NFL Honors 2015 Winners: Voting Results, Comments and Twitter Reaction

After a Week 3 loss in which his Packers offense was thoroughly picked apart for the second time in three games, Aaron Rodgers had a simple message to high-strung fans: relax. Eleven wins in 13 games, a division championship and a couple of heroic late-season performances on one leg later, Rodgers is your NFL MVP.

The Green Bay star was given the league's top award at the NFL Honors ceremony Saturday, which broadcast on NBC. He beat out Houston Texans defensive end J.J. Watt and Dallas Cowboys quarterback Tony Romo on a night that featured a number of high-profile presenters and the announcement of the 2015 Hall of Fame class.

Award	Winner
MVP	QB Aaron Rodgers (Green Bay Packers)
Offensive Player of the Year	RB DeMarco Murray (Dallas Cowboys)
Defensive Player of the Year	DE J.J. Watt (Houston Texans)
Offensive Rookie of the Year	WR Odell Beckham Jr. (New York Giants)
Defensive Rookie of the Year	DT Aaron Donald (St. Louis Rams)
Comeback Player of the Year	TE Rob Gronkowski (New England Patriots)
Coach of the Year	Bruce Arians (Arizona Cardinals)
Assistant Coach of the Year	Todd Bowles (Arizona Cardinals)
NFL.com Fantasy Player of the Year	RB Le'Veon Bell (Pittsburgh Steelers)
Deacon Jones Award	LB Justin Houston (Kansas City Chiefs)
Walter Payton Man of the Year	LB Thomas Davis (Carolina Panthers)
Bridgestone Performance Play of the Year	WR Odell Beckham Jr. (New York Giants)
Greatness on the Road Award	QB Tony Romo (Dallas Cowboys)

Former All-Pro linebacker Junior Seau and guard Will Shields led a class of inductees that featured a number of players finally getting in after an extended wait. Former Steelers running back Jerome Bettis, Raiders wideout Tim Brown and Pro Bowl defensive end Charles Haley rounded out the modern-day candidates. Mick Tingelhoff, a longtime Vikings center, and executives Ron Wolf and Bill Polian were also inducted. 

The race for MVP came down to Watt and Rodgers, with Romo and teammate DeMarco Murray trailing in a distant third place. Coming into Saturday night, no one quite knew which way the votes would fall.

Rodgers is the NFL's best quarterback on one of the league's marquee franchises and turned in the second-best season of his career, behind only the first time he won the MVP (2011). He threw for 4,381 yards and 38 touchdowns against a full-season career-low five interceptions, leading the Packers to an NFC North championship. Football Outsiders' DVOA metric named him the top quarterback in the league, nearly five percent better on average than the second-place Romo.

The Pro Football Writers Association of America had already named Rodgers its MVP. 

Watt is a football superhuman who is well on his way to being the best 3-4 defensive end in history and striking his place among the all-time defensive greats. He finished with 78 tackles and was second league-wide with his 20.5 sacks, becoming the first player in NFL history to have 20 sacks in two seasons. Working as an occasional goal-line tight end, Watt added three receiving touchdowns and had five touchdowns overall.

Pro-Football-Reference.com's approximate value metric, which attempts to quantify a player's performance and normalize it across positions, had Watt as the league's best player by a significant margin.

"Obviously, J.J. Watt," Seahawks linebacker Bruce Irvin said when asked for his MVP pick, per Tom Silverstein of the Journal Sentinel. "He's a freak. What he did defensively, he's a defensive guy doing that stuff. You expect that from Tom Brady; he's a Hall of Famer. But you got a D-(lineman), and he's got 20 sacks, five touchdowns, c'mon, that's unheard of." 

One award that didn't generate an iota of controversy was Watt's landslide Defensive Player of the Year triumph. That was perhaps the award with the least amount of pre-ceremony discussion. While others—such as Kansas City's Justin Houston and Seattle's Richard Sherman—had good seasons, Watt's honor was a no-brainer. He's the seventh player in league history to win the Defensive Player of the Year Award multiple times.

Equally impressive was DeMarco Murray's throwback 2014 campaign.

Murray, taking on a workhorse load many thought had long-since been eradicated from the NFL, led the NFL with 1,845 yards rushing on 392 carries, tied for the seventh-highest mark in league history, per Pro-Football-Reference.com. The former Oklahoma star's hard work paid off Saturday when he was named the NFL's Offensive Player of the Year. Surprisingly, he's the first Cowboy in history to take home the award.

As for the remainder of the awards, Comeback Player of the Year and Offensive Rookie of the Year provided no such surprises.

Rob Gronkowski was limited to seven games in 2013 due to myriad ailments, most notably an ACL tear that ended his season. Gronkowski came back in 2014 and re-established himself as the best tight end in football. His 1,124 yards and 12 touchdowns led (or tied for the lead) among tight ends. Pro Football Focus' yards-per-route run metric had Gronk as, by far, the best player at his position.

"When anyone goes through adversity, it all depends on how they react to it,'' Gronkowski told ESPNBoston.com's Jackie MacMullan. "I feel like everything I've been through has made me a stronger person.''

Odell Beckham Jr.'s season began with adversity. He sat out the first four games with a hamstring injury that also cost him critical training-camp time.

The LSU product did enough in the remaining 12 games to run away with the Offensive Rookie of the Year Award. Leading all rookies with 91 receptions and 1,305 yards (and tying with 12 touchdowns), Beckham edged out fellow former SECer Mike Evans and Cowboys guard Zack Martin.

Beckham wasn't only celebrated for his full-season accomplishments. His one-handed catch in a Week 13 Sunday night game against Dallas—a grab that almost defies words—came away with the league's Play of the Year award.

Aaron Donald was named the Rookie of the Year on the defensive side. While not as highlight-filled as Beckham's rookie campaign, the St. Louis Rams defensive tackle had 47 tackles and nine sacks.

Donald beat out Oakland's Khalil Mack and Baltimore's C.J. Mosley, who play the position (linebacker) that has become synonymous with the award. Donald is the second straight defensive lineman to win, the first time that's happened in nearly two decades.  

The Arizona Cardinals, one of the year's biggest surprises, were honored for their on-field accomplishments. Bruce Arians took home his second Coach of the Year Award since his unceremonious departure from Pittsburgh, the first coming in Indianapolis where he took over for Chuck Pagano, following his cancer diagnosis in 2012. Top assistant Todd Bowles, now the Jets' head coach, was named Assistant Coach of the Year.

Larry Fitzgerald earned the Art Rooney Award, which is given out for the player who best shows sportsmanship on the field. Earning the Walter Payton Man of the Year Award, handed out to the player whose off-the-field work best exemplifies the legacy of the former Bears star, was Panthers linebacker Thomas Davis.

As noted by NFL.com's Tyler Dragon, Davis' Defending Dreams Foundation has helped more than 2,000 underprivileged children through its various programs.

Follow Tyler Conway (@tylerconway22) on Twitter