Arizona Cardinals midseason awards

While the Arizona Cardinals will be at the midway point after this game from a schedule standpoint, we still call this midseason.

That means, it is awards time for the Arizona Cardinals.

While I have already announced the MVP, we still have plenty of awards to hand out.

MVP: Carson Palmer

From the article yesterday:

Their expected win/loss record from a statistical standpoint through this part of the season is 1-6. Having the Cardinals at 3-4 is really phenomenal work by Palmer.

Palmer was on pace for: 375 completions on 610 attempts for a 61.4% completion rate, 4,521 yards, 21 touchdowns and 16 interceptions.

Those are not great stats, but they are a great example of what Palmer was doing, despite having basically Larry Fitzgerald to work with.

Newcomer of the Year: Antoine Bethea

The offseason hasn’t done too much to improve the Cardinals, but Antoine Bethea has had a nice season.

Bethea is the #10 safety in the NFL according to Pro Football Focus and has replicated the backend general that Rashad Johnson was for the Cardinals.

Comeback Player of the Year: Tyvon Branch

Branch was a big disappointment in his first year, again losing a season to injuries. He is now the #4 safety in the NFL according to Pro Football Focus.

Defensive Player of the Year: Chandler Jones

Patrick Peterson is the best cornerback in the NFL for my money, but he doesn’t get the opportunity to make plays. Jones does and has each and every week. He is one of the most productive players in the NFL in negative plays for the opposition:

The Cardinals haven’t had a lot of great things occur the last two years, but their trade for Jones and the subsequent extension was a home run.

Biggest Disappointment: Tyrann Mathieu

While Mathieu is not a bad player by any means, he has not been the player that looked like the defensive player of the year in 2015. He just looks like an average slot corner at this point.

That’s not his fault, the fact he is able to still produce like he has after two knee surgeries is awesome, but he hasn’t looked like the Honey Badger.

Rookie of the Year: Haason Reddick

Reddick looked good learning to play inside linebacker, but now he is back to outside linebacker with the injury to Markus Golden.

We will see how that goes, but you have to like what you saw in Reddick before the move.