Associated Press Is Changing How We Look At NFL Comeback Player Of The Year Award

The Associated Press on Tuesday told its voters for NFL All-Pro and season awards balloting that it wants to clarify what they should consider when they vote for the comeback player of the year award.

Going forward, voters are encouraged not to think of players stacking a good season after a bad season as worthy of a comeback player of the year award. 

"The spirit of the AP Comeback Player of the Year award," AP Senior NFL Writer Rob Maaddi informed voters in an email on Tuesday, "is to honor a player who has demonstrated resilience in the face of adversity by overcoming illness, physical injury or other circumstances that led him to miss playing time the previous season."

Quarterback Brock Purdy of the San Francisco 49ers. (Photo by Thearon W. Henderson/Getty Images)

Brock Purdy Worthy Of 2023 Award

That means players who come back to perform after enduring difficult injuries or situations, such as Brock Purdy. 

The San Francisco 49ers quarterback last season led his team to the Super Bowl after suffering a major throwing elbow injury during the previous season's playoffs, undergoing surgery and overcoming a long rehabilitation process that basically prevented him from throwing the football for much of the offseason. 

Purdy could not throw the football with game velocity as late as June but delivered 31 TD passes and 11 interceptions while completing nearly 70 percent of his passes for the 49ers during the regular season.

It would also cover a vote for, say, Calvin Ridley last year. He was suspended by the NFL for the entire 2022 season for gambling but returned in 2023 to catch 76 passes for 1,016 yards and 8 touchdowns. 

The suspension for violating the league's gambling policy would qualify as "other circumstances" for Ridley missing 2022, setting the stage for his comeback in 2023.

Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin. Photo: Bill Streicher-USA TODAY Sports

The new policy would also cover the Damar Hamlin saga – the one where he suffered a cardiac arrest episode and collapsed during a December 2022 game against the Cincinnati Bengals.

Hamlin traveled a long road back to playing again in 2023. He played only five regular season games and two playoff games for the Bills last season but it was a notable comeback nonetheless because, did I mention? 

He had a freaking' heart attack and actually stopped breathing on the field on national television months before.

The new guidance, meanwhile, would prevent Joe Flacco from winning the comeback player of the year award had it been in place last season.

Cleveland Browns quarterback Joe Flacco. (Photo by Nick Cammett/Getty Images)

Joe Flacco Won CPoY In 2023

Flacco won the award by leading the Cleveland Browns to the playoffs after joining the team midway through the season. 

The Browns won four of the five games Flacco started. And the 38-year-old threw 13 touchdown passes and 8 interceptions in completing 60.3 percent of his passes.

But what did Flacco come back from?

Well, he came back from stinking with the Jets the previous season, when that team was 1-3 in his four starts. He came back from not being signed by anyone in the offseason.

Flacco came back from, basically, not being good enough.

And that won't be good enough to earn a comeback player of the year award going forward.

Playing poorly one year and recovering the next is not to be considered in future AP ballots because there's another word for such practices by NFL players. They're called careers.

And having a career year, or even a good year, after a bad year isn't going to cut it any longer.

Seattle Seahawks quarterback Geno Smith. Photo: Matt Kartozian-USA TODAY Sports

Geno Smith Came Back From The Bench

The new guidance would actually have affected the last two comeback player of the year award winners. 

Seattle Seahawks quarterback Geno Smith won the award after delivering a great 2022 season. That year, he threw 30 touchdowns and 11 interceptions after winning the starting quarterback job.

But what did Smith come back from, exactly?

The logic was he came back from a middling career the previous eight years in which he bounced around with four teams and was almost exclusively a backup quarterback.

That rise from backup to starter is not comeback player of the year worthy anymore. At least the voters are now being told it isn't.

Safety Damar Hamlin and safety Jordan Poyer of the Buffalo Bills react after breaking up a pass intended for wide receiver Jakobi Meyers of the New England Patriots in the fourth quarter at Gillette Stadium on December 1, 2022 in Foxborough, Massachusetts. (Photo by Billie Weiss/Getty Images)

Change Not A Response To Hamlin Snub

And why this change now?

Some in the media and throughout the league will contend it's because Hamlin lost out on the award last season when his return from being nearly dead wasn't good enough to get him the award.

Not true.

Associated Press sources confirmed to OutKick that the push to change the direction of the award has been underway for 19 months. So it predates the Flacco victory over Hamlin and others.

Predate or not, the AP is making a wise choice here. 

Comebacks from heart attacks and potentially catastrophic elbow injuries are worthy of the award. Comebacks from, well, merely playing poorly are not.