Green Bay Packers: End of season awards and recap

MEDAL RESULT | Defensive MVP

Za'Darius Smith

Jaire Alexander

Kenny Clark

Kenny Clark made his first Pro Bowl this year after holding down the interior. He’s been very impressive this year, stepping up to stuff more runs and take on more double teams with Mike Daniels gone. Now, playing next to Dean Lowry and Tyler Lancaster, he is easily the best player on the defensive front and a focal point for every offense to try to get out of the way every play.

He had career highs in tackles for loss and total tackles this year and tied his career high in sacks with six. Unless you look at Pro Football Focus who will tell you he had eight which would tie him for sixth among all defensive lineman. Either way he is extremely versatile and can stop runs, rush the passer and he was very worthy of his Pro Bowl bid.

Jaire Alexander had a phenomenal start to the season and faded a bit late, but he still was huge for this Green Bay Packers’ defense. He locked up the number one receiver of the other team on multiple occasions. He has great speed and agility to stay with anyone in man coverage and is physical enough to get up and press anyone.

He has a knack for knocking passes away and was one of the best in the league at it this year. Passes defended isn’t an exact stat and he had 17, 18, or 19 depending on what site you trust. Any way you slice it, he was top 10 in the NFL in that category. He only finished with two interceptions, but dropped a couple and could have a big season of five or six interceptions next season if that improves.

Alexander also had a forced fumble in week three where he welcomed rookie tight end Noah Fant to the league by taking his lunch money and the ball by force.  Possibly most impressively, he only allowed a 53.8 percent completion rate when targeted. He locked down this year and will continue to do so in years to come as he is only 22 years old.

Before we get to Za’Darius, here’s a small note for his brother, Preston Smith, who had 12 sacks this year and deserves some recognition for his hand in the Green Bay Packers’ success this season.

Finally, the leader of this defense and the guy who was the biggest factor in the turnaround from last year. Za’Darius Smith deserves every bit of praise and every accolade he gets. He was snubbed from the All-Pro team, but did get to his first Pro Bowl.

A career-high 13.5 sacks, career-high 17 tackles for loss, career-high 37 quarterback hits. He got after the quarterback every week this year. There was only one week in the regular season when he didn’t register a quarterback hit. Even when he wasn’t getting sacks, he was making an impact.

Towards the end of the year, he started moving around the line of scrimmage even more and disrupting runs from the inside, blowing up offensive guards to make plays in the backfield. He flew around and made huge plays at huge times all year and had some great celebrations to go with them.