With only one more game left in the 2022-2023 season, it’s time to roll out Pro Football Network’s end-of-season NFL awards. While the MVP award was cut and dry this season, many other categories were difficult to delineate between.
2022-23 PFN End-of-Season NFL Awards
Playoff performances do not matter. These are regular-season awards. Let’s get to it!
Most Valuable Player: Patrick Mahomes, QB, Kansas City Chiefs
Jalen Hurts showed significant growth in 2022, and the value he adds as a rusher is outstanding. But this was supposed to be the year we saw the mortal version of Patrick Mahomes. Losing Tyreek Hill was supposed to hurt the Chiefs’ offense. And somehow, they were even better this season than they were a year ago.
MORE: List of NFL MVP Winners
And Mahomes looked no more mortal than Captain Marvel. He’s the best player on the planet at the most important position in professional sports. While his surroundings certainly are not a barren wasteland, he makes a good offense look like the best in the league.
Offensive Player of the Year: Jalen Hurts, QB, Philadelphia Eagles
Justin Jefferson was so close. He had the OPOY award and possibly the single-season receiving record in the bag had he not been locked down like Fort Knox over the final three weeks of the season. From a value perspective, Hurts couldn’t supplant Mahomes, but he deserved credit for his outstanding production.
His value as a rusher cannot be understated, and he grew significantly as a passer in 2022. He finished fourth in points earned per play as a passer, was fifth in CPOE, and also added the second-highest EPA-per-rush mark, trailing only Justin Fields.
Defensive Player of the Year: Nick Bosa, EDGE, San Francisco 49ers
If there were a “Most Valuable Defensive Player Award,” Micah Parsons would win. His on/off splits dwarf Bosa’s, but he finished even in most pass-rushing metrics and sacked opposing QBs five fewer times.
Nick Bosa had an outstanding season, finishing with the most sacks in the NFL. According to Sports Info Solutions, Bosa also finished third in pressure rate and first in sack rate, knockdowns, and hits. In a league filled to the brim with outrageous pass-rushing talent, Bosa cleared them all this year.
Offensive Rookie of the Year: Garrett Wilson, WR, New York Jets
With no quarterbacks doing enough for consideration, the award came down to Kenneth Walker III and Garrett Wilson. Walker had the highest breakaway rate in the NFL this season. He is a true big-play threat. However, his down-to-down consistency let him down, as did his missed games due to injury.
Wilson amassed 1,100 yards playing with hilariously bad QB play. Brian Hartline did it again, creating an NFL-ready receiver out of Ohio State. He’s a good route runner to all three levels of the field, possesses a disrespectful leaping ability, and has consistent hands.
Defensive Rookie of the Year: Sauce Gardner, CB, New York Jets
Tariq Woolen had an outstanding rookie season out of nowhere for the Seattle Seahawks, but Sauce Gardner may already be one of the three-best cornerbacks in the NFL, and he ain’t three. The young man is simply a natural, and we should have guessed as much when he stepped on the field and competed against Alabama in the College Football Playoff a season ago.
The long CB is incredibly fluid for his size, but it’s the mental side of his game that is so impressive as a young cornerback. The transition from college to the pro isn’t supposed to be as easy as Gardner made it.
Coach of the Year: Kyle Shanahan, San Francisco 49ers
Kyle Shanahan had arguably the best team in the NFL with Mr. Irrelevant under center. He did such a convincing job making Brock Purdy look good that ESPN took him fourth overall in a redraft they did of the 2022 NFL Draft class! Shanahan has his flaws when it comes to game management and some of the other finer points of coaching, but most other coaches do.
If the defense would have carried the offense to their success without Trey Lance and Jimmy Garoppolo, someone else could have won the award. But Shanahan has built an offense that can survive with seemingly anybody other than Josh Johnson under center.
Offensive Coordinator of the Year: Shane Steichen, Philadelphia Eagles
Shane Steichen and Nick Sirianni are a great pair. Over the past two seasons, the Eagles’ offense has found a way to maximize Jalen Hurts as a passer while also designing a rushing attack that was one of the best of the decade.
MORE: When Are NFL Awards Announced?
The Eagles ranked third in EPA per play. They were the seventh-best team in the league in dropback EPA and the best on the ground. And their design of the rugby scrum changed how we look at QB sneaks.
Defensive Coordinator of the Year: DeMeco Ryans, San Francisco 49ers
DeMeco Ryans’ defense in San Francisco was talented, but it was their attention to detail that set them apart. Well, that and Fred Warner. That guy can do anything.
San Francisco ran every coverage under the sun, and they lived most of their life off two-high looks pre-snap that led to one of the safeties spinning down into the curl-flat zone. But their pressure packages and ability to disguise pre- and post-snap made all the difference against better QBs.
Executive of the Year: Howie Roseman, Philadelphia Eagles
What a maniac. Howie Roseman is the most active GM in the game, and it took every bit of that effort to practically rebuild a team from scratch in a two-year span. Some say that talent acquisition is a 24/7, 365-day endeavor. But Roseman lives that sentiment. Sometimes the moves work, and sometimes they don’t. But shooters shoot, and Roseman was on fire over the past 12 months.
The A.J. Brown trade was a home run. Haason Reddick was the best signing of free agency. Bringing on Linval Joseph and Ndamukong Suh when the run defense was struggling was beautiful.
C.J. Gardner-Johnson was on pace for 37 interceptions before his injury. And when nobody traded for James Bradberry, Roseman signed him, and Bradberry had one of the best seasons of anyone at the position.