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If you are a New York Jets fan and I told you right now that quarterback Joe Flacco would win the 2020 NFL Comeback Player of the Year Award, would you even be happy? That would obviously mean Flacco had a good season but also that presumed young franchise quarterback Sam Darnold either struggled mightily and was benched or that he suffered a major injury. Flacco is +4000 to win the award on the William Hill moneyline odds.
The only player to win this award twice was once a Jet and that was quarterback Chad Pennington in 2006; he won it again in 2008 while with Miami.
Gang Green signed Flacco in late May to back up Darnold. Of course, Flacco had one of the great postseason runs in NFL history following the 2012 season in leading the Baltimore Ravens to their last Super Bowl title. He was named the game's MVP and parlayed that into a mammoth contract, but Flacco was never that good again.
He played just eight games last season with the Denver Broncos and was pretty bad until suffering a season-ending herniated disk that required surgery. Flacco is not likely to be ready for Week 1 and will have a final checkup on that issue in early September, although it looks as if he will avoid missing the reserve/PUP list and just miss a game or two. Flacco would have to sit six games if he opened the season on that list.
There's a realistic chance that Flacco does see the field at some point as Darnold has been limited to 13 games in each of his first two seasons. New York went 0-3 without him in 2019 and averaged all of 7.7 points in those three games. The team averaged 19.5 points per game with Darnold under center.
Quarterbacks have won NFL Comeback Player of the Year the past two seasons: Tennessee's Ryan Tannehill in 2019 and Indianapolis' Andrew Luck in 2018.
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