We are just about halfway through the 2024 NFL campaign on the road to Super Bowl LIX in New Orleans, so it is time to suit up and pick out midseason honours…
Most Valuable Player – Josh Allen
Jared Goff’s staggering career resurgence has not only piloted the Detroit Lions into Super Bowl contention, but has too thrust him among the NFL’s MVP frontrunners after a near-spotless start to the season. He is 158 of 211 passing for a league-leading completion percentage of 74.9, 14 touchdowns and four interceptions, while having a second-best passer rating of 115.0 as the string-puller to Ben Johnson’s hypnotic offense.
Lamar Jackson has meanwhile completed 174 of 255 passes for a second-most 2,379 yards and 20 touchdowns to just two interceptions with a league-leading passer rating of 120.7. He is one-half of the league’s most devastating double-headed monster alongside Derrick Henry, as part of which he has also rushed for 505 yards and two scores amid Baltimore’s 6-3 start in his bid to win a third MVP award.
Goff is the perfect architect for Johnson, and Jackson the uniquely-gifted heartbeat of his rampant Ravens, but I am leaning towards Buffalo Bills quarterback Josh Allen for his continued ability to elevate Sean McDermott’s side. Allen IS the Bills offense, the cannon-armed rumbling, tumbling polar bear who will always keep them in the hunt despite injuries and departures elsewhere on the team. He has thrown for 2,001 yards and 17 touchdowns to just two interceptions, reducing the erratic turnovers and retaining unrivalled control of the AFC East. If the Bills make it all the way, it will be because of him.
Offensive Player of the Year – Derrick Henry
Need we ask? Running back discourse in recent years would suggest the days of Derrick Henry destruction should be long over by now. Paying veteran running backs is a fool’s game, they said. Running backs have no longevity, they said (not sure who ‘they’ are, but the point stands). Henry saw your running back discourse and stiff-armed it into oblivion as not only the offseason addition of the year but potentially the transformative final puzzle piece to Baltimore’s Super Bowl ambitions.
Henry is already up to 1,052 rushing yards on the year, with just nine games played. He leads all running backs with 11 rushing touchdowns and 46 first-down runs while averaging 116.9 yards per game having also just become the second player over the age of 30 in history to score a touchdown in 10 straight games, notching his 100th and 101st career rushing scores in Sunday’s win over the Denver Broncos. And somehow, you feel his true value won’t be unveiled until the playoffs in January, where his clock-controlling ground dominance could prove to perfect remedy to last year’s postseason downfall against the Kansas City Chiefs.
Defensive Player of the Year – Dexter Lawrence
Detroit Lions edge rusher Aidan Hutchinson was cruising towards Defensive Player of the Year honours with 7.5 sacks in five games before fracturing both his tibia and fibula in Week Six, ultimately ending his campaign. He also still leads the NFL with 27 pressures, according to Pro Football Reference. The ever-unsung Trey Hendrickson has been unassumingly phenomenal for the Cincinnati Bengals with a league-high 11 sacks and 24 pressures, while Lions star Brian Branch continues to haunt the many teams that passed on him at the Draft as the quintessential modern lane-punching, edge-rushing coverage-bailing safety.
And then there is TJ Watt, the most gifted edge rusher in the league and Hall of Fame-bounced wrecking ball with more than one hand in the Pittsburgh Steelers’ winning start to the campaign. Few, if any, have the ability to take over a game as he does. But seeing as it is only midseason, let’s go in a different direction, and to the best player on perhaps the worst team in football. New York Giants nose tackle Dexter Lawrence has nine sacks, 16 pressures and 34 combined tackles, bolstering his reputation as a throttling run-stuffer while becoming the focal point to Shane Bowen’s pass rush. He is shiftier, quicker and more agile than any 6’4″ 340lb grown man should be, and the league’s most aesthetically-satisfying center-manoeuvring fork-lifts.
Rookies of the Year – Jayden Daniels & Jared Verse
Offensive Rookie of the Year feels like it has been wrapped up, and with that Jayden Daniels appears to have answered Washington’s prayers in their search for a long-term quarterback solution. He is dissecting teams like a veteran through the air with tremendous pocket feel and field diagnosis – sitting third in completion percentage – while unleashing his athleticism as a true ground threat to the tune of 459 rushing yards as part of the league’s third-ranked running attack alongside Brian Robinson. He has settled immediately, out-performing No 1 pick Caleb Williams and igniting a new era for the Commanders.
The Los Angeles Rams might have felt hard done by when Kobie Turner was denied Defensive Rookie of the Year in 2023, the defensive lineman finishing third in the voting behind Jalen Carter and winner Will Anderson. This time they are on course for the top prize thanks to the impact of first-round linebacker Jared Verse, who is credited with 22 quarterback pressures, 3.5 sacks and 33 total tackles by Pro Football Reference. The Rams have struck gold on Verse and second-round defensive end Braden Fiske.
Best team in the NFL – Detroit Lions
Dan Campbell has transformed the narrative surrounding an entire city, Ben Johnson is hurtling towards a head coaching job, a written-off Goff is reborn and the Detroit Lions are flexing their credentials as not only Super Bowl favourites – particularly as far as NFC candidates are concerned – but one of football’s most enthralling spectacles.
It was a toss-up between the Ravens and Lions for the team looking most likely to torch their rivals, a couple of Ravens miscues against the Las Vegas Raiders and Cleveland Browns denying them the tag as favourites; they play to the level of their opponents, which they can only hope to be a good thing come January. But the Lions are riding the thrill of having a target on their back: David Montgomery and Jahmyr Gibbs are dazzling out of the backfield, Amon-Ra St Brown is developing into an ice-cold killer and end zone merchant and Detroit’s offensive line continues to maul defenders as the meanest and most athletic unit in the league. They are 7-1 and looking magnificent.
Biggest surprise – Sam Darnold
It would feel slightly unfair to omit Sam Darnold from a midseason recap given the career revival he has launched under the tutelage of Kevin O’Connell in Minnesota. His days as an NFL starter looked to be buried, but injury to rookie quarterback J.J. McCarthy in the offseason has paved the way for one final opportunity, which he has grabbed with both hands to lead the Vikings to a 6-2 start during a season that had promised little following the departure of Kirk Cousins.
Darnold, whose development had been blunted by three years with the Jets to what felt like a point beyond repair, is 155 of 223 (69.5 per cent) for 1,900 yards and 17 touchdowns to seven interceptions for a passer rating of 107.8. O’Connell has meanwhile put on a clinic to set up his play-caller for success, and might well collect Coach of the Year as a deserved reward come the end of the season.
Play of the Year – Saquon’s hurdle
There was Jayden Daniels, his 12.79-second scramble, Tyrique Stevenson’s fatal error and Noah Brown’s catch for Washington’s box office Hail Mary against the Chicago Bears. There was Garrett Wilson and the latest one-handed catch worthy of being plastered on every newspaper front page in New York as the Jets receiver challenged Odell Beckham Jr’s famous grab to help his side past the Houston Texans.
But for this one, it is hard to look beyond Saquon Barkley. To some, carrying three pints at once while walking back from the bar counts as a feat of athletic excellence. To some, it might be carrying six shopping bags from the car to rule out the need for a second trip. To others, it might be hurdling over grown men backwards.
The Philadelphia Eagles running back delivered a reminder that NFL players are the greatest athletes on the planet on Sunday, spinning around one defender before leaping in reverse over another to drop jaws across the league, including that of bewildered teammate A.J. Brown. I have never seen anything like it, and that is what elite sport is all about. Other-worldly genius.
Biggest disappointment – the New York Jets
The New York Jets were bubbling with optimism that they were about to taste long-lost playoff contention as they welcomed back four-time MVP quarterback Aaron Rodgers, who suffered a year-ending Achilles injury four plays into his debut in 2023. Rodgers was primed to lead a stellar cast including Garrett Wilson and Breece Hall while Saleh and Jeff Ulbrich oversaw one of the league’s most talented, postseason calibre defenses in a bid to wrestle the AFC East from the Bills.
Half a season in, they sit 3-6 and playing catch up with zero margin for error between now and the remainder of the season. They fired head coach Saleh (despite his defense being far from the issue) and threw their own Hail Mary by trading for Rodgers’ best friend Davante Adams (despite the offensive line, Rodgers’ mobility and the scheme itself being real issues). Victory over Houston was a flicker of hope, but is it too late?
Second-half dark horse candidates – the Los Angeles Rams
The NFC West is anybody’s game. And as you watched Matthew Stafford launch a 39-yard walk-off bomb to Demarcus Robinson against the Seattle Seahawks on Sunday, you got the feeling the Los Angeles Rams are not that far away from being a problem. The organisation might themselves have realised as much as they cooled trade talks around star wide receiver Cooper Kupp, who alongside Puka Nacua and Kyren Williams features as part of one of the league’s slickest offenses. Coupled with a youthful defense led by Verse, Fiske, Turner and Byron Young, Sean McVay’s 4-4 Rams have the chance to capitalise on an unpredictable NFC race.
With Joe Burrow under center, the Bengals always feel capable of overcoming their slow starts. And dare we ask… anybody for a Jets comeback?
Watch the New York Giants take on the Carolina Panthers live from Munich, Germany on Sky Sports NFL from 1.30pm this Sunday; Also stream with NOW.
