By the time every NFL team has played eight games Bobby Evans Los Angeles Rams Jerseys , there are some heavily established favorites for The Associated Press NFL awards that are handed out on Super Bowl eve.Not this year.MVP? Lots of candidates — and not just quarterbacks.Coach of the Year? Nearly every division has a contender.Comeback Player? Some likely Hall of Famers are in the mix there.So the AP polled a few of the 50 voters for the awards, including genuine Hall of Famer James Lofton. The theme was clear: There isn’t much clarity as we head into the final eight weeks of the schedule.MVPThis honor has gone to a quarterback the past five seasons and 10 of 11. Two running backs, Adrian Peterson in 2012 and LaDainian Tomlinson in 2006, broke through the QB domination in the past dozen years.Lofton and some others select Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes.“So good you just can’t take your eyes off of him,” the CBS analyst says.“Maybe this opinion changes next week, given the stellar competition that includes (Todd) Gurley and (Drew) Brees,” adds USA Today’s Jarrett Bell. “Maybe not, as the kid keeps showing up. A first-year starter as quarterback? Hey, Mahomes is like the new Kurt Warner.”Paul Domowitch of the Philadelphia Daily News opts for Brees. Charean Williams of Pro Football Talk prefers Gurley.Don’t forget about Tom Brady, Adam Thielen or Philip Rivers, and perhaps even a defensive force such as J.J. Watt.COACHAnother wide-open field headed by, according to Jenny Vrentas of Monday Morning Quarterback, Kansas City’s Andy Reid.“I selected Andy Reid … for his ability to seamlessly transition from Alex Smith to Mahomes,” Vrentas explains. “He’s been so invested in Mahomes’ development that he sits with him on the bench in between offensive series, going over what they see and how they’ll attack the opponent next. Reid has demonstrated an ability to keep his offense fresh and tailored to his players Los Angeles Rams Jerseys 2019 , updating his West Coast system with spread concepts pulled from the college ranks.”Bob Glauber of Newsday points to last year’s winner, Sean McVay of the Rams.“He’s one of the brightest minds in the game, and at 32, is proving not only to be a brilliant play caller, but an exceptional leader as well,” Glauber says.Not far behind in our little poll: the Saints’ Sean Payton, the Texans’ Bill O’Brien, the Bears‘ Matt Nagy, and the Chargers’ Anthony Lynn, whose team “plays a road game every week,” Lofton notes.COMEBACK PLAYERRarely has there been such an impressive group vying for an award no one really wants to win considering the implications of a comeback.From Watt to Peterson to Aaron Rodgers, from Andrew Luck to Carson Wentz to Deshaun Watson, from Odell Beckham Jr. to Richard Sherman — WOW!“It’s either Andrew Luck or Watt,” says Williams, “but Watt has returned to being one of the best at his position. He is playing at an All-Pro and Pro Bowl level. Luck is not one of the top-five quarterbacks in the NFL and maybe not in the top 10.”Eric Adelson of Yahoo Sports goes for the Colts quarterback.“Can’t imagine the frustration he’s faced From China Bobby Evans Jersey ,” Adelson says. “A pro’s pro.”Vrentas picks Watt.“The surgery Watt had last October to put his leg back together after a tibial plateau fracture was so complicated that the surgeons couldn’t even be certain that it would work, and that his leg would be able to bear the full weight of his body while running full speed,” she explains. “Watt, who has nine sacks in nine games, was undeterred. He wasn’t back to full strength in the season opener but has steadily gotten better each week, a scary thought for opponents.”OFFENSIVE PLAYERAnother free-for-all, with Gurley, Mahomes, Thielen, Brees, Michael Thomas and James Conner getting consideration.“Before it’s done, he could wind up as MVP,” Bell says of Gurley, his choice in this category. “Ditto for Brees. Running backs don’t get the same love as quarterbacks in the pass-centric environment of the NFL. But if Gurley breaks LaDainian Tomlinson’s single-season TD record and the Rams keep winning big, people will have to take notice. Then again Long Sleeve Bobby Evans Jersey , Brees has a few records and has never been MVP.”Domowitch, a Brees supporter for MVP, puts Mahomes here. So does Williams.DEFENSIVE PLAYERThis category could be a two-horse race between a pair of thoroughbreds previously honored with the award: Aaron Donald and Watt.“Now that’s a man who don’t need no stinking training camp,” Bell says of Donald.Eric Adelson of Yahoo Sports prefers Donald, as well.“A game wrecker on every down,” Adelson says.Adds Glauber: “Donald is a disruptive force in the middle and already has 10 sacks. The only problem for him — and the Rams — is that teams will often go to great lengths to shut him down. Thus, the constant double teams he has to fight through.”Lofton likes what Khalil Mack has done in Chicago: “Mack turned the Bears from pretenders to contenders.” But this train could be a runaway for Donald and Mack.OFFENSIVE ROOKIENo contest.“He’s the only good thing going for an awful Giants team,” Glauber says of Giants RB Saquon Barkley. “Until the Giants figure out their quarterback situation, he’ll be wasted in this offense.”But not lost in the awards prognostications.“On pace for more than 2,000 total yards — on a bad team,” Adelson notes.DEFENSIVE ROOKIEChargers safety Derwin James has gotten lots of love, but there’s no runaway leader.“Darius Leonard and Denzel Ward make this an interesting race for the award down the stretch,” Williams says.Glauber leans to Leonard: “Halfway through the season, he not only led all NFL rookies with 88 tackles, he led all NFL players in that category. He also has four sacks and three forced fumbles and has already won defensive rookie of the week honors twice.” Neither of the Competition Committee’s two versions of a modified expansion of replay would address what happened in the NFC Championship Game. Both would allow only for reviews of plays where a flag was thrown.A chance also exists that owners could do nothing or they could vote on a different version of expanded replay. No one seems certain.Saints coach Sean Payton Bobby Evans Jersey nfl draft , a member of the Competition Committee, told NFL Network that if the league doesn’t make a change “then ownership is saying they’re comfortable with what happened a year ago.”Payton also wants officials to become full time.His comments to the league’s network — his strongest to date — come on the heels of owners’ vote. “There are a handful of things that we’ve got to be better at right now,” Payton said on NFL Network, via Mike Triplett of ESPN. “Our best at playing and our best at coaching are spending 20 hours, 18 hours a day. Our best at officiating, it’s their second job. That has to change, because it’s too hard. There’s too much at stake for someone who’s a teacher at a school, who’s a florist, an attorney. That’s backward thinking.“And really as we move forward into the next 10 years, for instance, of our game, where do we want officiating? With all of the technology we have available to us, our fans are closer to the game, our fans are way more in tuned and educated as to the correct calls in the game. And we just need to be better.”It’s out of Payton’s hands now. The Saints have only one vote, and any rules change needs 24 of 32 to pass.“I can’t control that Bobby Evans Los Angeles Rams Jerseys ,” Payton said. “In other words, you can only get so upset and so angry. But if not, it tells you to some degree — look, there’s part of you that believes that there are those in television that think that drama [of a missed call] is perfect. That’s hard to take, but there are those that believe that.When asked about those who insist the Saints got “robbed” when officials failed to throw a flag on Rams cornerback Nickell Robey-Coleman on his hit on Tommylee Lewis late in the NFC Championship Game, Payton said, “Put me in that number.”“But the idea that we’re discussing it today and that we’re having this impactful discussion today would get back to that group that says, ‘Hey, people don’t want to [tune] into a car race with no bumps or crashes. People don’t want it to be finely-tuned,” Payton said. “Hey, I understand that line of thinking. But we’ve got to get that corrected, I think, though. The big errors like that, especially in 2019.”