Coach Of the Year for Season XIV goes to...

There were a lot of teams in the running for Best Coach this season—Raider’s effort with the Raiders being most noteworthy—but ultimately Cowboy takes home the Coach of the Year award. As part of the ten game season, Cowboy lost only one game with the Broncos and rolled through the playoffs on the way to his second consecutive MPL title.

When you finish a season with only one loss and an MPL title, it would be difficult to NOT take home the Best Team award. Cowboy’s Broncos had a fantastic season and did so without relying heavily on any aspect of their game. The team was among the league’s leaders in total defense, total offense (including both rushing and passing, individually) while Eddie Royal tore it up on punt and kickoff returns

Despite having an all-around solid team effort propel them to success throughout the season, the Broncos offense was the most daunting challenge for opposing teams to contain. The Denver offense was ranked third in the league in total offense, seventh in passing offense, and second in rushing offense.

In what has to be considered something of a surprise, the Oakland Raiders take home this season’s Best Defense award. Oakland was ranked in the bottom half of the league in total defense (21st), and plenty of the teams in front were playoff participants. Murphy’s Law is in effect, but congratulations to Raider’s Raidering Raiders just the same.

Gators has always been a solid player but failing to make noise in the playoffs as well as contributing minimal activity to the forums has allowed him to fly under the radar. Making it to the conference championship, however, has put the league on notice.

The houtz award finally goes to someone who can back up all of the trash talking. Now, if we could only get that rare hybrid of skill and QUALITY smacktalk back into the league we’d be good to go. For the time being, however, Cowboy’s “awesomeness” will have to suffice.

Lokidoki won this award by virtue of being a newcomer to the league and making an immediate impact. Armed with one of the best teams in the game as well as some nice football smarts, Lokidoki had his rookie season stopped short of an MPL title by only one game.

In the always trying summer season, Sully’s commitment was one the MPL’s bright spots. Armed sporadically with co-hosts Shady and Koneko chan as well as occasional special guest appearances, Sully was the one constant on the summer season’s only consistent feature in MPL Radio.

This award might as well be renamed the Big Remo reward; if it’s not Big Boss taking it home, it’s Remo. The two have been staples of the league for sometime now and always show sportsmanship and courtesy to fellow members, but this season it is remo who gets the league’s Most Classy award.

The Oakland Raiders won the Most Exciting award after finishing the regular season undefeated. With a bum squad like Oakland’s many of the games are going to be exciting and, with no dominant aspect of the team, the Raiders found different ways to win games week in and week out.

When you think old school football, you think pounding the rock, running a conservative aerial attack, and challenging offenses week in and week out with a stout defense. To gain perspective on this ideal in relation to the Packers’ season, Green Bay 43.5 yards per game on the ground, turned the ball over 20 times (close to tops in the league), and had the league’s worst defense, giving up 217.4 yards per game. Murphy’s law is once again in effect.

Superpunk brings a subtly blatant wit to the league that is either endearing or mind-numbingly irritating, depending on perspective. With another Most Creative award to file away in his archives, The MPL’s Biggest Homer (as voted by the league) is clearly tilting the scale toward endearment.

Steeljake came into the MPL and put together a string of impressive victories, but it was too little too late as the previous owner left the team in a hole too deep to dig out of. Jake then moved onto the NIT and rolled toward a win in that tournament’s championship game. With his success and ability to spark controversy, expectations for his sophomore season were high.

Lokidoki, meanwhile, didn’t cause quite as much of a stir with his words but caused even more of a stir with his play. Lokidoki was able to utilize a talented Ravens squad to secure a playoff berth and then pulled of a couple of upsets en route to an MPL Bowl appearance where he, ultimately, ran into the buzzsaw of awesomeness. Still, with such an impressive debut season, Lokidoki also faces great expectations heading into year two.

When this guy came into the league at the end of last season, he took over a team that was already cemented in the playoffs. Word from those who played him, however, was that he was a solid competitor and worthy of the berth that was gift-wrapped for him. Apparently those who played him as the Seahawks were quite wrong. How do you miss the playoffs with the Patriots? Ask ShutdownD.

Oh how the mighty have fallen. Shady was a fairly strong player in the MPL back in the PS2 days, even making it to an MPL Bowl. But since coming back into the league on the PS3, he can’t seem to get much of anything going. To his credit he has been exhibiting patience and persistence so hopefully Shady can get his losing trend turned around sooner rather than later.

Ethan chose to write recaps this season and it netted him yet another award in this category. He doesn’t spice his recaps up with colored fonts or pictures and rarely uses video highlights, but utilizes great attention to detail and the play listing within the game to sculpt a full recreation of the game using memory wins him this season’s award for best writeups.

Argue the worth of kevmack’s endless polls and his consistently absurd wagers, but one thing is certain; Kev loves to talk, and he’s good at getting others talking. Also, he has his son on the cover of Madden for the added bonus.

Superpunk always had entertaining signatures in tow, so it makes sense that, once again, he takes home the award for this season’s best sigs.

Just kidding. Leo was sweating for a second, I promise you. He figuratively begged for the award by making his sigs lengthy/standoutish/ever changing. At one point he literally begged as well, soliciting votes for the award from the MPL’s constituents. That said, there is no question that Leo deserves this award. Even if only for his unrequited mancrush on Mike Vick.

When this award was conceived there were a lot of guys making A LOT of sigs. Nearly everybody had one at a point, whether it be crafted by Jim, SP, Blu Pun, Prez, or Zoobie. Recently, however, that fad has gone to the wayside. Were there even any sigs made this past season? It doesn’t matter. Jim’s the man, the head honcho, the big dog, and deserves an award.

• By Popular demand, Vick to Philly was voted as the Best Post of Season XIV.
  
  

• By Popular demand, Dear MPL was voted as the Best Topic of Season XIV.
  
  

• By Popular demand, Loki beating Superpunk, MPL members attempting to be on the Madden Hall of Fame Committee, MPL Radio were voted as the Fondest Memories of Season XIV.
  
  

• By Popular demand, Raider88dc getting upset, some features continuing all season, Cowboy going back to back, finishing before Madden 10 drops were voted as the Best of MPL Season XIV.
  
  

• The worst of MPL Season XIV was voted as games not getting played, Shady failing, not everyone using Leaguedaddy when it's been paid for, arguments about dives and sneaks.
  
  

Divisional Round: Jaguars(Ethan) - 14 vs Raiders(Raider88dc) - 13