Drake Maye or Matthew Stafford? It's the TAFS 2025 Awards Show!
The Athletic Football Show: A show about the NFL
The Athletic
4.6 • 3.3K Ratings
🗓️ 8 January 2026
⏱️ 84 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The regular season is over and the playoffs have yet to start. It's time to hand out some hardware. Are the Offensive and Defensive Player of the Year winners as straightforward as they seem? Who emerges from a crowded Coach of the Year candidate pool? And who's the MVP, Drake Maye or Matthew Stafford? Robert Mays, Derrik Klassen and Dave Helman name their 2025 NFL season award winners on this episode of The Athletic Football Show.
Rundown (timestamps are approximate)
4:15 Offensive Player of the Year
15:52 Defensive Player of the Year
24:59 Offensive Rookie of the Year
31:43 Defensive Rookie of the Year
36:37 Protector of the Year
42:13 Assistant Coach of the Year
58:48 Executive of the Year
1:03:24 Coach of the Year
1:14:26 MVP
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Host: Robert Mays
Co-Hosts: Derrik Klassen and Dave Helman
Executive Producer: Michael Beller
Video Producer: Katy Duffy
Audio Producer: Michael Beller
Social Producer: Scott Krinch
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to the Athletic Football Show. |
| 0:05.5 | I'm Robert Mays, giving out some 2025 awards today. |
| 0:09.5 | This show is fun as hell. |
| 0:10.7 | I'm just telling you guys right now. |
| 0:12.2 | We picked all the big ones, all the ones that you would expect, |
| 0:14.5 | the same ones we picked on the mid-season show. |
| 0:16.7 | Dug into offensive and defensive player of the year first. |
| 0:18.9 | Followed that up with some of the rookies. |
| 0:20.7 | Talked about assistant coach of the year, which to me is like one of the more interesting arguments |
| 0:25.1 | among all of these. And Dave actually kind of shocked me. We had the same pick. I did not anticipate |
| 0:29.5 | that happening. Doug into coach of the year, which again, an incredibly crowded field, really |
| 0:35.2 | enjoyed that conversation. And then, you know, the MVP debate, |
| 0:39.5 | the one that we have not talked that much about on this show, but obviously there's tons of stuff |
| 0:44.0 | to dig into there and really enjoyed kind of untangling the Matthew Stafford versus |
| 0:49.1 | Drake May discussion with my guys, Derek Classen and Dave Hellman. So let's get to that conversation right now. |
| 1:00.8 | Time to hand out some 2025 season-long NFL awards. |
| 1:05.5 | We haven't really talked about any of this stuff, for the most part, since our mid-season |
| 1:10.1 | show. |
| 1:10.7 | I feel like we could have mined the MVP debate more than we did. That's why I'm bad at content, I guess. But how? Like going back and forth on the same two guys. Like in other years, it's like, I remember, I think it was 2023 when Lamar won it. It was like, Dak had an insane, like, surge toward the end. And so it was like it felt like there was more intrigue. This year, it kind of did feel like it's from like |
| 1:31.9 | week seven on. It was Drake May and it's felt very cut and dry. And I also kind of appreciate |
| 1:36.8 | just letting it get to the end and marinating on it because I'm the one. And I don't regret it, |
| 1:41.9 | by the way. He was playing great. But after five or six weeks, I was like, yeah, Baker Mayfield would be my MVP right now. And look how insane that looks in January. So, like, it's not a bad thing to just sort of let things simmer. I think checking in on it midseason and then checking in out of the end of the year, the way that we do, I'm fine with that process. I think if I will continue to do it that way for the rest of time as long as I'm in charge of programming the show. |
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