Ja'Marr Chase will head into Super Bowl with the title of Offensive Rookie of the Year, while Micah Parsons won Defensive Player of the Year for his astonishing 2021.
Chase, who will hope to help the Bengals to their first Super Bowl title in franchise history on Sunday, was named as the top rookie on the defnsive side at the NFL Honours ceremony in Los Angeles.
It follows a spectacular regular-season campaign in which Chase broke the rookie record for receiving yards set by his former LSU team-mate Justin Jefferson.
Chase finished the season with 1,455 receiving yards and 13 receiving touchdowns, the third-highest tally in the NFL, justifying the Bengals' decision to reunite him with Joe Burrow, with whom he and Jefferson won the National Championship in 2019, instead of taking an offensive lineman in the first round.
Parsons never reached such heights at Penn State but has quickly established himself as one of the most dominant defensive players in the NFL.
Drafted by the Dallas Cowboys as an inside linebacker, Parsons thrived instead in his role as a designated pass rusher.
Parsons finished the season with 13 sacks, the sixth-most in the NFL, while he also racked up 20 tackles for loss and three forced fumbles.
His pressure rate of 32.2 per cent on 211 pass rush snaps was even superior to that of even Aaron Donald (27.9 per cent). His run disruption rate of 13.7% was fourth among all linebackers.
That extraordinary level of performance did not translate to playoff success for Dallas. Yet Parsons can console himself with some individual success while the Cowboys can rest safe in the knowledge that they have a young stud who can derail opposing offenses, and there are few assets in the NFL more valuable than that.
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