Day: February 6, 2026

The NFL presented its major awards for the 2025 season on Thursday night, and I was honored to again be part of the 50-member panel chosen by the Associated Press to vote on its All-Pro team and season awards. I’ve been able to do this for the last four years, and the ballot has expanded in that time to now have us voting for a top five on each of the eight major awards: MVP, Offensive and Defensive Player of the Year, Coach of the Year, Assistant Coach of the Year, Comeback Player of the Year and Defensive Rookie of the Year. I like the idea of transparency in these kinds of awards votes, so I’m sharing my ballot publicly here and trying to explain my rationale for voting as I did. As usual, there were some awards where my voting closely mirrored the overall top five, and others where I was more of an outlier than I’d probably like to be. Any time you’re judging players at multiple positions across a broad spectrum of successful and not-so-successful teams, you’ll get a wide range of interpretations regarding who the best players and coaches are. It’s also important to note these are regular-season awards. Ballots were submitted the day after the season ended, so playoff success has no bearing. MVP: Rams QB Matthew Stafford Top five in voting: Stafford, Drake Maye, Josh Allen, Christian McCaffrey, Trevor LawrenceMy ballot: Stafford, Maye, Myles Garrett, Jared Goff, Jaxon Smith-Njigba A few things here. First, I continue to be confused that a voting panel of the same 50 people on All-Pro and awards ballots can have decidedly different takes on who is the best between those two. For first-team All-Pro quarterback, Stafford beat Maye by a 31-18 margin. For this MVP, the same panel voted Stafford over Maye 24-23. A year ago, this panel voted Baltimore’s Lamar Jackson as first-team All-Pro at quarterback while Buffalo’s Josh Allen as the MVP. I just think the two awards are too close to have different outcomes. If Player A is the better quarterback in direct competition, it’s hard to say Player B was a more valuable player. “Valuable” leaves it open to some interpretation, so some will take valuable as “more integral to the team’s success.” Some argued that Stafford, with elite receivers in Puka Nacua and Davante Adams and a smart offensive head coach in Sean McVay, had a stronger supporting cast than Maye, but those factors contribute to the QB decision the same as MVP, in my opinion. I see both sides of the overall debate, as I laid out in my All-Pro ballot last month. Stafford had 12 more touchdown passes than any other quarterback, the largest such margin since Peyton Manning threw for 55 in 2013. Also, Patriots offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels was the NFL Assistant Coach of the Year, so Maye had good help there. In our voting system, a first-place vote for MVP carries 10 points and a second-place vote gets five, so the first-place votes really matter. Stafford won the voting points by a 366-361 margin, which means a single outlier first-place vote like the one for Chargers quarterback Justin Herbert could shift the final outcome – and did! As for my top five, I wanted to make it clear it shouldn’t be “the top five quarterbacks,” so after the top two, I made sure to include my pick for Defensive Player of the Year, who really should be in yearly consideration for the overall MVP. Offensive Player of the Year: Seahawks WR Jaxon Smith-Njigba Top five in voting: Smith-Njigba, McCaffrey, Nacua, Bijan Robinson, MayeMy ballot: Smith-Njigba, Nacua, Robinson, James Cook, McCaffrey With the MVP becoming mostly a quarterback award, voters have offset that by seemingly reserving this one for the best non-quarterback. It’s not written that way anywhere, but the voting plays out like that. The voting was divided enough here that no player got more than 14 votes out of 50, and I thought Smith-Njigba was the clear choice, the best at his position and contributing hugely to a top-five offense. I have McCaffrey lower than most voters. While he kept the 49ers winning when everything around him seemed to be injured, I thought his production statistically wasn’t as good as the two backs I had ahead of him. Not only did Robinson lead the NFL in yards from scrimmage and finish with 172 more yards than McCaffrey, but he did it on 47 fewer touches. Defensive Player of the Year: Browns EDGE Myles Garrett Top five in voting: Garrett, Will Anderson, Micah Parsons, Nik Bonitto, Aidan HutchinsonMy ballot: Garrett, Anderson, Parsons, Burns, Hutchinson This was the opposite of OPOY, a unanimous and easy selection since Garrett set the NFL record with 23 sacks. I was pleased to have four of my top five make the actual top five, in nearly the correct order. Choosing Burns over Bonitto was largely on production since Burns had 2.5 more sacks and eight more tackles for loss, with one more forced fumble and one more fumble recovery. Those two were close enough that you can make a case for either, and obviously, Bonitto contributed to a greater team success in Denver than Burns did in New York. Coach of the Year: Patriots head coach Mike Vrabel Top five in voting: Vrabel, Liam Coen, Mike Macdonald, Ben Johnson, Kyle ShanahanMy ballot: Coen, Shanahan, Vrabel, McDonald, Johnson. Again, it’s cool to have my top five as the top five. Vrabel edged Coen 19-16 in terms of first-place votes. This award is generally seen as “success above expectation,” and both were stellar in that aspect. I valued what Coen was able to do as a first-time head coach more than what Vrabel did as someone in his first year with a new team, but with considerable head coaching experience. Both flipped the script on the identity of their franchises in a single season, never an easy thing to do. I think what Shanahan did to win consistently despite losing so many key players to injury throughout the season was commendable. [Related: Takeaways from NFL Honors] Assistant Coach of the Year: Patriots offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels Top five in voting: McDaniels, Broncos DC Vance Joseph, Vikings DC Brian Flores, Seahawks OC Klint Kubiak, Eagles DC Vic FangioMy ballot: McDaniels, Rams DC Chris Shula, Kubiak, Flores, 49ers DC Robert Saleh. This closely mirrored the head coach voting, with the New England guy winning 17-10 on first-place votes here. I thought the Patriots’ and Maye’s emergence on offense was a huge story, so this is well-deserved. I dinged Denver’s defense a bit for tying for the fourth-fewest takeaways in the NFL, but Joseph had a top-five defense in most other respects. You almost always see these honors go to coordinators, so I’m a little amused/impressed to see a vote cast for Bills offensive line coach Aaron Kromer. (Buffalo did have the league’s No. 1 rushing attack, but also finished 21st in sack percentage.) Comeback Player of the Year: 49ers RB Christian McCaffrey Top five in voting: McCaffrey, Hutchinson, Dak Prescott, Trevor Lawrence, Stefon DiggsMy ballot: McCaffrey, Hutchinson, Prescott, Diggs, Chris Olave. Another easy call with McCaffrey getting 31 of 50 votes. The AP last year added the stipulation that this award is essentially intended to reward a player coming back from missing games due to injury, rather than their own mediocrity. It’s not just a most improved award. In retrospect, Lawrence missed seven games in 2024 and had a great year in leading the Jaguars to a division title, so he should be on my ballot somewhere. Offensive Rookie of the Year: Panthers WR Tetairoa McMillan Top five in voting: McMillan, Tyler Shough, TreVeyon Henderson, Jaxson Dart, Emeka Egbuka.My ballot: Dart, Henderson, McMillan, Shough, Egbuka So, it turns out I was the only voter out of 50 to have Dart first here. I wasn’t expecting that, but I simply thought Dart’s overall season, with 24 total touchdowns despite losing his best receiver and back for much of the year, put him ahead of Shough. McMillan had a great season for Carolina, helping them to a surprise division title, but his yards (1,014) would have ranked fifth in 2024 and his touchdowns (seven) would have tied for fourth, so it seemed less remarkable beyond edging Egbuka for best rookie receiver. Defensive Rookie of the Year: Browns LB Carson Schwesinger Top five in voting: Schwesinger, Nick Emmanwori, James Pearce, Xavier Watts, Abdul CarterMy ballot: Pearce, Schwesinger, Watts, Carter, Nik Scourton Here I go again, as one of just two voters to have Pearce at the top of my ballot. Pearce’s 10.5 sacks were five more than any other rookie and a huge part of Atlanta’s defense taking a big step forward. Schwesinger is deserving with 50 more tackles than any other rookie, 2.5 sacks and two interceptions – a little of everything. It was a close call for me. I’m more disappointed in leaving Emmanwori out, which is a clear oversight given all he did for Seattle’s defense.​Latest Sports News from FOX Sports

As soon as he could get away from his introductory press conference, Mike Vrabel made his way to the scouts’ offices in Gillette Stadium — Eliot Wolf’s part of the building. Vrabel had told the media that he was excited to sit down with Wolf and the scouts. And he meant it. So he changed out of his suit and tie and almost immediately jumped into a discussion with the scouting staff, which was on-site to prepare for the offseason. It was this time last year, and the Patriots had more than $120 million in cap space and a top-five draft pick. What they didn’t have were wins. They’d gone 4-13 in two straight seasons, and Vrabel was the team’s third head coach in 25 months, following Bill Belichick and Jerod Mayo. “[Vrabel] just kind of came in and started talking ball,” Wolf, the Patriots’ de-facto general manager, told me in a phone conversation. “I forget what position we were watching. Let’s say it was linebacker. We launched into linebackers. He started talking about what he looks for in a linebacker. Some of the guys that had been successful for him in the past and the reasons why.” Wolf added: “He took an interest from day one. … And really just coming off the difficult year that we had the year before, just some of the positive enthusiasm that he had was important for those guys [in the scouting department] to hear.” You know where this story ends: at Super Bowl LX, with the Patriots preparing to face the Seattle Seahawks. And with Vrabel winning the NFL Coach of the Year Award. New England is the first team ever to rise from 4-13 one season to a Super Bowl berth in the next. There have been some teams that ascended into the big game after a four-win season, including the 2020 and 2021 Bengals and the 1998 and 1999 Rams. But the Patriots are in rare company. It started in that meeting on Vrabel’s first day of work, when he began to communicate what he wanted his team to look like with the people who were in charge of getting the players that fit the coach’s preferences. A good scouting staff gets transcendent talents. A great scouting staff gets transcendent talents who bring a coach’s vision to life. That sort of communication is much more difficult than you’d expect — all the more reason for Vrabel to start right away. “I just think that me being around is important, having conversations with those guys,” Vrabel said at a press conference when asked about that initial meeting. “When I was a position coach, to be able to link up with the scouts, talking about post-draft or communicating with them. This is an open line of communication with our coaches and our personnel department.” That kicked off what Wolf called an “arranged marriage” with Vrabel, where the coach arrived as a new hire with Wolf holding over from past iterations of the organization (going back to Belichick). There were rumblings that Wolf was losing power upon Vrabel’s arrival, given that the coach was likely to have the final say on personnel decisions, which had been Wolf’s role with Mayo. At the time, Wolf brushed off the transition. Now, it’s easy to see why. “At the end of the day, you want to win. I want to win,” Wolf told me this week. “So I felt like Mike really gave us a great opportunity to win, which obviously he has. And that’s where you can put your ego to the side. And it’s never been about having the most power. For me, it’s always been about winning.” Prior to working together, Wolf and Vrabel were friendly, having run into each other at pro days and the NFL Combine. But the two didn’t really know each other when Vrabel began interviewing for the job. Patriots owners Robert and Jonathan Kraft set aside time for the two men to speak during the interview process, and they were immediately in lockstep. “He believes in a lot of the same things that I believe in,” Wolf said. The priorities were obvious. “Put the team first, do what’s right for the team, treat people the right way, create a program that we can all be proud of and that people want to be a part of,” Wolf told me. Wolf and Vrabel then went out and overhauled the coaching staff and roster. Among the coaches, only special teams coordinator Jeremy Springer stayed. Offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels and defensive coordinator Terrell Williams (and his understudy Zak Kuhr) arrived to lead the other groups. Then the new players arrived on defense: defensive end Milton Williams, linebackers Harold Landry and Robert Spillane, defensive lineman K’Lavon Chaisson and rookie safety Craig Woodson. The Patriots also addressed their needs on offense, rebuilding the line with four new players: rookies Will Campbell and Jared Wilson and veterans Garrett Bradbury and Morgan Moses. Finally, they added veteran receivers Stefon Diggs and Mack Hollins, rookie receiver Kyle Williams and second-round running back TreVeyon Henderson. New England had a sizable draft class of 11 players, with a solid amount of draft capital: four picks in the top 100 and five in the top 106. The team also spent $209 million in guaranteed money on free agents in 2025, the most in the NFL last offseason. If Spillane (ankle) and Landry (knee) can play in the Super Bowl, the Patriots will have six starters on offense and seven starters on defense who are new to the team in 2025. And don’t forget two of the three specialists: kicker Andy Borregales and long snapper Julian Ashby. The free-agent headliner was Williams, whom New England convinced to defect from the Philadelphia Eagles with a four-year, $104 million deal, the largest in Patriots history by average annual value — yes, even bigger than any contract Tom Brady inked. Williams was and is a guy Wolf and Vrabel both loved. He’s the guy Vrabel approached at the beginning of the postseason and posed this challenge: “Big guys eat in January. And if the Patriots are lucky — in February, too. “Philadelphia, to their credit, had really too many good players at a position, and he was available where probably nine times out of 10, that player wouldn’t be available. We felt like he was a priority,” Wolf told me. The interesting thing isn’t just how much the Patriots changed by changing players. It’s also fascinating how much they changed by elevating the players who were a part of the 2024 team. “I don’t think those guys get talked about enough,” center Garrett Bradbury told me at practice last week. “I think they went through some dark times with some tough seasons, some tough losses. And for those guys to buy in, and the free agents and the rookies like this, speaks to Vrabel’s leadership and what he wanted this team to look like.” The most obvious player is quarterback Drake Maye, who went from a raw passing prospect in 2024 to an MVP finalist in 2025. That’s due in large part to his hard work and his traits. It’s also a credit to the coaching staff, from McDaniels to quarterbacks coach Ashton Grant. What’s interesting is seeing Maye grow into his head coach’s image. You’d hear Maye talking trash around the locker room a whole lot more this year, not unlike Vrabel. Maye offered to let new guys, including Bradbury, crash at his house — just like Vrabel once did with teammates when he was a player. Maye holds his players accountable and details his preferences on routes and pre-snap communication. You can see Vrabel shaping Maye, the player Wolf drafted with the No. 3 overall pick in 2024. The same is true of cornerback Christian Gonzalez, arguably the team’s best defensive player. He is so soft-spoken that he can be difficult to even hear in the locker room, and yet he’s found his voice with his teammates. “In the DB room, in the defensive meeting room, [I’m] hearing that when I say something, people listen,” Gonzalez told me. “Guys have told me that, and told me I can use my voice to speak up. And I mean, not even just football stuff. But being a guy. People come to talk about off-the-field stuff.” Reshaping the Patriots’ culture also meant moving on from players who didn’t fit. New England traded key contributors from years past in safety Kyle Dugger and edge Keion White. It’s not exactly fair to say it was a case of addition by subtraction, but the Patriots were somehow sellers at the trade deadline. They moved Dugger to the Steelers and White to the 49ers. “Both players had experienced heavier roles in the past than they were getting at the time,” Wolf told me. “[Kyle] wanted a larger role, and we were able to make that happen for him, while not hurting ourselves. “Keon had really kind of wanted more of an opportunity to maybe do some of the inside rush stuff that he had had some success on in the past. We had Milton and Christian [Barmore] who were playing really well.” When you add up all the movement from Vrabel and Wolf, you can see how the team went from 13 losses in 2024 to 17 (and maybe 18) wins in 2025. “We treat [players] the same way they treat the team,” Vrabel told me earlier this season. “And so that means we’re going to probably treat them differently, but we’re going to treat them the same way they treat the team.” It started with compassion and honesty, with players standing in front of each other at team meetings to share their “four H’s” — hopes, history, heroes and heartbreaks. Vrabel blended those team-building exercises with brutal honesty, which the coach uses to hold players accountable. And there have been so many different Vrabel tactics along the way, including regular showings of WWF clips from the “Road Warriors” and the 1970s movie “The Warriors.” These were intended to inspire the players to maintain their undefeated streak on the road, which stands at 9-0. (And technically, it could reach 10-0 this week, with the Patriots set to wear their white “away” uniforms in Santa Clara.) When training camp starts every summer, all 32 NFL teams want to win a Super Bowl. But, realistically, only a few are seen as having a true shot at the title. There weren’t many people who thought the Patriots had a chance this season. But they got to this point because Wolf and Vrabel found creative and collaborative solutions to the team’s many problems. Their arranged marriage helped them arrange a roster that’s worthy of a Lombardi Trophy. In Game Changers, we offer the playbook on the characters you need to know, on the field and off.​Latest Sports News from FOX Sports