Aidan Hutchinson in the running for NFL Rookie of the Year
Hutch is in the running for NFL rookie of the year along with KWIII, Chris Olave, and Sauce Gardener!
Not a huge NFL watcher but I've heard the most about Hutch and Gardener this year. But let's get those clicks going to block s[arty and THE born on third player
January 19th, 2023 at 1:17 PM ^
Yeah, super fair to disrespect someone(a HOFer mind you) who is upset you took joy in the pain of an injured opponent. Clown take.
January 19th, 2023 at 9:23 AM ^
With James Houston's late burst onto the scene, it looks like Hutchinson has another version of Ojabo to help terrorize opposing QB's.
January 19th, 2023 at 9:31 AM ^
Another point for Hutch. Houston is good, but Hutch takes the double teams, and they can't double both.
January 19th, 2023 at 9:27 AM ^
Hutch impacted the Lions defense way more than sauce imo. Both great players but in my homerism, I'm voting Hutch all day!
January 19th, 2023 at 10:49 AM ^
The Jets defense though is ranked in the top-5 and the Lions, the bottom-5, that will swing it to Sauce, if Hutch wins, that's great and also should be noted that the Lions should have made the playoffs given the officiating in the Seattle game. Not a Lions or Jets fan, but that's how I see the vote going.
January 19th, 2023 at 9:28 AM ^
Sauce doesn't even have the best defensive back stats. Tariq Woolen (SEA) numbers jump off the page.
My vote(s) are in for Hutch.
January 19th, 2023 at 9:34 AM ^
Using interceptions as the main indicator as a corners quality is short sighted.
All analytics point to Sauce Gardner being the best corner in the NFL AS A ROOKIE.
He’s the top rookie this year. No question.
January 19th, 2023 at 10:21 AM ^
I agree. Darrelle Revis had very few interceptions in his career but he was hands down the best at his position for a solid 3 to 5 year stretch. Completely erasing guys like Calvin Johnson will give you that reputation.
January 19th, 2023 at 9:35 AM ^
I keep reading the argument for Sauce is that "he was so good, opposing QB's chose not to throw his way".
But then I remember reading an article last week that Hutch was the leagues most double-teamed defensive rusher this past season. And he still managed almost 10 sacks and had 3 INTS.
I think there is a valid case for Hutch to win it. But alas....New York......Sauce will get nod because of the higher profile market he plays in.
January 19th, 2023 at 9:41 AM ^
The BIG10 is representing amongst these finalists! Also noteworthy is the lack of SEC.
Sauce Gardner - CIN {American}
Aidan Hutchinson - UM
Chris Olave - OSU
Kenneth Walker III - MSU
Garrett Wilson - OSU
Tariq Woolen - UTSA {C-USA}
January 19th, 2023 at 10:08 AM ^
K9 deserves 50% of that Mel contract.
January 19th, 2023 at 10:23 AM ^
Exactly what I came here to say. Gotta wonder what the deal is with the players coming out of the SEC. Dominant in college but not necessarily standouts in the NFL.
January 19th, 2023 at 11:38 AM ^
Not just Big Ten, but 5 of the 6 are from TWO STATES - Michigan and ohio. That's kinda crazy.
January 19th, 2023 at 9:50 AM ^
Aidan is the only 4 star recruit. The rest of these guys were 3 stars so they probably won't pan out. /s
January 19th, 2023 at 9:51 AM ^
Website seems to allow unlimited voting. There has to be a script-writer that can automate a bot to do this, no?
January 19th, 2023 at 10:20 AM ^
Just created a workflow in automator on my Mac that submits 1 vote every second. I'll let it run overnight should get about 28k votes.
January 19th, 2023 at 9:57 AM ^
In the running for? should be: Running away with, rookie of the year.
January 19th, 2023 at 10:05 AM ^
Anyone know if Divine Child played King five or six years ago? "There's two fellers out there who will be NFL Rookie of the Year finalists in 2023."
January 19th, 2023 at 10:51 AM ^
Looks like no. Here are King's results from 2015 - 2018. No Divine Child.
Amazing rabbit hole link: https://michigan-football.com/
January 19th, 2023 at 11:30 AM ^
oh, man, you found one of my favorite sites...it's an absolutely INCREDIBLE resource for anyone that cares about michigan high school football, one of those sites that was created by a truly insane genius.
a vestige of an earlier, simpler internet time, when you could just throw out a crapload of raw data, with little or no attempt to contextualize it or make it all pretty or linky, and find an audience of similar lunatics to spend hours diving into it. an all time favorite.
January 19th, 2023 at 2:04 PM ^
The COLLECTION of all the Michigan HS scores must have taken hundreds of hours, at minimum.
Doing the math: ~ 600 schools * 9 games apiece / 2 (divide by 2 to avoid double-counting) * 50 or so seasons = 135,000 different High School football games.
And the only way to really find much of that data (1980s and prior) was via newspaper microfilm. Anyone who has used one of those machines --- well, they often present their own issues.
If it took 1 minute to find and record each historical score, that's 2,250 hours of data collection.
My head hurts just thinking about it. But I'm glad someone did it, the site is awesome.
January 19th, 2023 at 2:56 PM ^
you've reminded me that one of my undergrad work-study jobs was as a research assistant to a kinesiology professor that was writing a history of the ann arbor adult city tennis championship.
(i know, right? how he got university funding to do that, let alone pay someone to do his research boggles my mind to this day. publish or perish, i guess)
i remember my 'interview,' when i let slip that i had, in high school, replayed the entire 1930 american league baseball season in my APBA baseball game (like strat-o-matic, only way better), generating stats, comparing to actual stats, writing faux newspaper stories, all that stuff. i got the job in about 30 seconds.
anyhoo, my "job" was to go to the grad and pore through the microfiche archives of the the ann arbor daily news, pull up page 2 of the sports section, the one with all the current pro and college sports standings, transactions, the box scores, and listings of local holes-in-one. i'd find the results of the tournament and laboriously copy (by hand) the results into a notebook. for about 30 years' worth of data - men's and women's singles, doubles, mixed doubles, junior tournaments. i wish i could remember the prof's name - if he ever wrote it, he'd better have given me a credit, because i was the best damned sports researcher you ever saw.
...but i wax rhapsodic. ah, youth.
i like that site, is what i'm saying.
January 19th, 2023 at 10:54 PM ^
Wow, I absolutely love that story.
My own story. I am too young to truly remember the USFL, but I was (as a 4-year-old with my Dad and Grandfather) AT the 1st USFL Championship game: the Michigan Panthers vs. the Philadelphia Stars at Mile High Stadium in Denver.
My Dad bought a game program and it made it to our basement. At some point in Junior High, I found that program and starting getting obsessed with the by-that-point-defunct USFL and its history.
So ........ off I went to the library, notebook in hand, to pour through the microfiche to research and write down every box score of the league I could find.
(on a related note, I didn't date until I was a Senior in High School, imagine that).
No idea where that notebook is today, but somewhere it contains information on how various Memphis Showboats quarterbacks did in their 1985 games against the Birmingham Stallions .....
January 20th, 2023 at 8:48 AM ^
(on a related note, I didn't date until I was a Senior in High School, imagine that).
i feel very seen right now.
January 19th, 2023 at 10:08 AM ^
People will point out interception numbers, but all the analytics & data show Sauce is the best corner in the NFL, not just the best rookie corner. Hutch has been the best rookie DE, but he’s not been the best DE in the NFL. Sauce has got to win it. He’s fun to watch and he’s from Detroit, don’t mind rooting for him at all.
On another note, KWIII is so good. I’m glad he’s no longer playing for MSU so I can appreciate his play.
January 19th, 2023 at 10:13 AM ^
How about just voting for the player you think most deserves it?
January 20th, 2023 at 8:53 AM ^
oh, i don't know, because we're michigan fans and we like hutch and want him to succeed and think that developing a rookie of the year reflects positively on the program and it makes us happy and we might be lions fans too and we think a case can be made that he was the best rookie defender and we're not turds?
January 19th, 2023 at 10:17 AM ^
Weird how Travon Walker isn't in the running. Almost like running fast isn't the most important thing for a DL
January 19th, 2023 at 10:39 AM ^
Hutch should win just on his Billy Jean performance alone
January 19th, 2023 at 10:51 AM ^
Hutch would win in a runaway if Sauce wasn't in the same class. Sauce is just other-worldly. Hutch had a fantastic year. A lot of people point to the interceptions thing, but something that this blog has taught me is this: if your CB doesn't have a lot of "stats" that means you have an amazing CB because other teams stay the eff away.
January 19th, 2023 at 11:00 AM ^
Hutch won Rookie of the Month for November and December/January. Hard to rule him out for Sauce if the league already has Hutch as Rookie of the Month for half the season.
January 19th, 2023 at 11:19 AM ^
i've got my fingers crossed, but to the "2018 ohio state game" level of finger-crossing.
in any other year this would be a runaway for hutch, but sauce has been a clear all-pro all season long. he probably deserves it.
bummer, too - i put $10 at +550 on hutch on fanduel in early august.
January 19th, 2023 at 11:40 AM ^
Hutch has more picks than Gardener, and Gardener is a DB. Hutch is a DE. DE’s are almost never in a position, naturally, to pull down interceptions. And yet, here we are.
There’s really no contest in my mind.
January 19th, 2023 at 12:20 PM ^
Interesting that Olave and Wilson are both on this list and it was Smith-Njigba who was uncoverable during the 2021 OSU game.
January 19th, 2023 at 12:23 PM ^
Imagine what he could have done if he wasn’t a bust with short arms.
January 19th, 2023 at 12:23 PM ^
We are being a little delusional going off just numbers (like comparing interceptions). DROY has to be sauce. hutch had a great rookie year. sauce was maybe the best in his position in the entire sport. pretty sure he only gave up one touchdown the entire year -- as a rookie -- it wasn't the same.
January 19th, 2023 at 12:35 PM ^
Sauce is going to win because he's already elite, but Woolen is not getting enough love. He was arguably better than Sauce, but he had none of the draft day hype.
Good luck Aidan!
January 19th, 2023 at 2:00 PM ^
This list can’t be right. Where are all the SEC players?
/s
January 19th, 2023 at 2:20 PM ^
Hutch had a helluva rookie season, it just happened to occur when Sauce had an All-Pro rookie season. Sauce will win it.
January 19th, 2023 at 2:53 PM ^
Question, because I don’t follow recruiting as closely as many here: If Sauce came out of MLK/Detroit, I assume UM (and sparty) pursued him. Why did he end up at Cincinnati?
January 19th, 2023 at 3:42 PM ^
Per 24/7 he picked Cincinnati over Indiana, Kentucky, BC and Iowa State. Didn't have offers from Michigan or MSU. Was the #163 CB so those were the type of teams interested.
January 19th, 2023 at 4:31 PM ^
Geez I'd hope so
January 19th, 2023 at 10:46 PM ^
If James houston had been playing from week one, he’d probably have 18 sacks and we’d be hearing about him for ROTY
January 19th, 2023 at 10:56 PM ^
Unfortunate for Hutch that Sauce Gardner is having one of the best rookie seasons ever, and is not only the best rookie, but already may be the best corner in the league. If it were any other year he'd win walking away.
I can't remember what sports writer came up with the idea, but it was essentially that some years an award should be like one of those platters you get for being a runner-up in tennis (because somebody has to win X award, like the year Michael Carter-Williams won NBA rookie of the year). While other years it should be a 12 foot tall statue (due to an epic duel, like last year's NBA rookie of the year race, where the top 3 or 4 guys would have all beaten out MCW had they been rookies the same year as him).
This was a 12 foot tall trophy year.