Quarterback: I went with Drake Maye for first team and Matthew Stafford for second. The voting turned out the other way, with the Rams’ Stafford getting 31 votes to Patriot Maye’s 18. In my opinion, Maye outpaced Stafford in most stats, had better team success, and did more with less around him. Buffalo’s Josh Allen earned one first-place vote and two seconds, with three voters leaving Maye off completely.
Running back/all-purpose: The AP added the all-purpose position for 2025, which complicated the process. I could have voted for the same player for first team at both positions, or not — whatever I felt was appropriate.
I went with the 49ers’ Christian McCaffrey for first team running back and Atlanta’s Bijan Robinson at all-purpose. McCaffrey was the workhorse for a 12-win team, and Robinson put up eye-popping numbers but without the team success. The final balloting was the opposite, and I’m glad that both players earned first team honors. Robinson also won second team all-purpose, but it should have gone to Detroit’s Jahmyr Gibbs (my pick) or the Colts’ Jonathan Taylor.
Tight end: The Cardinals’ Trey McBride was the obvious selection for first team, but second team was tricky, with several worthy players all within the same general range of catches, yards, and touchdowns. The honor went to Atlanta’s Kyle Pitts, but I chose the Patriots’ Hunter Henry.
Henry ranked seventh among tight ends in yards (768), third in average catch (12.8), fifth in touchdowns (seven), and first in first-down percentage (70 percent). The Patriots finished tied for the NFL’s best record (14-3) and No. 2 in points scored (28.8 per game), and Henry was their steadiest player.
Cornerback: The defensive back positions kept me awake at night. There are hundreds of DBs, and a million ways to evaluate them.
I went in circles. How much should the award be about reputation vs. stats? How much do you weigh traditional stats (interceptions, pick-6s, passes defended) against coverage stats and analytics (passer rating allowed, Expected Points Added, etc.)? What if a player puts up stats because opposing QBs aren’t afraid of targeting him? Conversely, what if a player doesn’t put up stats because QBs won’t go near him (the Deion Sanders effect)? What if a player is so talented that his coaching staff puts him in more difficult situations, and therefore his stats suffer? Are coverage stats even accurate?
Ultimately, I threw everything into the pot, and used high-impact plays like interceptions and pick-6s as tiebreakers. There has to be some kind of statistical output to justify a selection.
The Texans’ Derek Stingley was an obvious choice for first team — he has both stats and reputation. The other name that kept popping up was the Buccaneers’ Jamel Dean. He’s not a name I expected to pick, but he had traditional stats — three interceptions, a pick-6, two forced fumbles and a sack. He had coverage stats — the fifth-lowest catch rate (43 percent), and one touchdown allowed in 415 coverage snaps. Dean also had analytics — the sixth-lowest passer rating (41.3), and second-lowest coverage EPA (-28.3). Dean ultimately finished ninth in the voting, landing three first-place votes.
For second team, I went with the Panthers’ Mike Jackson, and the Bills’ Christian Benford. Great analytics, and multiple high-impact plays for teams that made the playoffs.
The Eagles’ Quinyon Mitchell earned first team, and I strongly considered him, but ultimately couldn’t vote for a cornerback without an interception or high-impact play. For second team, the Broncos’ Patrick Surtain and Seahawks’ Devon Witherspoon won the honor but not my vote — they were injured for part of the year and didn’t produce All-Pro stats.
Slot cornerback: The Chargers’ Derwin James qualified at this position, and seemed an easy choice for first team, with three picks, two sacks, 94 tackles, and no touchdowns allowed in 453 coverage snaps. He ultimately earned second team. The Texans’ Jalen Pitre also seemed an easy choice for second team, with four interceptions, no touchdowns allowed, and the best coverage EPA among all DBs, but he finished third.
The Eagles’ Cooper DeJean had a solid season with two picks and a forced fumble, but his analytics don’t line up near those of James and Pitre. Voters were perhaps too enamored with the Eagles. Defensive coordinator Vic Fangio probably deserves some credit.
Special teams: I had the Patriots’ Marcus Jones as my second team punt returner behind the Titans’ Chimere Dike, which was appropriate but feels inadequate given Jones’s phenomenal season on defense and special teams. The AP should create a defense/returner slot next year, similar to all-purpose, to account for versatile defensive players like Jones.
I was the only person who gave a special teams vote to Eagles defensive tackle Jalen Carter (second team), who blocked two kicks this year (vs. Rams, and vs. Bills) that led directly to wins. And I gave my first team long snapper vote to the Dolphins’ Joe Cardona, who didn’t flub a snap all year and finished second among snappers with five tackles.
A few notes ahead of Sunday’s Patriots-Texans game:
▪ The Texans are the only NFL team never to have reached a conference championship game. They are 0-6 all time in the divisional round, with all six losses on the road. But they are breaking new barriers this year. This is the first time in franchise history the Texans made the playoffs as a wild-card team (to go with eight AFC South titles). Last week’s win over the Steelers was also the first road playoff win in the franchise’s 24 years.
▪ The Patriots have won eight straight divisional-round games, the longest streak by any team in any round in NFL history. They are 24-5 (.828) at home in the playoffs, for the second-best winning percentage among all teams (the Cardinals are 5-0).
▪ The Texans’ magic number on offense is 20 points. They won all 12 games this year when scoring at least 20, but are 1-5 in games under 20, with their lone win a 16-13 victory at Tennessee.
▪ C.J. Stroud’s five fumbles in Monday’s win over the Steelers tied Warren Moon in 1994 for most in a playoff game in NFL history. Quarterbacks are now 2-9 all time (including playoffs) when fumbling at least five times. The other win was Eli Manning and the Giants over the Bills in 2007.
▪ The Texans allowed the fewest yards and second-fewest points in the NFL, but Drake Maye may have an opportunity to complete downfield passes. Houston allowed 47 plays of at least 20 yards, fourth-most among the 14 playoff teams. Maye completed 67 passes of 20-plus yards, second only to the Rams’ Matthew Stafford (72).
▪ The Texans ran the ball well last week against the Steelers, but generally have been dreadful this year, with a 34 percent success rate on designed runs that ranked ahead of only the Raiders (30.5 percent). Houston’s offensive line doesn’t get much push, with their runners averaging just 0.7 yards before contact, fifth-fewest in the league.
Meanwhile, the Patriots’ run defense thrives with linebacker Robert Spillane, who returned from a four-game absence last week. The Patriots allow 3.7 yards per carry with Spillane and 4.6 yards without him, and held the Chargers’ running backs last week to 30 yards on 12 carries.
▪ Both teams rely on youngsters. Rookies accounted for 21.1 percent of Patriots snaps and 20.6 percent of Texans snaps, the third- and fifth-highest rate in the NFL, respectively. Only the Titans (26.3 percent) and Browns (25.7 percent) were higher than the Patriots.
Ravens owner Steve Bisciotti hasn’t talked to the media much in recent years, but he was expansive in an hour-plus press conference last week following the firing John Harbaugh after 18 years together.
Bisciotti said the fact that the Ravens have the NFL’s third-most wins in the last decade but no Super Bowl appearances made them “underachievers” and played into his decision. He said if kicker Tyler Loop had made that field goal at the end of Ravens-Steelers, Harbaugh would have only remained coach “for a week.”
Interestingly, Bisciotti said he’s open to hiring a coach who is a retread and struggled in his first go-round.
“It’d be very easy for me to try and avoid those ex-head coaches because they have losing records,” Bisciotti said. “But I’m telling you, we are keen to their circumstances, and we won’t let their first shot at a job influence us negatively for this one.”
Lamar Jackson has two years left on his contract, and Bisciotti said getting the quarterback signed to a new deal is a priority to lower his $74.5 million cap hit and give the Ravens flexibility in free agency. Bisciotti also said that Jackson will have “a lot of say” in the next head coach, though ultimately it will be a decision by general manager Eric DeCosta, executive vice president Ozzie Newsome, and president Sashi Brown. Bisciotti invited Jackson to participate in the final round of interviews.
“I think [DeCosta is] texting Lamar after every interview, whether it’s Zoom or in person, and I think he’s getting some opinions from Lamar,” Bisciotti said. “I said to Lamar last night, ‘When they call me up from Florida, you better get your [expletive] up here, too, because if you want to do the interviewing, these are going to be full-day meetings like they were 18 years ago, and they go from department to department to department.’ ”
Steelers president Art Rooney II said Wednesday he was ready to run it back with Mike Tomlin for a 20th season. Instead, Tomlin waited about 20 minutes after the Steelers’ season ended to announce his resignation on Tuesday, suggesting that he had made his decision well in advance. Steelers fans would be right to question whether Tomlin was fully invested in 2025.
“I was certainly willing to take another run at it next year with Mike, and that’s what I was expecting to talk about yesterday,” Rooney said Wednesday. “But obviously, it went in a different direction.”
The Steelers will be looking for just their fourth coach in 57 years. Their last three coaches have all come from the defensive side, but Rooney said he will have “an open mind,” though he said the next coach is likely not currently on staff.
When asked about Aaron Rodgers returning, Rooney answered that Rodgers came to Pittsburgh to play for Tomlin, which suggests the Steelers are moving on. They have been treading water with over-the-hill quarterbacks for the entire 2020s, and need to find their next youngster. But Rooney said the Steelers don’t need a full rebuild.
“I’m not sure why you waste a year of your life not trying to contend,” he said. “Some years you have the horses to really get there, some years you don’t. But you try every year, in my view.”
Eagles GM Howie Roseman expressed a similar sentiment on Thursday.
“I think it’s important for our fans to understand — you can do whatever it takes to win now and still build for the future and still have those parallel paths,” he said.
NFL teams have become video production companies that happen to play football, and it seems every team now does its own behind-the-scenes content. But last week on WEEI, former Patriots QB Brian Hoyer relayed a story from the 2019 Super Bowl against the Rams that should give teams pause about revealing so much.
“I was sitting there and it’s Tuesday in Atlanta, I saw this docuseries that the Rams had done that year, an internal ‘Hard Knocks,’ ” Hoyer said. “And a lot of terminology, I’m like, ‘I know that play, I know that formation, this is the same offense that I ran in San Francisco.’ So I felt very confident in my knowledge of what they were going to do.”
The Patriots won the game, 13-3.
Matthew Stafford and the Rams better pack their mittens for Sunday’s game in Chicago, with temperatures expected to be in the single digits. In 17 seasons playing for dome teams in Detroit and LA, Stafford has never played a game with a kickoff temperature of 20 degrees or lower. The Rams’ worst performances the last few years have come in the rain, cold, and snow … Color me shocked that the Panthers are picking up Bryce Young’s fifth-year option, a fully guaranteed $26.52 million for the 2027 season. Young was better in Year 3, but he still looks physically overmatched, and the Panthers made the playoffs in spite of him. This feels like a case of the Panthers doubling down on their former No. 1 draft choice instead of admitting it was a mistake and moving on … Oregon quarterback Dante Moore surprised many draft analysts by returning to school for 2026 instead of entering the NFL Draft, where he could’ve been the No. 2 pick. But I wouldn’t want to go to the Jets, either … A total of 63 college players with eligibility remaining did declare for April’s draft, down from 70 last year and from a high of 106 players in 2018. Though the transfer portal has gotten out of control, at least more kids are staying in school now … Aaron Rodgers might become the first player in NFL history to throw a pick-6 in the playoffs on the final pass attempt of his career … Sunday’s game at Chicago will be Sean McVay’s 15th playoff game as Rams coach, against 15 different opponents. He faced the Patriots and Bengals in Super Bowls and, after Sunday, the only NFC teams he won’t have faced in the postseason are the Commanders and Giants … Dolphins tight end Darren Waller said on Johnny Manziel’s podcast last week that he was conducting his exit interview with former coach Mike McDaniel when owner Stephen Ross walked into the room. “The conversation kind of hits a lull and I’m sitting across the desk from Mike, and Steven Ross is standing there just kind of looking at me, like, ‘It’s time for you to get the hell out.’ … And so I go downstairs and get a massage. I come up from the massage, check my phone, he’s fired. I’m like, ‘damn.’ “
