Bleacher Report's Week 10 NFL Awards

Oh, how the mighty have fallen.

Two short weeks ago, the Denver Broncos and Green Bay Packers met in a battle of unbeatens. When the Broncos trounced the Pack, all was declared well and good in Denver.

Well, since then, neither team has won a game, both lost at home to clubs with losing records Sunday, and Peyton Manning got the hook.

No, really. On the same day Manning became the NFL's all-time passing king, he was benched in a loss to the Kansas City Chiefs.

It was that kind of week.

In a Week 10 that saw that zaniness, the Carolina Panthers and New England Patriots keep on winning and the Dallas Cowboys keep on losing, here's a look at the best and worst of the week that was as voted on by the National Lead Writers and NFL Analysts here at Bleacher Report.

Team of the Week

Stephen Brashear/Associated Press

Winner: Arizona Cardinals (3 votes)

The division races across the NFL are getting sort of, um, boring.

The AFC East is a done deal. Ditto for the AFC North. Thanks to the suddenly reeling Atlanta Falcons, you can add the NFC South to that list.

And after the Arizona Cardinals downed the Seahawks in Seattle on Sunday night to open a three-game lead in that division, the NFC West is waiting for an appearance by the fat lady too.

With that come-from-behind win over the NFC's two-time reigning champion, Kenneth Arthur of Rolling Stone feels the Redbirds sent a message not only to the NFC West, but to the whole conference and league:

"

It was almost as if Arizona went into CenturyLink Field with a mission to erase everything that Pete Carroll had built over the last few seasons and claim it as their own. That mission is very close to being accomplished.

The Cardinals are on the verge of ending Seattle's two-year run of winning the NFC West, with a three-game lead in the division and a head-to-head win over the Seahawks. They've also proven that they are not afraid to play in Seattle, as they have won two of their last three games in that stadium. Arizona has also scored more points on the Seahawks than anyone has since 2010.

The biggest question left for the Cardinals – and the last thing that they want to grab from Seattle and claim as their own – is a Super Bowl championship. Thanks to a healthy Palmer, that seems more than possible.

"

The Panthers may have something to say about whether the Cardinals are the NFC's best team, but the Cardinals won't have to wait long for another chance to stake their claim.

The Cardinals host the Cincinnati Bengals in Week 11.

Others receiving votes: Kansas City Chiefs (2 votes), Washington Redskins (2 votes), Detroit Lions (1 vote)

Coach of the Week

Stephen Brashear/Associated Press

Winner: Bruce Arians, Arizona Cardinals (5 votes)

To say that the Arizona Cardinals hit the coaching jackpot with Bruce Arians might actually be an understatement.

Since winning his first Coach of the Year award as the interim head coach of the "ChuckStrong" Indianapolis Colts, all Arians has done in the desert is bring home a second award and turn an Arizona franchise that was a perpetual doormat into a perennial contender.

Oh, and Arians is also one of the NFL's keenest offensive minds—a fact that was in evidence during Sunday night's big win.

In fact, Doug Farrar of Sports Illustrated credits Arians' offensive chops with the stranglehold the Redbirds now hold on the division:

"

“I don’t think there’s any doubt,” Arians said, when I asked about the idea that an offense that's easy to discern is easy to defend. “Two things: you have to be able to run the ball and stay two-dimensional, but you also want to be able to have enough things in your offense this week that they didn’t practice on Wednesday and Thursday.”

In the play that socked away Arizona's 39–32 win over the Seahawks at CenturyLink field on Sunday night, Arians's team did both of those things. With 1:58 left in the game, Arizona lined up with three receivers to the right and an iso receiver to the left side, and ran Andre Ellington to the single-receiver side. Most coaches would have forced the call to the dominant receiver side, but Arians knew that Seattle's defense would angle that way, and if he caught the defense just right, Ellington would have a free lane.

That's exactly what happened, and Ellington cruised 48 yards for a touchdown, putting Arizona up, 39–29.

"

Simply put, the dude can coach.

Others receiving votes: Bill Belichick, New England Patriots (2 votes); Jim Caldwell, Detroit Lions (1 vote)

Goat of the Week

Nick Wass/Associated Press

"Winner": Elvis Dumervil, OLB, Baltimore Ravens (5 votes)

Bleacher Report NFL National Lead Writer Ty Schalter had a heck of a time deciding which member of the suddenly floundering Green Bay Packers to blame for Sunday's debacle against the Detroit Lions:

"

First, I gave this to Packers kicker Mason Crosby for missing the field goal that would have salvaged the Packers’ incredible home win streak over the Lions (not to mention, possibly, their NFC North title defense). Then, I remembered the kick was blocked by holder Tim Masthay’s off hand, so I gave the award to him. Then, I remembered the Packers had allowed the 104-yard kickoff return that put them in position of needing a field goal to win anyway, so I gave the award to Packers special teams coordinator Ron Zook. As I wrote after the game, Aaron Rodgers and Mike McCarthy have to get better—but the unforced special teams errors turned a shaky win into a shocking loss.

"

However, it wasn't Zook, or anyone in green and gold, who earned the dubious distinction of Goat of the Week.

That would be Baltimore Ravens outside linebacker Elvis Dumervil, who found a new way for his team to suffer a crushing defeat in this nightmarish season.

Frank Schwab of Yahoo Sports explained the play about as well as such a play can be explained:

"

Somehow, a failed spike play as time expired led to a Jacksonville Jaguars win. It was that crazy.

The Jaguars looked like they might spike it to go for a desperation pass from beyond midfield on the last play. But Jaguars quarterback Blake Bortles realized he didn't have time to spike it. Time would have run out. That's when the fun started.

Bortles fell down after taking the snap. One of his receivers didn't even run downfield, likely anticipating the spike. It seemed like no play was ever called, but a few Jaguars ran downfield as Bortles gathered himself. He had almost no chance to get the big play the Jaguars needed. Ravens outside linebacker Elvis Dumervil was doing what comes naturally, rushing the passer. And he happened to grab Bortles by the facemask. Then he twisted Bortles' head around by the facemask. Penalty, 15 yards and an untimed down for the Jaguars.

Jacksonville was in field-goal range because of the penalty. So the Jaguars sent out rookie kicker Jason Myers, who has had his share of struggles this season, for a 53-yard field goal and the win. And he nailed it, giving the Jaguars a 22-20 victory, one of the most improbable final-second wins you'll ever witness.

"

To his credit, Dumervil owned his gaffe, telling Ryan Mink of the team's website, "It’s heartbreaking, man. I let the guys down on that play.”

Others receiving votes: Ron Zook, STC, Green Bay Packers (1 vote); Green Bay heckler (1 vote); all game officials (1 vote)

Rookie of the Week

L.G. Patterson/Associated Press

Winner: Jeremy Langford, RB, Chicago Bears (6 votes)

As the Chicago Bears and St. Louis Rams prepared to mix it up in Week 10, many thought a rookie running back was set for a big day.

We were just off on which one.

Rather than Todd Gurley, it was the Bears' Jeremy Langford who had the huge afternoon, piling up 182 total yards and finding the end zone twice in a Bears win.

And as Jeremy Bergman of NFL.com reports, with starting tailback Matt Forte nearing a return to action, the surging Bears face an interesting dilemma:

"

Three weeks ago, Langford was languishing on the Bears' bench, just a rookie biding his time and averaging three carries a game. Now, he's not only Chicago's starting tailback, but he's carrying the team back into playoff contention.

Langford's emergence in Chicago's offense may be short-lived as Forte looks set to return to the fold this week. However, it's unlikely Langford will be relegated back to benchwarming doldrums. If anything, he has developed into a speedier, healthier Forte, cutting turf on the ground and through the air. John Fox and company would be foolish to let this talent slip past them; after all, he's been slipping through defenses at will.

"

Granted, Langford may not supplant Forte (who was himself having a very good year) right away as the Bears' lead back.

But the more of these big days that Langford keeps piling up, the closer to the expiration date we get on Forte's time in Chicago.

No wonder the veteran tried (unsuccessfully) to land a contract extension in the offseason.

Others receiving votes: Marcus Peters, CB, Kansas City Chiefs (2 votes)

Best QB Performance

Evan Vucci/Associated Press

Winner: Kirk Cousins, Washington Redskins (5 votes)

A trend is starting to develop with this award in 2015.

If a team faces the New Orleans Saints, it's a good bet said quarterback has an excellent shot at landing here.

The latest beneficiary of the Saints' awful secondary is Cousins, who completed 80 percent of his passes for over 300 yards and four touchdowns en route to a perfect 158.3 passer rating in a blowout win by Washington.

It was the Redskins' second win over an NFC South foe in three games, and as Redskins head coach Jay Gruden told ESPN.com's John Keim, Cousins is making a strong case to lead the Redskins in the long term:

"

Obviously, Kirk’s a guy we’d like to keep around, no doubt. But that’ll be up to Scot [McCloughan] and Kirk’s agent and Kirk. You definitely see progress every week. Every day out here in practice you see progress and that's what you want to see in a young quarterback and you want to see in all your players. Obviously the quarterback position is very important so it's magnified on a play-by-play basis and he's answered the challenge and done a good job.

"

In a contract year, all it takes is one game like this—one—for a quarterback to make himself a whole lot of cheese. Just ask Matt Flynn.

And Kirk likes that.

Others receiving votes: Ben Roethlisberger, Pittsburgh Steelers (3 votes)

Best RB Performance

Beck Diefenbach/Associated Press

Winner: Adrian Peterson, Minnesota Vikings (8 votes)

Sit back, dear reader. I'm about to drop some of what we in the writing game call knowledge.

Adrian Peterson is good.

I know, I know. You're welcome.

The Minnesota Vikings running back reminded the football world who the king of the mountain is in the backfield during Sunday's win over the Oakland Raiders.

Is 203 yards rushing in a game a lot? It sounds like a lot.

And as Fox Sports reported, Peterson is on pace to take a run at NFL immortality. Again:

"

Peterson rushed for 1,140 yards in the final seven games of the 2012 season (162.9 yards per game). His season-high, 203-yard outing against the Oakland Raiders on Sunday could be a sign that a similar explosion is imminent.

Peterson currently leads the league with 961 rushing yards. He's 227 yards ahead of Chris Johnson, the next closest player. He will likely go over 1,000 total yards Sunday against the Packers, whose run defense is ranked 24th in the NFL (116.2 yards per game).

"

For those who don't remember, Peterson missed Eric Dickerson's single-season rushing record by eight yards in 2012.

Yeah, Adrian Peterson is good.

Best WR Performance

Don Wright/Associated Press

Winner: Antonio Brown, Pittsburgh Steelers (7 votes)

Maybe I should just rename this category "Best Antonio Brown Performance."

Lord knows the Pittsburgh Steelers wideout is spending enough time here.

One week after setting franchise records in both catches and yardage, Brown's numbers were actually pretty pedestrian against the Cleveland Browns.

He only caught 10 passes for 139 yards and two touchdowns.

What a bum.

As Ray Fittipaldo of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette wrote, it may not have been a coincidence that Brown's explosion against the Browns coincided with Ben Roethlisberger entering the game in relief.

Yes, in relief. We'll get to that in a bit:

"

Brown has 79 receptions for 1,139 yards through the first 10 games. And even though Brown has played what amounts to four games with second- and third-string quarterbacks, he is on pace for 126 receptions and 1,822 yards.

If Brown reached that number, it would be the third-most yards by a receiver in NFL history. Jerry Rice had 1,848 in 1995 and Calvin Johnson had 1,964 in 2012.

It’s scary to think what kind of season Brown would be having if Roethlisberger had been healthy all year. In the three games Roethlisberger did not start before Sunday, Brown had 42, 45 and 24 receiving yards against San Diego, Arizona and Kansas City.

In the six games Roethlisberger has played, Brown is averaging 151 yards.

"

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, is 151 yards a game a lot? It sounds like a lot.

Others receiving votes: Martavis Bryant, Pittsburgh Steelers (1 vote)

Best TE Performance

Mike McCarn/Associated Press

Winner: Greg Olsen, Carolina Panthers (5 votes)

The Carolina Panthers are 9-0 in 2015 thanks to a formidable defense, a star quarterback and an elite group of pass-catchers.

Two of those things are true.

Wide receivers like Ted Ginn and Corey Brown (Philly, whatever...make up your mind what you want people to call you and stick with it, please) may not inspire much fear in opposing secondaries, but Carolina quarterback Cam Newton does have possibly the NFL's most underrated tight end in veteran Greg Olsen.

The ninth-year veteran has been money for Newton all season long, including his eight-catch, 80-yard effort in Sunday's win over the Tennessee Titans.

Now, at first glance those numbers might not look award-worthy. Sure, it's a fine steak, but where's the sizzle?

Chew on this one-handed snag and see if that solves the problem.

Others receiving votes: Zach Miller, Chicago Bears (3 votes)

Best Defensive Performance

Joe Mahoney/Associated Press

Winner: Justin Houston, OLB, Kansas City Chiefs (8 votes)

OK, so, technically, NFL National Lead Writer Matt Miller voted for the Chiefs as a team, but I'm taking artistic license and making this call unanimous.

It's been a pretty frustrating season for Houston and the Chiefs. The team has a losing record. After parlaying 22 sacks a season ago into a fat contract extension, Houston's individual numbers are way down this year.

And Houston told Sam Mellinger of the Kansas City Star that the team's big win over the Broncos in Week 10 could be both springboard and eraser for both player and team:

"

“I think it was more from the first game,” Houston said of the Chiefs’ blowing a late lead against the Broncos at home. “We know the first game wasn’t supposed to happen like that. To lose the way we did, it hurt. I think it kind of messed with our momentum. I think we’re back on track now. We just gotta stay with it.”

Sometimes the dumb question gets a smart answer. Here, Houston is admitting something you don’t often hear. Losing to the Broncos back in September rocked the team in a way that directly contributed to losing five games in a row.

“I definitely think so,” he said. “That’s one thing we can’t do. You have to have a bad memory in football.”

"

Houston certainly did some erasing Sunday, tallying a pair of sacks in the game that may go down in history as the day the Forehead fell from grace.

Best Decision

Gene J. Puskar/Associated Press

Winner: Keeping Ben Roethlisberger active (7 votes)

Usually, when a star player is dinged up and the team decides he isn't starting, said player will be inactive.

In a game against the Cleveland Browns in Week 10, the Pittsburgh Steelers went the road less traveled. Despite starting Landry Jones against Cleveland, the Steelers kept a gimpy Roethlisberger active just in case.

Well, as the New York Times' Benjamin Hoffman reported, "just in case" happened:

"

When Landry Jones rolled his ankle in the first quarter of the Pittsburgh Steelers’ matchup with the Cleveland Browns, injured franchise quarterback Ben Roethlisberger was forced to come off the bench to replace him. He ended up having an incredible game, leading Pittsburgh to a 30-9 victory.

It was just a week ago that Roethlisberger was removed late in a win over Oakland Raiders with a sprained left foot. But with Michael Vick inactive, Pittsburgh has few options for backing up Jones, so Roethlisberger was listed as active but not starting.

When Jones had his teammate, Marcus Gilbert, fall back onto his foot, Roethlisberger was forced to take over and he looked rusty on his first two throws, which were both well out of Antonio Brown's reach.

"You have to be ready when your number's called," Roethlisberger told reporters at his post-game news conference, crediting his quick healing to drinking a lot of milk.

"

How well did Roethlisberger play?

Well, we haven't gotten to the Player of the Week Award yet, have we?

Others receiving votes: Martha Ford dropping the hammer (1 vote)

Worst Decision

Jack Dempsey/Associated Press

"Winner": Starting Peyton Manning (6 votes)

Yes, you read that right.

Five-of-20. 35 yards. No touchdowns. Four interceptions. A 0.0 passer rating.

You read that right too.

You can blame his sore foot. Bad ribs. Old age. The Freemasons. The fact remains that the Peyton Manning we saw break Brett Favre's passing yardage record Sunday was a shell who had no business being on an NFL field.

And as Jarrett Bell of USA Today wrote, Sunday's faceplant only adds to the whispers that have surrounded Manning dating back to the end of last year:

"

I’m nobody’s doctor, and as a defiant Manning paraphrased his former coach, Jim Mora, following the big Week 8 win against the Green Bay Packers, sometimes we think we know what we really don’t know.

Yet here’s what it looks like: An aging body, breaking down.

Last year, Manning was thrown out of sync by a quad injury. Arm strength is one thing, and many question that with Manning, whose passes lack the velocity and deep-ball accuracy that they had when he was in his prime. But the arm strength is actually built on the foundation of the lower body.

It was striking to read comments from some of the Chiefs players. Rookie cornerback Marcus Peters told The Denver Post that he has great “respect for those who paved the way,” which was a nice way of saying that Manning’s time has passed.

Safety Ron Parker bluntly said, via the Post, “He’s getting old ... He tried hard.”

Ouch. Talk about adding insult to injury.

That’s another sign of the times for long-respected Manning, who is suddenly more pitied by opponents than feared.

"

It happened to Favre before Manning. And Dan Marino before Favre. And Johnny Unitas before Marino.

Father Time is undefeated.

Others receiving votes: Cleveland's trick plays and Wildcat in the red zone (1 vote); Tom Coughlin's play-calling/time management (1 vote)

Player of the Week

Jared Wickerham/Getty Images

Winner: Ben Roethlisberger, QB, Pittsburgh Steelers (6 votes)

So about that game Roethlisberger had against the Cleveland Browns.

All Roethlisberger did on an allegedly bad foot was throw for 379 yards and three touchdowns while posting his second-highest passer rating of the season.

That 379-yard outing was the most by Roethlisberger this season, and the most by any quarterback in relief in the NFL since 1960.

Is 55 years a lot? It sounds like a lot.

Roethlisberger passed for 286 yards in the first half alone, the second-most yardage the 33-year-old has amassed in the first 30 minutes of a game in his 12-year career.

Roethlisberger told ESPN.com's Jeremy Fowler even he was taken aback by how well he played against the Browns: "I kinda surprised myself. My foot was basically black and blue [early in the week]. I didn't expect to have to go in that early. You basically treat it like a normal game."

It was more or less a normal game for Roethlisberger against Cleveland.

Sunday marked Roethlisberger's 21st meeting with the Browns.

He's lost twice.

Others receiving votes: Adrian Peterson, RB, Minnesota Vikings (2 votes)