The Hobson's Choice Awards, 2025 edition:

MVP: WR Ja’Marr Chase

The best player in the NFL. Hands down. Hands up. One hand. Two hands. Doesn't matter. With 125 catches and 1,412 yards in this season of three quarterbacks, an array of gadget defenses and a new captain's C, he kept churning gold-jacket numbers with blue-collar efficiency.

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He won't turn 26 until March 1, and he's already got 6,387 yards. Only college chum Justin Jefferson had more by age 25 in the history of the league. In Bengals annals, Ring of Honor member Chad Johnson had fewer than 3,000 yards at 25. Seven-time Pro Bowler A.J. Green had nearly 4,000. The closest Bengal is current running mate Tee Higgins with 4,595 by age 25.

Offensive Player of Year: RB Chase Brown

He followed up his breakthrough year with one of the best seasons ever by a Bengals back as a consistent weekly force in the passing game and a go-to option in the most effective run game in the Zac Taylor Era.

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With 1,456 scrimmage yards on 301 touches, Brown hit the top ten in both categories among NFL backs while finishing with his first 1,000-yard rushing season. His 69 catches were the most ever by a Bengals back.

Defensive Player of Year: CB DJ Turner II

Turner, a second-round pick in 2023, joins Brown, a fifth-rounder from that draft.

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Turner had the NFL passes defended lead for most of the year, until he finished tied for second with 18, one behind Riley Moss and Michael Jackson, the most by a Bengal since Tory James had 18 in 2003.

Despite covering the foe's best receiver, Turner glittered in the Pro Football Focus Rankings. He had the 13^th highest coverage grade among cornerbacks. Of the 18 players who took at least 580 coverage snaps, only Atlanta's A.J. Terrell, with 60, had fewer targets than Turner's 62.

Special Teams Players of Year: S Tycen Anderson, LB Joe Giles-Harris

According to PFF, the Bengals tied for fourth in its NFL special teams grades a year after finishing first. Giles-Harris and Anderson kept the top-five vibe going even though they had to step out of their roles. Because everyone is returning more kicks with the new kickoff rule, both took advantage and netted more tackles.

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Giles-Harris didn't come off the practice squad until the eighth game of the year when injuries called, and he responded with the most productive stretch in the 23 years Darrin Simmons has run the Bengals' special teams. He racked up a team-leading 20 tackles in ten games, the first time a Bengal has had 20 tackles in the kicking game since safety Kyries Hebert had 21 in 2008.

After racking up 11 tackles last season to finish among the league-leading gunners, Anderson changed positions because Simmons needed a quarterback to run his punt team as the personal protector. Anderson, a fifth-rounder from '22, showed off his speed and versatility and made 16 tackles to tie safety PJ Jules for second place despite the position switch.

Rookie of the Year: LG Dylan Fairchild

Fairchild, a third-round pick from Georgia, started the minute he stepped on campus and that was after captain and center Ted Karras put him up in his poolhouse and walked him through the playbook the week before rookie minicamp. Camp Karras paid off.

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Fairchild played the third-most rookie offensive linemen snaps in the NFL with 962, and the 15^th most among left guards. According to PFF, he took only 117 fewer snaps than Browns Pro Bowler Joel Bitonio and gave up the same amount of sacks (two) and pressures (31) while grading out at 39 of 88 guards in pass protection.

Comeback Player of Year: CB Dax Hill

When Dax Hill went down with a torn ACL last season in the fifth game, he was the Bengals' best cornerback even though he had made the offseason switch from safety and was moving between nickel and the outside during the '24 season.

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Hill, their first-round pick in 2022, didn't miss a beat when he came back from his right-on-schedule rehab and was ready for the first snap of training camp. He was ready for a lot more than that. He was one of 13 NFL cornerbacks to play 1,000 snaps (1,012), and he solidified himself as their most versatile defender when he moved outside from nickel for the last seven games of the season when Cam Taylor-Britt went on injured reserve. He was the second-leading tackler among all NFL cornerbacks with 88 and one of three cornerbacks to have that many to go with 11 passes defensed.

Newcomer of Year: QB Joe Flacco

With all due respect to guard Dalton Risner and safety PJ Jules (who was on the practice squad all last year and came off to make those second-most tackles in the kicking game this year), who wrote a better story than Flacco?

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Not only did he become the oldest Bengal ever at 40, he arrived via the first trade ever with Bengals founder Paul Brown's old team in Cleveland. Not only that, Flacco had been at the center of a rousing Bengals-Ravens rivalry in the previous decade.

Not only that, he delivered in stunning fashion in the six starts he replaced the injured Joe Burrow. He went 1-5, but he easily could have been 3-3 and got the Bengals to 5-6 for Burrow's finishing six games. He threw 13 touchdowns in that stretch, tied with Dak Prescott for third in that time (Burrow threw for 15 in his last six, tied for second in his run). Flacco also threw for 1,636 yards in his six games for fifth in the league while Burrow went for 1,620 for third.

It was as good as they could have ever hoped, and he topped it with a last-minute primetime win over the Steelers as a Paycor Stadium crowd serenaded him with, "Thank You, Cleveland." Two weeks later against the Bears, it saw him unfurl what stands as the biggest passing game in the league this year with 470 yards, Flacco's career best.

Most Improved Offensive Player of Year: RT Amarius Mims

Mims, the first-round pick in 2024, came into the league with only one real question. He just didn't play that many games at Georgia. By making it to the gate for all 17 games after nagging injuries stalked his rookie year, he emerged into the conversation as the next elite right tackle in the game.

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The Athletic reported from Burrow's return Thanksgiving night heading into the finale, his 98.1 pass-block efficiency rate ranked sixth in the group of 55 tackles. Then against the Browns, PFF had Mims allowing one pressure on 43 pass blocks and ended the season not allowing a hit on Burrow in his eight starts.

Most Improved Defensive Player of Year: DE Myles Murphy

Murphy, the first-round pick in 2023, and Mims are making it a pretty nice first-round decade that includes Burrow, Chase and Hill. This year's first-rounder, defensive lineman Shemar Stewart, is coming off a good finale after an injury-plagued rookie year.

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Murphy started the final nine games of the season after one previous start in his career. He had 37 tackles and four sacks in that stretch. Only Maxx Crosby, with five sacks and 41 tackles, had at least four sacks and 31 tackles among the NFL's defensive linemen in that run. Those sacks gave Murphy a career-high 5.5 after getting 4.5 in his first 39 games.

Assistant Coach of Year: OL Scott Peters

Heralded as a developer of young talent when the Bengals hired him as offensive line coach after last season, Peters did exactly that with Fairchild, Mims and fifth-round pick Jalen Rivers, moving him from guard to tackle and getting 480 encouraging snaps from him.

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With Burrow and head coach Zac Taylor calling it the best the offensive line has played since they've been here, NFL historian Ryan Michael reported the offensive line finished tied for 10th in NFL sack-percentage, the first time the Bengals finished in the top ten since 2014. And, starting with the first of Flacco's six starts on Oct. 12 through the finale, they were fourth in sack percentage.

Play of the Year: WR Tee Higgins

The smartest play of this season has an IQ of 5: Higgins' jersey number.

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With the clock ticking under two minutes and the Bengals trailing the Steelers, 31-30, Flacco hit Higgins frying Jalen Ramsey on a go route down the left sideline. Instead of walking in for a touchdown, Higgins slid into the six-yard line and basically ended the game. The Steelers had to take their last two timeouts, and all Aaron Rodgers could do was scowl at friend and foe alike as Evan McPherson hit a 36-yard field goal with seven seconds left.

Quote of the Year

The media spent a good deal of Burrow's return these last two months trying to figure out his words, his sighs, his body language. When they asked him why he chose to put himself through the fastest rehab of turf toe in history instead of saving himself for next year, no interpreter was needed.

The man is laced up like a football:

"Look at it from my perspective. I'm a football player, and if I get hurt, I'm going to go through the rehab process, and then I'm going to let everyone know when I feel like I can go out there and play. I don't really know what else to say about that. I'm not ever going to go to somebody and say, "Yeah, I'm healthy, but I don't think I should go out there and play.' That doesn't make a lot of sense to me."