No, that’s not Rosenthal’s 5 year old kid, that’s Rosenthal. Wonder why he hates Sharper?

These guys don’t need much motivation to discount all of our accomplishments for this season. All I have to say to these jerks is this, how many times this season has your favorite team or player had a 13-0 record? How many times has your team or favorite player won 13 in a row? Our winning streak if 4 times longer than our losing streak, what’s yours?

If no Saints get the accolades they earned and deserve, despite putting together a far better season than was ever expected of them and putting up just as good and better numbers than anyone else in the league (in Sharper’s case, a record number of INT return yards)… well, it’s time to snatch the only accolade they can’t arbitrarily assign to someone… NFL Champions! Take it out on the field, and leave no doubt who the real winners are!

after we beat the Cards, is all the talk going to be about how weak of a playoff team the Cards are, and how they shouldn’t have been in the playoffs last year? Let’s try to remind Mr. Rosenthal that the Cards put 50+ on Greenbay and their defensive Player of the Year, and then compare that to what the Cards put up against us and the guy who some how got three votes…

Who is Greg Rosenthal?

@prosb4hos No way you could watch full Saints season and buy Sharper as dpoy. Good player, but a reason he only got small 1-year deal as FA

Rosenthal is pretty good, rarely wrong. Conservative, in a good way. It’s just odd that he has singled out Sharper. I’d think Jared Allen would be an easier target. Hey, I don’t think Sharper was defensive player of the year either.

I understand what he’s saying. There’s really only two ways to look at DBs … statistically or by reputation. By the former, Woodson either matches or surpasses Sharper’s 2009 numbers across the board (with the exception of INT return yards). He forced four fumbles and recovered one, something Sharper didn’t do at all. He also accomplished these numbers playing CB, which inherently more difficult to do. Non-Football Outsiders statistics aside, Revis is the best cover CB in the game today. He also plays on the #1 defense in the league.

Historically, safeties who have won the Defensive Player of the Year award have done so on reputation, not statistics. Compare Ed Reed and Bob Sanders’s numbers the years they won the award to Darren Sharper’s this season and you could make a strong argument for Sharper. Trouble is, they were super hyped going in and exceeded expectations. Sharper simply exceeded expectations.

Again, safeties are prett much EXPECTED to rack up interceptions. In order for them to gain recognition based on that alone, it would have to be an unusually unnoteworthy year for just about every other defensive position. There have only been four safeties to win the award period. And none of them were named Lott, Atwater, Houston, Krause, Tatum, Wilson, Christensen, Lynch … all the ones you might expect to have won it. Hype going in, PLUS statistical performance, PLUS considerable lack of competition from other positions, PLUS formidable play as a unit. That’s the working formula. Or at least two or three of those factors. You only had one of those with Sharper.

So, basically it boils down to “how does anyone vote for Sharper over BOTH Woodson AND Revis?” Speaking without bias, I can see his point this particular season.