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Last season, the NFL Comeback Player of the Year award found itself at the center of a somewhat awkward situation courtesy of Joe Flacco and Damar Hamlin, and the Associated Press has decided to tweak the criteria in the hopes of avoiding a similar one in the future.
It would be unfair to say Joe Flacco didn’t deserve to win NFL Comeback Player of the Year honors based on what he was able to do after taking over as the starting quarterback of the Cleveland Browns in the middle of the season before helping the team punch its playoff to the tickets.
With that said, he emerged as a fairly unexpected spoiler in a race most people assumed Bills safety Damar Hamlin had already wrapped up when he suited up for the start of the season when you consider he almost died on the field toward the end of the previous one.
I discussed the awkward situation voters found themselves facing while writing about the situation when it was unfolding last year, as you could’ve made the argument for both men based on the criteria for the award, which was reserved for the player who “overcomes adversity to return to remarkable performance, in the form of not being in the NFL the previous year, a severe injury, or simply poor performance.”
The “poor performance” qualifier was ultimately what led to Flacco gaining the edge, as he ultimately fit the “remarkable performance” bill better than Hamlin, who obviously overcame a terrifying setback but only recorded a grand total of two tackles while appearing in 14 games.
According to Pro Football Talk, the Associated Press (which is in charge of handing out the Comeback Player of the Year award) has now decided to update that language to place an emphasis on players who were able to rally after succumbing to a physical (or possibly mental) ailment as opposed to those who were bad simply at football before getting better.
This year, voters will be tasked with focusing on candidates who deserve praise for “overcoming illness, physical injury or other circumstances that led him to miss playing time the previous season,” as the “poor performance” clause is now nowhere to be found.
That’s probably for the best.