One of the most interesting topics of the early 2024 National Football League offseason was the Comeback Player of the Year race between Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin and former Cleveland Browns quarterback Joe Flacco, since signed by the Indianapolis Colts.
As of January 2, 2024, Damar Hamlin was as high as a -143 favorite with some sports gambling outlets and had essentially been the wire-to-wire favorite for the honor since betting had opened.
But a funny thing happened on the way to the NFL Honors after party.
Flacco received the Comeback Player of the Year award, gaining 151 points to Hamlin’s 140. In the ranked choice system of voting, Hamlin received 21 first-place votes compared to Flacco’s 13, but the improbable playoff quarterback and unlikely fantasy playoff hero collected enough down-line votes to swing the total in his favor.
— Ian Rapoport (@RapSheet) February 9, 2024A close vote for Comeback Player of the Year, won by Joe Flacco:
Voting for AP Comeback Player of the Year (5-3-1 scoring):
Joe Flacco, Cleveland, 13-26-8=151
Damar Hamlin, Buffalo, 21-7-14=140
Baker Mayfield, Tampa Bay, 10-10-13=93
Whether brought on by this perceived upset or not, the Associated Press has come out and clarified the circ*mstances that should be considered in future votes for CPOY. In a message to voters, AP senior NFL writer Rob Maaddi stated:
The spirit of the AP Comeback Player of the Year Award is to honor a player who has demonstrated resilience in the face of adversity by overcoming illness, physical injury or other circ*mstances that led him to miss playing time the previous season.
Year after year, the proper qualifications for awards such as this are the subject of much scrutiny across fan bases and talking heads in sports. The “how do you define ‘valuable’” conversation has essentially turned the NFL MVP award into a “best quarterback on a number-one seed” award. In that regard, it’s good to have clarification that can be used to crystallize that part of the debate in the future.
Had that clarification been in place prior to the Comeback Player of the Year votes being cast, it’s my opinion that Damar Hamlin surely would have taken home the award, with Flacco’s “comeback” being far less about “overcoming illness and physical injury” and far more about overcoming a level of previous play that led to his not be on an NFL roster when the 2023 season opened.
It’s important to note that Flacco’s honor shouldn’t be considered unprecedented. Geno Smith won the award in 2022 under very similar circ*mstances, the main difference being that Smith was starting at quarterback for the Seattle Seahawks early in the season versus Flacco’s ascension in November. With that as an established method of winning the award and with Flacco following suit the following year, the Associated Press likely saw a trend in the voting that went against what they believed was the spirit of the award and issued this clarification.
Smith won the award in 2022 over running back Christian McCaffrey, who was coming off his first full season since 2019 due to injury. No big deal to the committee, who may have seen it as a one-off and not representative of a trend in the voting.
But after Flacco’s victory over Hamlin, the AP clearly saw the spirit of the award trending in a direction other than they would have preferred.
It’s unfortunate that the clarification came after what I believe to be a snug of Hamlin, but it’s fortunate that clarification was received at all, with statements like this not being common in the awards space.
The degree of a “comeback” can be defined easily as “the distance between what someone came back from and what someone came back to.” Joe Flacco came back from his couch (which he rightfully deserved) to a playoff-caliber quarterback. Damar Hamlin came back from cardiac arrest to an NFL roster. Which span do you believe is greater?
The level of contribution the Browns got from Flacco clearly outpaced that which the Bills received from Hamlin in 2023, who only appeared in five games for Buffalo. But that’s missing the point. “Who performed the best” is only half the equation. That helps determine “what someone came back to.” But what about what they came back from? What did they overcome? Both Geno Smith and Joe Flacco underwent career resurgences after stretches as journeymen backup-level quarterbacks. But it’s not the “Career Resurgence of the Year” award, and it appears that the AP saw enough after two years to keep the honor from going down that path.
Hamlin has made many contributions to the world at large since that fateful night in Cincinnati, where the entire football-watching world stared in stunned silence at what was unfolding on the field. He has promoted bipartisan legislation in Washington to gain more access to automated external defibrillators on school campuses. He launched a scholarship called Cincinnati Heroes, which will provide 10 children the award in honor of the 10 medical professionals who helped saved Hamlin’s life.
Now he can add one more accomplishment to his resume. One that will likely go down as the least important of all, but one still worth writing an opinion piece about: he helped define “comeback.”
...and that’s the way the cookie crumbles. I’m Bruce Nolan with Buffalo Rumblings. You can find me on Twitter and Instagram @BruceExclusive.
