NFL Honors 2015: Award Results, List of Winners and Reaction

In hindsight, the 2015 NFL Honors will be remembered as a critical turning point and polarizing in one breath.

The Hall of Fame class personifies this. Logjams were shattered with Charles Haley and Tim Brown awarded busts, but The Bus, Jerome Bettis, soaked up a spot and helped to create arguably the biggest first-ballot snub in history with the omission of Orlando Pace.

NFL Network's Albert Breer shared the full class:

When it comes to individual awards, there were few major surprises, although the MVP decision between Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers and Houston Texans defensive lineman J.J. Watt will turn a few heads, as the precedent set may prohibit a defender from winning the award for a long time.

The full list is as follows.

2015 NFL Honors Results

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)

Start with the most obvious award of the night—Offensive Rookie of the Year.

Odell Beckham Jr. needed just 12 games to steal the award from other worthwhile candidates such as Mike Evans of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Zack Martin of the Dallas Cowboys.

The LSU product caught 91 passes for 1,305 yards and 12 touchdowns, as the New York Giants shared on Twitter:

Wildly enough, recent reports noted that Beckham played the season injured, making his debut season all the more impressive.

For his part, Beckham has his eyes on bigger things, as captured by Art Stapleton of The Record:

Beckham's award was not alone in the "obvious" department, though.

Arizona Cardinals coach Bruce Arians taking home the Coach of the Year award is up there, too.

Arians led the Cardinals to 11 wins in the brutal NFC West. That on its own should be enough for contention. He accomplished the feat, though, with Drew Stanton, Carson Palmer, Ryan Lindley and Logan Thomas under center, among other notable injury woes.

As ESPN Stats & Info pointed out, Arians helped to provide a history lesson in the process:

The Cardinals formerly being in St. Louis is a fun trivia fact, right?

Jason Garrett wound up tied with Bill O'Brien—who led the Texans to a seven-win turnaround—another name to remember as he wraps up his rookie year of sorts, as Bleacher Report's Matt Miller hinted: 

Defensive Rookie of the Year is a bit more polarizing.

St. Louis Rams defensive tackle Aaron Donald is the man with the hardware, and rightfully so after ranking as the No. 1 player at his position in the league at Pro Football Focus thanks to nine sacks, six quarterback hits and 29 hurries.

Really, Kevin McGuire of CollegeFootballTalk put it best:

Oakland Raiders linebacker Khalil Mack was certainly worth a look, too, after ranking as the No. 1 4-3 outside linebacker in the league at PFF in large part thanks to four sacks, 10 hits and 40 hurries.

Baltimore Ravens inside linebacker C.J. Mosley wound up second in voting, not that there was really any wrong choice this year, as Ryan Mink of BaltimoreRavens.com pointed out:

In theory, the same applies to the MVP award.

The fading memory of Rodgers' season is his brave, hobbled effort in the NFC Championship Game while things fell apart around him as the Packers blew a 16-0 lead and a shot at the Super Bowl.

That clearly did not deter voters, though, as Pro Football on ESPN shows:

Rodgers is amazing at the whole quarterback thing, which happens to be the most important position in the league. He threw for 4,381 yards and 38 scores to five interceptions on the year while completing 65.6 percent of his passes.

The case for Watt, though, is impossible to ignore. He tallied 20.5 sacks, the second time he hit the 20-sack mark in his four-year career and also ran up 44 hits, 54 hurries, 61 stops and batted down 10 passes, per PFF. Heck, he even caught three touchdown passes.

With those feats in mind, Jeff Duncan of NOLA.com shared a common thought about the top prize of the night:

Really, though, the race is akin to the Hall of Fame inductions. Every finalist is more than worthy, it just comes down to preference and timeliness, if not importance of position within the league.

Watt will just have to be happy with his unanimous Defensive Player of the Year selection. 

Rest assured he'll come at the award again next year with the same motor and passion that he throws at quarterbacks week in and out.

Stats courtesy of NFL.com. Advanced metrics via Pro Football Focus.