NFL 2020 midseason awards

Offensive Player of the Year

Of course, you could name the same three candidates from the MVP section here, but I tried to mix things up a little and give you three other names worthy of the award. And that includes only one quarterback.

1. Alvin Kamara (RB, New Orleans Saints)

I know that this award is often given to quarterbacks as well and it looks odd that Kamara is 16th in the league in rushing (431 yards), but he is averaging five yards per carry and he is also second to only DeAndre Hopkins among all players with 55 catches for an additional 556 yards through the air – so just over 10 yards per grab.

Right now he is on pace for 2256 scrimmage yards on right around 20 touches a week, while he would also easily break the NFL record for receiving yards for a running back (1271 over 1191 from Charley Taylor in 1966). And he leads the league not only in scrimmage yards but also percentage of his offense’s yardage (36.5%), while being tied for first with 12 plays of 20+ yards on the season.

While he has caught a couple of key wheel routes and can win as a downfield receiver, so far 94.5(!) percent of his receiving yards have come after the catch, constantly bailing out his quarterback by making something happen after checkdowns and ripping off big gains in the screen game. I mean against the Packers he caught 13 of 14 targets for 139 yards and he was the only reason they were in that game in the first place.

The explosiveness, the contact balance and the ability get six or seven yards when there should be only three is unmatched. Kamara has scored reached the end-zone seven times and his only fumble, he recovered himself again.

He is by far the best player on this Saints offense and the team overall and in the absence of Michael Thomas, he has been asked to shoulder the load for them. Since his lowest output in the season-opener, Kamara has not been held under 119 scrimmage yards in any other week.

2. Kyler Murray (QB, Arizona Cardinals)

While Murray is only 16th among current starters in passing yards per game, only Russell Wilson and by about half a yard Justin Herbert have put up more combined passing and rushing yards at 326.3 a week.

Right now, only Joe Burrow and Matt Ryan have been responsible for more combined first downs and touchdowns, and those two have played a full matchup more than the Cardinals and both just won their second games of the season, while Kyler is doing it in service of a 5-2 team, which outside of his own production has averaged less than 100 rushing yards on a weekly basis.

As a runner, he leads all NFL players (with double-digit carries) in yards per attempt at 6.7 and 35 of his 65 carries led to first downs or touchdowns (seven TDs). I would not call Arizona’s passing game overly explosive, as Kyler is barely in the top 20 in yards per attempt (7.3), 20+ yard throws (21) and average yards to the sticks (-0.9), but a lot of that has to do with what Kliff Kingsbury wants to do with his Air Raid-based offense, while his QB is tied for second with six throws of 40+ yards and already has an 80-yarder on his resume. Plus, with that guy at the helm, they have the potential to get as hot as pretty much any team out there.

Kyler had one really bad game against the Lions, in which Detroit used a lot of different coverages that had them all over the Cardinals route patterns, but #1 has been outstanding the rest of the year and I don’t come away from a lot of games thinking that a lot of his production was served up by the play-calling.

I said a couple of weeks that Deshaun Watson is the most elusive quarterback in the league, but nobody is quicker at evading defenders and keeping himself upright. We all love Russell Wilson and his ability to extend plays, but just compare these numbers – Russ has been pressured 79 times and he’s been hit or sacked on 50 of those, Kyler on the other has been pressured 44 times (significantly less due to more of a horizontal passing attack), but he’s only been sacked nine times and taken five more hits (14 total). And Kyler already outdueled Russ on Sunday Night of week seven.

3. Derrick Henry (RB, Tennessee Titans)

King Henry is once again holding the crown for the league’s rushing leader at this moment. His 775 rushing yards are 123 more than any other player in the league, and while that is in correlation with handling the most carries of all RBs, he still averaging 4.8 yards per attempt, despite being asked to grind away games for the Titans.

Right around 30 percent of his touches has resulted in a first down or touchdown (43 total first downs and eight TDs) and about 58 percent of his total yardage has come after contact.

Nobody wants to tackle King Henry, because he can plow through 300-pounder defensive linemen at the point of attack and throw DBs around like ragdolls, when he gets around the edge (looking at you, Josh Norman), but at the same time, once he gets rolling, he is as fast as any player on the field, which we saw already when he ripped of an NFL-long 94-yarder against the Texans a couple of weeks ago.

The difference between Henry and some of the other franchise backs is that he doesn’t contribute a whole lot in the passing game outside of a few screens (10 catches for 81 yards), but nobody takes on a bigger load than this guy and he really sets the table for everything the Titans do, with the heavy play-action and bootlegs.

Usually this guy really starts rolling over the second half of the season, but he has been dominant right from the start this year. When you look at the three games Henry didn’t put 112+ yards on the ground, in two of them the opposing defense totally sold out against the run and Ryan Tannehill completed 75 percent of his passes with seven TDs and no picks, while the team scored 33 and 42 points respectively, and the other one came against the Steelers’ dominant defensive front.

On the other hand, he also has the most scrimmage yards in a game all season, when he destroyed the Texans for 264 yards and took over that one overtime drive, to win it.

Notables: The three MVP candidates