Usually, the event is announced on the eve of the Super Bowl – a two-hour awards ceremony in which the league and Associated Press nominate their annual prize winners and the Pro Football Hall of Fame class. carpet affair filled with several of the league’s biggest stars, dressed in the nine, and fans cheering outside the venue as they would arrive.
Instead, NFL Honors was pre-produced this year, which aired on CBS on Saturday. Here are some highlights:
Notable award winners included Aaron Rodgers, quarterback Green Bay Packers, who won the Associated Press NFL MVP award for the third time in his career.
Rodgers who won this award was not surprising. However, the shock came when he humbly announced in his acceptance speech that he was getting engaged.
But to whom? He did not divulge.
“It’s an honor to win this award for the third time,” Rodgers said on the CBS broadcast. “2020 was definitely a crazy year filled with a lot of change, growth, wonderful, memorable moments. One hundred and eighty days in a row after my nose hair was scraped. And I play for very few or no fans I got engaged and some of the best football of my career. ‘
In his thanks, Rodgers testifies to his teammates, the Packers coaching staff, his nameless fiancé – and he even sneaked in the name Jodie Foster.
Alex Smith wins comeback player of the year
In addition, Washington football team Alex Smith, who needed 17 surgeries after suffering a life-threatening leg injury, scored the AP comeback player of the year.
Smith sustained the devastating injury after being sacked against the Houston Texans in November 2018 and suffering a spiral and compound fracture to his right tibia and fibula. He fought for his life after suffering from sepsis – the body’s life-threatening reaction to infection – and his leg almost had to be amputated.
“From apparently a lot of anxiety and potential doubt about of course how my leg is going to hold out, to an incredible rush of excitement, excitement, the feeling of going out there and playing again, I never thought I would get it back, ‘ Said Smith.
Peyton Manning, Charles Woodson and Calvin Johnson first ballot Hall of Famers
Peyton Manning is the only starting quarterback to have won the Super Bowls with two different franchises, though he may soon get a company if Tom Brady and the Buccaneers win Super Bowl LV.
Manning has now done something else that Brady is likely to do one day: he was elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in his first year of election.
The first time in their first ballot is also the corner line / safety Charles Woodson and the wide receiver, Calvin Johnson. The rest of the class of 2021 are safety John Lynch, offensive linebacker Alan Faneca, wide receiver Drew Pearson, coach Tom Flores and contributor Bill Nunn.
At the time of his retirement, Manning held NFL records in careers (71,940), careers (539) and consecutive seasons with at least 25 passes (13). He has won Pro Bowl 14 times and has been named the league’s Most Valuable Player five times.
Earlier this week, Brady said Manning “was someone I always admired as a quarterback, as a team leader.”
“I always looked up to Peyton because he was a little older than me, and he always did things the right way,” Brady said Wednesday. “His team has always been there. I know our teams played against each other. When you led against a Peyton Manning team, you played against (one of the best teams) in the league. He will have a first ballot. To be a Hall of Famer. An amazing player. “
‘You give me a chance at immortality’
In the Super Bowl host city, the Hall of Fame selection committee would usually meet and vote the day before the game. In previous years, several finalists would have been sequestered in hotel rooms and waited to see if they would get a ‘blow’ from David Baker, the president of the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
But due to the pandemic, the vote took place virtually last month. And Baker travels to the electorate, knocks on several doors, and surprises him in the case of Woodson outside when he is conducting an interview with a camera crew. Manning was surprised at Empower Field in Mile High in Denver, Colorado.
“I promise I’m going to be inducted into the Hall of Fame and now you’re giving me a chance at immortality,” an emotional Pearson told Baker.
The 2021 Pro Football Hall of Fame class will be inaugurated on August 8 in Canton, Ohio. The ceremony for the 2020 class, which was postponed last year due to the pandemic, will be on 7 August.