*Complaining about Awards is Fun

[Hallmonitor_20]

I want to start this off by saying that I have no problem with Hanyadi winning RBotY because he had an amazing season.

This article is also not attacking the work that the awards committee did because I think they did well for their first season as a group with little idea and no pay.

Basically I want to talk about how inconsistent award votes can be. One season a workhorse RB can run away with the RBotY votes and the next year a a pass catching back wins the award.

To make my totally unbiased point I will compare the S20 awards to the s19 awards for RBotY.

The winner in S20 is Hanyadi who put together an outstanding season with 1100 yards and 11 touchdowns rushing as well as 402 yards receiving on 50 catches for another 4 touchdowns. This gave Hanyadi a total of 1502 yards and 15 Touchdowns on the season which is definitely worthy of an award as shown by the votes he received.

The RBotY runner up this season was Sam Torenson who put together a league leading 1,334 yards with 8 touchdowns. Just looking at rushing Torenson was a standout RB also worthy of the award on a worse team but his pass catching numbers are dwarfed compared to Hamyadi's.

So the league chose the flex back that was more dynamic in S20 and with the future of the league providing better and better RB talent could open doors for pass catching running backs.

Now to look at S19, The RBotY was Bigby the workhorse himself who put together an outstanding season leading the league with 1,237 yards and piling on 9 touchdowns. Bigby's numbers got him the award as he was above every other running back with his yardage and a nice touchdown total as well.

Now let's take a look at Ashley Owens' S19 campaign. The Yeti RB had 1,004 yards for 9 touchdowns running the ball which would be a top 5 performance in the league. Owens however had a great season catching the ball picking up 572 yards on 61 catches and 5 more touchdowns. Combining his total stats gave Owens 1,576 yards and 14 Touchdowns on the season.

Owens had a comparable season to Hanyadi's S20 award winning season but received 2 votes for the award compared to Bigby's 12 granted S20 is the first season with the new voting template.

What made voters push aside a pass catching back from votes for RBotY in s19 but choose a similar back for the s20 season?

Comparing the four runningbacks seasons

Torenson: 1,334 yards 8 Touchdowns (Runner Up)
Bigby: 1,237 yards 9 Touchdowns (Won)

Hanyadi: 1,502 yards and 15 Touchdown (Won)
Owens: 1,572 yards and 14 Touchdowns (Runner Up)

Now depending on how much you value touchdowns the argument can be made that Torenson had a better season than Bigby and Owens had a better season than Hanyadi. Does this mean that the voters decided that this season a pass catching RB is more worthy than a workhorse RB or maybe is it a change in heart after seeing a season like Owens be pushed aside?

Another possible factor is that Hanyadi and Bigby both went deeper into the season than the player they beat out in votes. Do the voters add team success to their votes? Name bias for seeing these players perform more in the playoffs? Do they look at playoffs during the votes to make their decision?

All 4 of the player mentioned in this article are amazing RBs who all had amazing seasons and all award deserving I just wanted to point out the voting swapping from one type of season to another. Will this be a trend of Workhorse vs Flex Back or will the league fall into a new trend and force players to evolve their game?

And one final statement. Owens made the pro bowl last season as a Offensive Flex player. Does this mean Hanyadi will be the OFlex for the NSFC this season or will he break the mold and make the team as a running back?

[CLG Rampage]

[Hallmonitor_20]

I still said you deserved to win the award just pointing out the difference in winners from the past 2 seasons

[Modern_Duke]

Bigby had 449 receiving yards in 19. Torenson had 208 in 20

[Duilio05]

Edit: removed click bait sentence.

As GM of one of the RBs mentioned in this, I am happy to put myself out there for criticism, and give my homerism too.

Every Awards or Pro Bowl ballet I've submitted I've have taken into consideration both rushing and receiving yards of a running back, and I for one don't think "FBs" need their own award. They should be fairly compared to their position peers - TE or RB, and the positional tag of FB shouldn't cause bias in a voter.

Let's begin with S19 award Bigby vs Ownes. First lets uncheery pick those stats and open the competition field. There were three other RBs with more rush yards than Torenson and less than Bigby, not to mention the 4 other RBs with 1000+ rush yards.

Here's the 9 players with most Rush Yards
S19 rush rec total yards rush rec tds total tds
Bigby, L. 1237 449 1686 9 2 11
Mendonca, M. 1208 305 1513 11 1 12
Gump, F. 1204 217 1421 8 1 9
Tyerucker ®, Q. 1167 67 1234 5 1 6
Torenson, S. 1146 370 1516 11 2 13
Ruff ®, R. 1109 315 1424 8 1 9
Toriki, M. 1093 104 1197 7 5 12
Danielsson, A. 1040 126 1166 10 0 10
Owens, A. 1004 572 1576 9 5 14

First off Bigby and Owens are two of 6 RBs to have 10 or more total TDs. Between Bigby and Owens specifically Owens has 3 more total TDs than Bigby.

However when you consider yards, Bigby and Owens are 2 of only 4 RBs to have 1500+ total yards. Between the two Bigby has 110 more yards than Owens. Most voters probably favored the player with 110 more yards vs the one with 3 more TDs. If a voter still on the fence, they could turn to avg yards per rush or rec. Ownes tallied a rush avg of 3.8 and a rec avg of 9.4. Bigby in comparison beats both avgs with a rush avg of 4.3 and a rec avg of 9.8.

Considering Bigby had 449 rec yards, he was the more efficient player on the ground and through the air, and in a year with so many good RBs, the small details are more scrutinized.

Compare that to S20 where there were only 2 RBs to broke 1500 total yards, and only 2 RBs have over 10 TDs, the details aren't as deeply scruitnized, especially when one player puts up almost twice as many TDs as most other players.

Again the top 9 players most Rush Yards.
S19 rush rec total yards rush rec total tds
Torenson, S. 1334 208 1542 8 0 8
Tyerucker ®, Q. 1283 16 1299 8 0 8
Hanyadi, M. 1100 402 1502 11 4 15
Mendonca, M. 1052 345 1397 7 2 9
Armstrong, F. 1001 1001 8 8
Gump, F. 952 324 1276 10 2 12
Toriki, M. 926 136 1062 3 0 3
Bigby, L. 917 225 1142 6 1 7
Owens, A. 913 536 1449 7 2 9

As seen Hanyadi has almost twice as many total TDs as every player except Gump, who he has a 226 yard avantage over.

And finally your premise is dumb too because the only RB in both seasons that was truly a "pure running"back vs "recieving" back was Tyerucker, only runningback in both seasons to have less than 100 rec yards and more than 1000 rush yards.

[Hallmonitor_20]

"Homerism" when I was hyping up Owens more than Torenson lol.

Also my point for this is that someone who's major stats come from receiving vs looking at purely running the ball.

Torenson and Bigby both had amazing cases as pure runners because they lead the league in yards and had good TD totals compared to Hanyadi and Owens who looking at rushing alone had great seasons but their receiving is what made them even better than before and award worthy.

I never once said Hanyadi or Bigsby didnt earn their awards because they 10000% did I was just pointing out how the awards seem to be opposite this season compared to last between a Running Back who's mostly impressive as a runner compared to RBs who use receiving to put them over the top.

I was never once trying to make this a hit piece and say one RB was better than the other.

[Duilio05]

Okay you are right, i removed the click bait jab. But still don't understand your point. All four had good seasons running and recieving. I guess I just don't understand how you are defining what a pure runner is? and why you are trying to make that distinction. Cause Bigby had the second most rec yards by a RB in S19. and Torenson had a good chunk of rec yards in S20 too.

[Hallmonitor_20]

Basically taking guys that couldve easily won only looking at their rushing vs guys that excelled at receiving enough that combined with their rushing made them award front runners.

And for example how Bigby was considered the best RB by far and the votes showed him walking away with it 12-2 to Owens when he had 110 more yards but 3 less TDs.

Whereas stat wise Hanyadi was much better then Torenson having 7 more TDs but 40 less yards but won his vote 40-25.

Now yes there is the new voting in place so maybe that's why Hanyadi's win doesnt seem as dominant but looking at the numbers Owens shouldve had a closer race with Bigby then Hanyadi did with Torenson

[Duilio05]

you hit the nail on the head. its a new voting system. Hanyadi vs Torenson seems closer this year because players got points for being 2nd or 3rd on voters ballots. rather than a pure winner takes all sort of thing that it used to be. I'd be willing to bet if the system was in place last season Owens would have a lot of 2nd place points.

[br0_0ker]

A receiving back won the WRotY award for the DSFL, so I'm thinking this year's batch of voter just favored receiving backs