ESPN ranks 3 Browns players in Top 100 MVP list

Who received recognition for a top-notch 2022 season?

Back in November, the Associated Press announced significant changes to their awards voting process. Instead of the 50 voters casting just one vote for each award category — like Most Valuable Player — they will cast multiple vote in a ranking manner. For the MVP award, they will rank their top 5 choices, and for all other award categories, they will rank their top 3 choices. This will allow more players to receive some partial recognition in headlines, and could also make a few tight races more interesting.

With that in mind, ESPN’s Seth Walder decided to take things a step further last week and rank his Top 100 players for MVP of the NFL this past season. His Top 100 players included three members of the Cleveland Browns, and you can probably guess tho they were: DE Myles Garrett, LG Joel Bitonio, and RB Nick Chubb.

Garrett cracked the Top 10 on his list, coming in at No. 9 overall:

I went back and forth for days on how to stack the top three edge rushers, but ultimately the metrics point me toward Garrett. The Browns’ pass-rusher tied for second in the league in sacks and was third in pass rush win rate despite facing the highest double-team rate at edge. In other words, despite the extra attention and playing on a worse team with fewer leads and therefore fewer sack opportunities, he still managed 16 sacks.

Bitonio was next up at No. 63 overall, followed by Chubb at No. 65 overall:

There’s no better pure runner in the NFL right now than Chubb. He managed a whopping 389 rush yards over expectation, more than 100 yards better than the next-best back. That wasn’t just volume; his 1.3 rush yards over expectation per carry was second in the league only behind Khalil Herbert, who had nowhere near the same volume.

As for other AFC North teams, the Bengals had QB Joe Burrow (4), WR Ja’Marr Chase (41), and WR Tee Higgins (42); the Ravens had QB Lamar Jackson (67), TE Mark Andrews (70), LB Roquan Smith (74), CB Marlon Humphrey (96), and OT Ronnie Stanley (98); and the Steelers had S Minkah Fitzpatrick (30), EDGE Alex Highsmith (87), and DT Cameron Heyward (88).