We May Never See Something Like This Again

the NFL has six major inseason player Awards MVP offensive player of the year Defensive Player of the Year offensive Rookie of the Year Defensive Rookie of the Year and comeback player of the year now the NFL and NBA share a lot of the same Awards like MVP Defensive Player of the Year and coach of the year but there's one award that they don't share and I never understood it and that's most improved player the NFL year after year has so many players who break out but aren't shown enough love for it now that could exactly be the reason why the NFL doesn't have a most improved player award a ridiculous amount of players sued up every year to play in an NFL game for example 565 players played in an NBA game last year 1,368 players played in the NFL last season on defense alone so with that many players playing every season it would certainly be challenging to point out one single player who improved the most but I did just that I poured Blood Sweat and Tears and gave out the MIP award over the last 4 years the amount of time I spent on pro football reference and Pro Football Focus is concerning for my health so without further Ado let's get into this last season's candidates but first let's go through how you even qualify to win MIP here are the requirements I made up for you to have a chance to win this award first you must have played in at least 10 games the prior season I chose this because I was looking for players who were on the field for most of the year but we're just simply not productive and we're let's be honest just simply bad you also can't win multiple Awards the same season so for example in 2021 when Cooper cup broke out and was the Triple Crown winner he also won offensive player of the year this means he is disqualified from winning most improved player I made it this way so we can show love to other players who didn't win any awards and finally if you already had a great year a few years prior you can't win this award like how in 2020 Devonte Adams exploded for, 1300 yard and 18 touchdowns after only having 997 yards and five this season prior Devonte wouldn't be able to win MIP with these numbers because just two years earlier in 2018 he put up nearly 1,400 yards in 13 touchdowns make sense hopefully so let's get into it so even though last season was a statistically down year on offense from what we're used to two of our three candidates are still on offense and here they are Nico Collins kyen Williams and Antoine Winfield Jr three amazing contestants that all improved their game immensely Nico Collins had more yards this year than his first two combined Kiren Williams went from a third string to leading the NFL in rushing yards per game and Antoine Winfield Jr jumped up over 20 in terms of coverage grade but you'll notice a trend with all of these Awards and it's that for me almost all of our winners are a no-brainer so your 2023 most improved player award go Goes To None other than Mr Kiren Williams and when I dive into the numbers I think you'll agree with me also here is Ken's numbers over the last 2 years it's almost otherworldly Improvement and to really show just how much of a step his game took here is a chart that shows every running back that had more carries than Kiren last season and how much they either increased or decreased in terms of rushing grade from the prior season all the way to the left is former rushing champ in Josh Jacobs who had an awful 2023 running back in the middle who only improved by 0.1 was Derrik Henry one of the more consistent and better running backs in the league and the second highest on this chart is Christian mcaffrey the offensive player of the year and I'm sure you could have guessed it all the way at number one with the highest Improvement in rushing grade Kiron Williams he went from not seeing the field in a weak Rams backfield to being the second best running back in 2023 and maybe could have even been the best Christian mcaffry one offensive player of the year and rightfully so he was by far the most productive back in the NFL this past season but one thing I haven't pointed out yet is that Kiren Williams put up these numbers in only 12 games here's what the comparison looks like when you showcase just how close the race was for the top running back in 2023 and it's honestly shocking just how close these two are if Kiren didn't go out for 4 weeks on IR there was a real possibility that Kiren Williams would have actually been the NFL's off offensive player of the year from being a fifth round pick just one year earlier to potentially being the best offensive player in the league crazy how the NFL works now moving on to the 2022 season and here are our candidates Jaylen Herz Josh Jacobs and Alex Smith and for this one it was tough for me to put my bias aside I would love to give the 2022 most improved player award to Josh Jacobs with me being a Raider fan but of these three players there's really only one real answer and his name is Jaylen Herz after Herz first two seasons in the league he had a lot of doubters about whether he could actually be a top quarterback in this league and rightfully so in the 2021 season here is where Jaylen ranked amongst quarterbacks in the league he ranked 26th in compete in percentage 21st in passing yards and 22nd in passing touchdowns while starting 15 games and going 8 and seven but this was only jaylen's second season in the league and this Eagles offense was not very good whatsoever so in the 2022 off season the Eagles went out and traded for AJ Brown to help with their Young quarterback and let's just say he did just that in The Following Season here is where he ranked in those same statistics 11th in completion percentage 10th in passing yards and 14th in passing touchdowns while also going 14 and one now although these may not be eye popping improvements there are two things I'd like to look at to determine how good a quarterback was on the season without actually watching them and that's passer rating and passing grade in 2021 herds had a passer rating of 87.2 which ranked 22nd in the league and his passing grade set at 73.4 which ranks 14th out of 31 qualified quarterbacks and in 2022 Herz made astonishing leaps in both categories his passer rating went up to 101.5 which ranked fourth of all quarterbacks and his passing grade went up by 7.2 to put him at 80.6 which ranked sixth out of 34 quarterbacks and for me when a quarterback makes a leap like this it's hard not to reward him with the most improved player for quarterback to be the hardest position in the sport and you go from being bottom 10 to second in MVP just one season later that's about the most the player can improve in just one season but somehow I think the winner of 2021 may have made an even bigger leap here's our three candidates for that year Jonathan Taylor dandre Campbell and AJ Terrell now I know what you're thinking well this award is obvious it surely should go to JT he led the NFL in rushing yards and touchdowns this year nope oh well Campbell probably won it then I mean after that terrible year in Arizona and then making First Team all proo in Green Bay a year after he should win it that's an easy choice although a great case wrong again 2021 most improved player award goes to none other than AJ Terrell and honest honestly AJ was the whole reason I even made this video I remember after this season was when this thought first came to my mind because if the NFL did have this award he would 100% have my vote without a doubt AJ Terrell had about as bad of a rookie season as you can have here is a graph showing every quarterback from the 2021 season this shows how consistent a quarterback was during the season horizontal is their coverage grade and vertical is their overall grade all the way at the very top being the best cornerback this season was jayen Ramsey and on the opposite end being by far the worst Corner this season was Josh Norman so where does a rookie AJ Terrell fall on this graph all the way down here being arguably the worst quarterback in the entire league so in reality the only way AJ could go was up and AJ would do just that in fact he would do something that's never been done before AJ would go from arguably the worst Corner in the league to arguably the best in just one season AJ Terrell's jump from a 57 coverage grade to an 85.6 is the largest increase in grade for a corner that started 14 games or more in both seasons since PFF started tracking grades back in 2006 if you were to look up in the dictionary what does most improved mean 2021 AJ Terrell would be your definition and our final season we're giving out MIP 2 Is 2020 and here is our last last three candidates Trey Hendrickson Josh Allen and Calvin Ridley and somehow the further we keep going the more obvious the choices so your 2020 MIP to no one's surprise is Joshua Patrick Allen now I know we already gave out an award to a quarterback in Jaylen Herz but this one's different because almost all of Herz numbers improved to around the 11 to six range from being in the early 20s and with Josh's numbers well let me just show you in 2019 the bills were coming off a relative successful season going 10 and six and making the playoffs but having a successful season wasn't the case for Allen here are his numbers from That season and you're probably thinking to yourself these numbers aren't too bad and at face value I'd agree but here's where Allen ranked to the rest of the NFL with these numbers dead last in complacent percentage and bottom 10 in all other categories and to show how bad this number is here are some notable quarterbacks that had a a better passing grade than Josh Allen Mitchell trabis Sam darnold a rookie Daniel Jones and Gardner mchu it almost hurts to put these guys in the same conversation as Josh Allen and in similar fashion to jayen Herz the bills would also get Allen help going into his third year trading for a 26-year-old Stefan Diggs and this Duo would do pretty good together I would say after being a bottom five quarterback in 2019 Josh Allen would literally flip that number compl completely from being 23rd in yards to fifth passing touchdowns at 23 to fifth completion percentage dead last all the way up to Fourth and passer rating at 24 went up to Fourth as well from bottom five to top five in one year but the one number I didn't include there was passing grade cuz I thought it would be a lot better if I showed you this way here is every quarterback that played at least 14 games in both the 2019 and 2020 NF NL season and their passing grade along with their overall grade from 2019 and now I'm going to show you their grades from 2020 to see how much each quarterback increased or decreased in play for the most part each quarterback improved the largest jump being Aaron roders who had a solid 80.2 passing grade and went all the way up to 94.3 and our largest drop of these quarterbacks is Lamar Jackson going from an 85.3 to 76 .9 now the one Domino that didn't move is Josh Allen all the way down here is where Josh Allen ranked in 2019 now let's see where he ranked in 2020 and that ladies and gentlemen is what you call the most improved player hope everyone who watched this video learned something and also enjoyed I'm out peace

Channel: Dxvin

Views: 56,369

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Id: Ds1sTFOLg34

Length: 11min 55sec (715 seconds)

Published: Mon May 06 2024