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Late last week, SB Nation bloggers had a chance to vote on a variety of regular season awards, in order to provide our own slant on the 2012 NFL regular season. It has been a pretty crazy year for the entire league, and the awards reflect that. Check out the whole rundown of awards at SB Nation.
The 49ers most prominent option was Aldon Smith, a strong candidate for Defensive Player of the Year. SB Nation ended up voting J.J. Watt for the award, with Aldon finishing second as he received seven votes. I thought it over quite a bit, but ended up voting Watt for the award. Aldon Smith is a dominant defensive player, but what Watt did as a 3-4 defensive end is kind of incredible. He currently leads the NFL with 20.5 sacks and is tied for 12th with 15 pass deflections. To put that latter number in context, of the top 43 players, he is the only non-defensive back. That's rather ridiculous.
49ers head coach Jim Harbaugh will potentially find himself getting some votes, and he ended up third in the balloting. Indianapolis Colts head coach Bruce Arians claimed the victory with 11 votes. Pete Carroll was second with five votes, and Harbaugh was tied for third with two votes alongisde Gary Kubiak, John Fox and Leslie Frazier.
The one award that I think was toughest to decide was comeback player of the year. Peyton Manning claimed the award with 23 of the 28 votes, and Adrian Peterson was second with five votes. One of those five votes came from me. There are good arguments for both, and personally I think it should be a co-CPOY award. Manning is deserving because of the nature of his nerve issues, and the fact that he couldn't do much of anything in the way of throwing at one point. AP is worthy because even though players come back frequently from ACL injuries, how many do it this quickly, and with this kind of dominance?
What do you think of the award winners?