Am I right in my understanding that this award is intended for players who have comeback from an injury or illness?
It’s for “overcoming adversity” which usually means injury or illness, but can mean being out of the league or just not playing well. Most (all?) of the winners have been comebacks from injury, but that’s not mandatory.
Be interesting to see if Vick would win it if he keeps up level of play. His “adversity” was self-inflicted, so I wonder if they’d give it to him.
If they do, I’ll be disgusted. If Vick were to suffer a Joe Theisman style injury that ends his career, I would not be displeased.
This is actually my reason for asking in the first place, but I wanted to ask the question in a neutral tone and not mention Vick until someone else brought him up.
Someone I know mentioned Vick as a candidate and I didn’t think he would qualify because, as you said, he is responsible his own adversity. It seems to me that someone who was out of the sport for doing something illegal wouldn’t qualify.
Recently, people were discussing that Ricky Williams might be a good candidate for it, and he took himself out of football. He didn’t win, but he was in the discussion.
I would love to see a Steelers-Eagles Super Bowl this year, just to see how the media deals with the quarterbacks.
Ultimately, it’s what the people who vote on the award decide. There are no criteria other than what the voters (reporters, IIRC) think are the criteria. They do tend to favor quarterbacks and running backs.
I would say that Vick’s convicion is going to be a dealbreaker for most voters. But there’s nothing that prevents them from voting for him, and if things keep up, he’s bound to get a few votes.
If he wins the Super Bowl as the Eagles starting QB I can bet that he’ll win, unless there’s another player who has a hell of a story and I can’t think of anyone off the top of my head. Maybe Urlacher due to his injury if he has a Pro Bowl season and finishes all 16 games. Ditto Polamalu, though him missing only 11 games last season might be a factor. Wonder if anyone would consider Jay Cutler for the award if he won the MVP and/or passing title this year after his performance last season? Can you “come back” from a ton of INTs and a team change with tons of bad publicity?
There are still plenty of people who will ignore Vick no matter how good a season he has just because of the cruelty rap.
If I were voting, I wouldn’t consider him because I think a comeback is when a player is considered washed up but manages to have a great season. No one thought Vick was over the hill.