ESPYS 2014

Best Male Athlete
Nominees:  Miguel Cabrera, Kevin Durant, Floyd Mayweather, Peyton Manning
Winner:  Peyton Manning
I was tempted to put Mayweather here as he won two title matches since the last ESPYS in convincing fashion.  Manning's offensive explosion and NFL records, however, swayed me.  While Manning might not have won the title in his sport, he did win his 5th NFL MVP award, something no one else has done, and set the record for most passing TDs and yards in a season.  Manning led the Broncos to a 13-3 record as they scored 10 more points per game than the next closest team (Broncos had 37.9 PPG, Bears and Patriots had 27.8).  Manning's efficient play calling and passing skills also helped Knowshown Moreno and Eric Decker receive healthy contracts in free agency.  The Super Bowl may not have gone as well as he would have liked, but you can bet he'll be on a revenge tour this year to capture another title.

Best Female Athlete
Nominees:  Maya Moore, Ronda Rousey, Mikaela Shiffrin, Breanna Stewart
Winner:  Ronda Rousey
Rousey has not only broken down barriers in mixed martial arts (MMA) for women, but she's also really good at what she does.  She had been in Strikeforce prior to this past year and even won a bronze medal in Judo at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, but her popularity really took off since she joined the UFC.  Since the 2013 ESPYS, she has gone 2-0 in title defenses, headlined a UFC pay-per-view event (UFC 170), got to be one of the coaches on Season 18 of The Ultimate Fighter, and is co-headlining UFC 175 this Saturday.  She is 9-0 in her MMA career and has established herself as one of the most dominant people in their respective sport.

Best Team
Nominees:  Boston Red Sox, LA Kings, San Antonio Spurs, Seattle Seahawks, UConn Women's Basketball, Florida State Football
Winner:  San Antonio Spurs
The Spurs win this category hands down.  The Spurs, once again, wound up with the best record in the NBA playing in the far superior Western Conference.  During the postseason, they had nine players play all 23 games, and all of them averaged more than 15 minutes per game.  The Spurs were pushed to seven in the first round against the Mavs thanks to Vince Carter becoming half man, half amazing once again.  Then, they steamrolled the Blazers in a series where Portland was lucky to even win a game.  In the Western Conference Finals, they used home court advantage to crush MVP Kevin Durant and the Thunder in San Antonio, then wrap it up in Game 6 in overtime in OKC.  The much hyped Heat series became a stroll in the park as they won rather easily in five games.  They were dominant throughout the year and have a bright future with 23 year old Kawhi Leonard winning the NBA Finals MVP.

Best Comeback
Nominees:  Josh Beckett, Sidney Crosby, Dominic Moore, Russell Westbrook
Winner:  Josh Beckett
Unlike the other guys on this list, Beckett looked bad before he missed time with an injury or other leave of absence (Moore missed time due to the passing of his wife).  Beckett came over from Boston to the Dodgers in 2012, but was never able to capture that same Boston magic.  In 2013, he only started eight games for LA and saw his ERA balloon to 5.19, his highest for a full season since 2010.  This season, however, Beckett is pitching much better.  Despite a 5-5 record, Beckett has his ERA back down to 2.37 and threw his first career no hitter this year back on May 25th against the Phillies.  If he stays in form, this Dodgers team will be a terror to play in the postseason as the first four games they can send out Clayton Kershaw, Zack Greinke, Hyun-Jin Ryu, and Beckett.

Best Breakthrough Athlete
Nominees:  Nick Foles, Damian Lillard, Richard Sherman, Masahiro Tanaka
Winner:  Nick Foles
This one is a true toss up, although the argument could be made that Lillard and Sherman both truly broke through prior to last year's ESPYS (last year's category was stacked with Colin Kap, Russell Wilson, Johnny Manziel, Mike Trout, and Yasiel Puig).  What Foles did once he got the starting job was nothing short of spectacular.  The Eagles were 1-3 before Foles took over at QB, but he turned the team around as they went 9-2 under him (he missed one game due to injury) and won the NFC East title.  He threw for 27 TDs and only 2 interceptions as he helped provide some legitimacy to Chip Kelly's high octane, high speed offense. 

Best Championship Performance
Nominees:  Kawhi Leonard, David Ortiz, Jimmie Johnson, Shabazz Napier
Winner:  Shabazz Napier
The Spurs and Leonard may have had the best team, but Napier was the most impressive in each person's respective postseason.  Napier led the 7th seeded UConn Huskies on an incredible run from the seven seed all the way to National Champions.  Along the way, they had to beat (10) St. Joseph's, (2) Villanova, (3) Iowa State,  (4) Michigan State, (1) Florida, and (8) Kentucky.  Shabazz led the Huskies in scoring in four of those games, including a 22 point performance to lead all players in the National Title game while playing 39 of the 40 minutes.  He had good players around him in Ryan Boatright and DeAndre Daniels, but Napier led the way and was the heart of that team.  Deservedly, he won the Final Four Most Outstanding Player Award.

Best Game
Nominees:  Auburn Tigers vs Alabama Crimson Tide, Kansas City Chiefs vs Indianapolis Colts, New York Rangers vs LA Kings Game 5
Winner:  Chiefs vs Colts
This was probably the toughest call to make as I kept going back and forth between Chiefs/Colts and Auburn/'Bama.  It really is #1 and #1a.  The ending of Auburn/'Bama might have been better, but the entirety of the game has to go to Chiefs/Colts.  In this game, we got to see why Andrew Luck is the king of 4th quarter comebacks.  Unfortunately, it's because the Colts are so bad the first three quarters.  The Chiefs pounded the Colts in the first half as Indy turned it over twice and found themselves down 31-10 going into halftime.  Still plenty of time to catch up.  Problem is on the very first play in the 3rd quarter, Luck threw an interception at his own 18 yard line.  Three plays later and it's 38-10 and I changed the channel.  Even when the Colts got it down to 38-24, Luck threw another interception right after the Chiefs went three and out.

Going into the 4th, the Colts got it down to 10, but still needed some help.  They got it in the form of one of the luckiest bounces ever.  Donald Brown, halfback for the Colts, took a dive up the middle only to be stripped at the goal line.  Luck, having just handed the ball off, saw the ball bounce right to him as he lowered his own shoulder and dove into the end zone to make it a 41-38 game.  Lucas Oil was rocking and that's when you really started to think that they might actually pull this one out.  After another Chiefs field goal, Luck connected on a bomb to TY Hilton with 4 minutes left to give the Colts a 45-44 lead.  The Colts held on to conclude one of the wildest comebacks and games I have ever seen.

Best Upset
Nominees:  UConn wins NCAA title, Mercer Beats Duke, Chris Weidman Beats Anderson Silva
Winner:  Weidman Beats Silva
From 2006 when Silva joined the UFC to October 2012, his last win in the UFC, Silva was probably the most dominant person in his sport in terms of record and ease with which he beat his opponents.  During that stretch, he went 16-0 while beating some of the best names that the UFC had to offer.  He held the UFC Middleweight Title that entire stretch and was only taken to the 5th (final) round three times.  Every time Silva had a match the UFC would have to talk and hype up his competitor to get people to watch, but in truth it was over before the fight even began.  He would head bob, fight with his hands down, and attempt moves that other fighters would never try.  Ironically, it was his cocky hands down fighting that cost him.  Weidman kept pressing the issue, and finally caught him in an exchange where Silva tried to out quick him rather than out fight him.  It was a monumental upset, as Weidman has gone on to beat Silva a second time due to a nasty leg injury (warning: graphic).  It was the first fight, however, that got the title out of Silva's hands for the first time in eight years.

Best Moment
Usually they have this as a category, but last time I checked the site they don't have it up to vote on though I could have sworn it was up about a week ago.  My guess is that they are redoing the poll as one of the nominees probably had to do with the US Soccer Team at the World Cup.  That's my guess, but it should be available to vote on in the near future.

Just off the top of my head, one moment that I thought was awesome was Martin St. Louis' comeback after the death of his mother.  She died just three days prior to Mother's Day while the Rangers were in the middle of their second round series with the Penguins.  The Rangers rallied around St. Louis and came back from a 3-1 series deficit to beat the favored Penguins in seven games.  They used this momentum to carry them past Montreal in the Conference Finals before falling in five to the Kings.  St. Louis is one of those old, grizzled veterans, respected around the league by fans and players alike so it was nice to see him and his team respond in a positive way.

Matty O