136 catches, 1871 yards, 8 TDs)
Winner: Man alive, this may be the banner year for the award, with last year’s winner Antonio Brown and Julio Jones logging ridiculous seasons that both deserve an award or two. It’s almost impossible to pick a winner between them (or more accurately, pick a “loser”), but we’re going to go with a repeat for Antonio Brown based on the slight edge in efficiency, touchdowns, and team wins (10 vs. 8)
2016
Nominees: Odell Beckham Jr. (101 catches, 1367 yards, 10 TDs), Antonio Brown (106 catches, 1284 yards, 12 TDs), Julio Jones (83 catches, 1409 yards, 6 TDs)
Winner: Spurned by the Rice Award last year, Julio Jones makes up for it with his first win this season. On paper, Jones’ stats don’t jump off the page, but it’s important to remember that he missed two games and coasted for the final part of the season after helping Matt Ryan and the Falcons rack up one of the most efficient passing seasons of all time. In fact, if he didn’t get injured towards the back half, Julio Jones could have made a legitimate MVP argument for himself considering how much of their offense came from Kyle Shanahan moving him around like a superstar chess piece. Note: we’re not penalizing Julio Jones for a few missed games as much as Odell Beckham Jr. in 2014 because the team had already jumped into the playoffs by then. (And because, like any good award ceremony, we want as much controversy, hypocrisy, and debate as possible.)
