Williams was by far the best special teams player in the league this year and second best wasn't even close (and was probably his teammate Luca Congi). There is no chance that Williams loses the award to BC's Tim Brown, the West Division nominee. That is no slight to Brown, who had an excellent season in his own right, but no one who played special teams in 2012 was as outstanding as Williams.
The other award nominees were also announced and most of them should come as no surprised.
In the Most Outstanding Player category it will be Toronto's Chad Owens going up against Calgary's Jon Cornish. To be honest, there really wasn't a slam-dunk candidate this year like in past years. It was obvious that Lulay was going to win it last year, Calvillo the year before and Burris the year before that. This year was a more wide open field and that is probably why two non-QBs were named. I say Cornish wins the award (or at least he should). I have made my feelings known on Chad Owens (he's highly overrated and his record is essentially meaningless), but aside from that I do think Cornish had an excellent season and deserves to be named MOP.
Top defensive player is between Edmonton's JC Sherritt and Montreal's Shea Emry. Sherritt should and will win this award. He broke Calvin Tiggle's record for tackles in a season and he didn't get caught punching another dude in the balls during a game. This won is going, rightfully, to Sherritt.
Cornish is also up for top Canadian against Emry. If Cornish is the best player overall, he is also the best player from Canada. This one is a no-brainer.
Top rookie is between Winnipeg's Chris Matthews and BC's Jabar Westerman. Westerman had a nice rookie campaign with the Lions, but Matthews should win this one in a walk. He finished the season with 81 catches, 1,192 yards and seven touchdowns. Matthews was near unstoppable at the start of the season, but he slowed down a bit later in the year. But it still won't matter come announcement time. Matthews will be the man accepting the award.
Finally, top offensive lineman is the same as last year. Montreal's Josh Bourke was the East Division nominee and BC's Jovon Olafioye was Bourke's West Division counterpart. Bourke won the award last year and I think the reverse will happen this year. I thought Olafioye should have won it last year, but you can't really say picking Bourke was wrong. I feel the same way this year; I think Olafioye is the best lineman in the league and should win the award.
We'll find out who wins the awards when they are handed out in Toronto on November 22nd.
Not sure how I originally got this in the wrong blog post, but here it is in the right one:
ReplyDeleteWho knew - crow tastes like rotisserie chicken. I am very glad I was wrong. Congratulations to Chris!
Me, on Oct 31: "Unfortunately I think Williams will be overlooked for both MOP and MOSTP... the latter especially if a certain over-rated player from Toronto breaks his team's record for total yardage."