Joe Soriano
O.J. LewisSportgreat's Rookie of the Year
With the NFL Regular Season ending on Sunday, it is time to start passing out the awards. We will start with rookie of the year, and it was not an easy choice, because several rookies had good seasons, and two rookie quarterbacks in particular, Joe Flacco and Matt Ryan, had outstanding years and led their teams to 11-5 records and berths in the playoffs. The winner out of these two, however, is Matt Ryan. He gets the nod because he had a slightly better statistical year, and he was the leader of a team that turned 180 degrees from where they were headed a year ago. Matt Ryan completed 265 of his 344 passes for 3440 yards, and he threw 16 TD passes and only 11 interceptions. He also finished with an 87.7 rating. Joe Flacco threw for 2961 yards, 14 touchdowns, 12 interceptions, and he had a 80.3 Quarterback Rating. Honorable Mentions go to running backs Steve Slaton of the Houston Texans, who gained 1282 yards to lead all rookies, and who averaged 4.8 yards per rush. Chris Johnson of the Tennessee Titans gained 1228 yards and averaged 4.9 yards per carry in helping lead the Titans to the #1 seed in the AFC.
