Roast Why I’ve always thought AFL Awards are bRoken

[RCAB]

I've always thought AFL awards were stupid. Not just flawed... fundamentally broken.


Start with the Brownlow Medal. The award that's supposedly for the "best and fairest"... yet somehow some of the greatest players ever never won it. Leigh Matthews, Wayne Carey, Gary Ablett Sr, Jason Dunstall, Luke Hodge. You’re telling me that none of those blokes were ever the “best” player in a season? Pull the other one.

And don’t get me started on the voting system. A 3-2-1 system decided by umpires who already have the hardest job in footy and aren’t even watching off-ball movement. So you get a midfielder who racks up 28 handballs in a loss getting 3 votes while someone else kicks 10 goals in a win gets the same 3 votes, and sometimes 1 vote. Or none. And all of it void if a player gets suspended, even if they played like an actual god for the rest of the year.

Then there’s the All-Australian team, which (like the Brownlow) only covers the home-and-away season. Just let that sink in.

The entire finals series (the actual reason we play the season) counts for nothing in these awards. 100% of the weighting goes to the lesser part of the competition.

Example? Let’s go back to 1991. Hawthorn not only won the flag, they belted top of the ladder West Coast (162% season) in the grand final, and also beat them convincingly in a QF in Perth.


And this wasn't just a fluke for Hawthorn that year, they'd made seven of the last eight grand finals. And yet... not one Hawthorn player made the All-Australian team that year. Meanwhile, some clubs that didn’t even make a dint in the finals had four guys in the side. I mean… what?


Let’s go broader. The voting is done by a tiny little cabal of people. No wisdom of the crowd or representation of the wider AFL community. Just a select few whose biases and blind spots dictate everything.

Only award that regularly gets it right is the Leigh Matthews Trophy, voted by the players. Still not perfect, but at least it uses mass input. Same goes for most other sports. Basketball, soccer, NFL, journalists and coaches who actually watch games do the voting. But here, because the media’s cooked and the AFL’s paranoid about narrative manipulation, we just let it be decided by… umpires and selectors? Okay then.

And let’s end on this irony. The only AFL tradition that actually reflects how much we value the grand final, is the Premiership Medal. But it only gets handed out to the players who participate on grand final day.

Think about that...

AFL doesn’t let the Brownlow count finals. It doesn’t let the All-Australian selectors consider finals. But we only give the most coveted medals for one game, the last one, a tradition started by Channel 7 around 1977?

So the logic is what? The rest of the season (including qualifying finals, semi finals, prelims) mean less than the last Saturday in September? But the awards we actually base the season around ignore that final month entirely?


Is it no wonder none of these medals feel like they really encapsulate greatness?



Tldr of my rant:

• AFL awards aren’t just flawed, they’re broken.

• Brownlow Medal: decided by umpires with a dodgy 3-2-1 system, ignores finals, and disqualifies suspended players → many all-time greats never won it.

• All-Australian team: also ignores finals, leading to absurd snubs (e.g. 1991 Hawthorn flag side with no representatives).

• Voting is controlled by a tiny group, not fans, players, or broader experts.

• Leigh Matthews Trophy (players’ vote) is the only award that consistently makes sense.

• Big irony: the Premiership Medal is the only award tied to the grand final (the most important part of the season), yet all these "respected" awards completely disregard finals.

Bottom line: AFL awards don’t actually measure greatness, they’re built on inconsistent or outdated logic.

 

[HairyO]

The closest open award to being good is the AFLCA coach votes but even that has been shown to be flawed.

Probably the best way to look at the game is to look at the top 5 in club B & Fs and where the club finished on the ladder. But even that has been terribly rigged - a few years ago when a bunch of players all came equal first because the club wanted them to feel like they shouldnt jump ship and go elsewhere.

If a player wins the B & F in a year the club wins the flag - that to me is the ultimate honour.

 

[Chronz]

The closest open award to being good is the AFLCA coach votes but even that has been shown to be flawed.

Probably the best way to look at the game is to look at the top 5 in club B & Fs and where the club finished on the ladder. But even that has been terribly rigged - a few years ago when a bunch of players all came equal first because the club wanted them to feel like they shouldnt jump ship and go elsewhere.

If a player wins the B & F in a year the club wins the flag - that to me is the ultimate honour.

Something I can 100% agree with you on Hairy. There's a first for everything.

 

[Altum Volantes]

Too Many Capital Letters Within Their Titles?

 

[RCAB]

The closest open award to being good is the AFLCA coach votes but even that has been shown to be flawed.

Probably the best way to look at the game is to look at the top 5 in club B & Fs and where the club finished on the ladder. But even that has been terribly rigged - a few years ago when a bunch of players all came equal first because the club wanted them to feel like they shouldnt jump ship and go elsewhere.

If a player wins the B & F in a year the club wins the flag - that to me is the ultimate honour.

Gibson won it twice in a premiership year, for a dynasty team, and yet he's never discussed in the greatest players of all time, and rarely even gets discussed in the greatest defenders.

 

[HairyO]

Gibson won it twice in a premiership year, for a dynasty team, and yet he's never discussed in the greatest players of all time, and rarely even gets discussed in the greatest defenders.

The perfect example is the defender who the club rates as vital but the media and umpires simply dont recognise.

Gibbo didnt make AA in 2013 which is farcical.

 

[RCAB]

The perfect example is the defender who the club rates as vital but the media and umpires simply dont recognise.

Gibbo didnt make AA in 2013 which is farcical.

That's just another example... we would be here till Christmas listing them all.

 

[Handsuper47]

Don't really care about awards, most people will know just watching games who the best players are.

 

[shaqsuns]

I've always thought AFL awards were stupid. Not just flawed... fundamentally broken.


Start with the Brownlow Medal. The award that's supposedly for the "best and fairest"... yet somehow some of the greatest players ever never won it. Leigh Matthews, Wayne Carey, Gary Ablett Sr, Jason Dunstall, Luke Hodge. You’re telling me that none of those blokes were ever the “best” player in a season? Pull the other one.

And don’t get me started on the voting system. A 3-2-1 system decided by umpires who already have the hardest job in footy and aren’t even watching off-ball movement. So you get a midfielder who racks up 28 handballs in a loss getting 3 votes while someone else kicks 10 goals in a win gets the same 3 votes, and sometimes 1 vote. Or none. And all of it void if a player gets suspended, even if they played like an actual god for the rest of the year.

Then there’s the All-Australian team, which (like the Brownlow) only covers the home-and-away season. Just let that sink in.

The entire finals series (the actual reason we play the season) counts for nothing in these awards. 100% of the weighting goes to the lesser part of the competition.

Example? Let’s go back to 1991. Hawthorn not only won the flag, they belted top of the ladder West Coast (162% season) in the grand final, and also beat them convincingly in a QF in Perth.


And this wasn't just a fluke for Hawthorn that year, they'd made seven of the last eight grand finals. And yet... not one Hawthorn player made the All-Australian team that year. Meanwhile, some clubs that didn’t even make a dint in the finals had four guys in the side. I mean… what?


Let’s go broader. The voting is done by a tiny little cabal of people. No wisdom of the crowd or representation of the wider AFL community. Just a select few whose biases and blind spots dictate everything.

Only award that regularly gets it right is the Leigh Matthews Trophy, voted by the players. Still not perfect, but at least it uses mass input. Same goes for most other sports. Basketball, soccer, NFL, journalists and coaches who actually watch games do the voting. But here, because the media’s cooked and the AFL’s paranoid about narrative manipulation, we just let it be decided by… umpires and selectors? Okay then.

And let’s end on this irony. The only AFL tradition that actually reflects how much we value the grand final, is the Premiership Medal. But it only gets handed out to the players who participate on grand final day.

Think about that...

AFL doesn’t let the Brownlow count finals. It doesn’t let the All-Australian selectors consider finals. But we only give the most coveted medals for one game, the last one, a tradition started by Channel 7 around 1977?

So the logic is what? The rest of the season (including qualifying finals, semi finals, prelims) mean less than the last Saturday in September? But the awards we actually base the season around ignore that final month entirely?


Is it no wonder none of these medals feel like they really encapsulate greatness?



Tldr of my rant:

• AFL awards aren’t just flawed, they’re broken.

• Brownlow Medal: decided by umpires with a dodgy 3-2-1 system, ignores finals, and disqualifies suspended players → many all-time greats never won it.

• All-Australian team: also ignores finals, leading to absurd snubs (e.g. 1991 Hawthorn flag side with no representatives).

• Voting is controlled by a tiny group, not fans, players, or broader experts.

• Leigh Matthews Trophy (players’ vote) is the only award that consistently makes sense.

• Big irony: the Premiership Medal is the only award tied to the grand final (the most important part of the season), yet all these "respected" awards completely disregard finals.

Bottom line: AFL awards don’t actually measure greatness, they’re built on inconsistent or outdated logic.

I've always thought AFL awards were stupid. Not just flawed... fundamentally broken.


Start with the Brownlow Medal. The award that's supposedly for the "best and fairest"... yet somehow some of the greatest players ever never won it. Leigh Matthews, Wayne Carey, Gary Ablett Sr, Jason Dunstall, Luke Hodge. You’re telling me that none of those blokes were ever the “best” player in a season? Pull the other one.

And don’t get me started on the voting system. A 3-2-1 system decided by umpires who already have the hardest job in footy and aren’t even watching off-ball movement. So you get a midfielder who racks up 28 handballs in a loss getting 3 votes while someone else kicks 10 goals in a win gets the same 3 votes, and sometimes 1 vote. Or none. And all of it void if a player gets suspended, even if they played like an actual god for the rest of the year.

Then there’s the All-Australian team, which (like the Brownlow) only covers the home-and-away season. Just let that sink in.

The entire finals series (the actual reason we play the season) counts for nothing in these awards. 100% of the weighting goes to the lesser part of the competition.

Example? Let’s go back to 1991. Hawthorn not only won the flag, they belted top of the ladder West Coast (162% season) in the grand final, and also beat them convincingly in a QF in Perth.


And this wasn't just a fluke for Hawthorn that year, they'd made seven of the last eight grand finals. And yet... not one Hawthorn player made the All-Australian team that year. Meanwhile, some clubs that didn’t even make a dint in the finals had four guys in the side. I mean… what?


Let’s go broader. The voting is done by a tiny little cabal of people. No wisdom of the crowd or representation of the wider AFL community. Just a select few whose biases and blind spots dictate everything.

Only award that regularly gets it right is the Leigh Matthews Trophy, voted by the players. Still not perfect, but at least it uses mass input. Same goes for most other sports. Basketball, soccer, NFL, journalists and coaches who actually watch games do the voting. But here, because the media’s cooked and the AFL’s paranoid about narrative manipulation, we just let it be decided by… umpires and selectors? Okay then.

And let’s end on this irony. The only AFL tradition that actually reflects how much we value the grand final, is the Premiership Medal. But it only gets handed out to the players who participate on grand final day.

Think about that...

AFL doesn’t let the Brownlow count finals. It doesn’t let the All-Australian selectors consider finals. But we only give the most coveted medals for one game, the last one, a tradition started by Channel 7 around 1977?

So the logic is what? The rest of the season (including qualifying finals, semi finals, prelims) mean less than the last Saturday in September? But the awards we actually base the season around ignore that final month entirely?


Is it no wonder none of these medals feel like they really encapsulate greatness?



Tldr of my rant:

• AFL awards aren’t just flawed, they’re broken.

• Brownlow Medal: decided by umpires with a dodgy 3-2-1 system, ignores finals, and disqualifies suspended players → many all-time greats never won it.

• All-Australian team: also ignores finals, leading to absurd snubs (e.g. 1991 Hawthorn flag side with no representatives).

• Voting is controlled by a tiny group, not fans, players, or broader experts.

• Leigh Matthews Trophy (players’ vote) is the only award that consistently makes sense.

• Big irony: the Premiership Medal is the only award tied to the grand final (the most important part of the season), yet all these "respected" awards completely disregard finals.

Bottom line: AFL awards don’t actually measure greatness, they’re built on inconsistent or outdated logic.

Hodge was never the best player

 

[Fadge]

Which year was Luke Hodge the best player across a season?

 

[Fadge]

Get on board the Fadgelow - the only award that factors in the home and away season AND the finals series.

 

[RCAB]

Hodge was never the best player

Why because he never won a Brownlow? That's the point of the thread.

 

[Cactus_]

yOu’vE aLWayS BiN rIGhT

 

[00Stinger]

So effectively the award is incorrect because 3 of my teams players never won it

 

[manicmagpie]

Meh, all awards have issues of some sort.

For me though, the Leigh Matthews trophy is my least favourite of the AFL awards.

It’s voted on only at the end of the season so it doesn’t reward week to week excellence and suffers greatly from recency bias.

It’s voted for by a group of people that large sections of openly admit they don’t watch most of the games and in quite a few cases almost none of the games.

It almost always goes to the player most hyped up by the media at the end of the season. Sometimes that’s going to be a good choice and sometimes not.

Bottom line is though, if you don’t like an award then you don’t have to put any store by it.

 

[Wojcinski]

OP really snuck Hodge in there

 

[Gavin Excell]

Hawthorn whining

 

[The Feeder Club]

So effectively the award is incorrect because 3 of my teams players never won it

One player a year wins the Brownlow. Therefore, many excellent players will miss out to other excellent players.
If you really wanted to argue it was a broken award, you would imagine using a ho hum player who should never have been anywhere near the Brownlow podium to mount your argument
Like, I don't know...

 

[matty lloyd the champ]

The players MVP award is a joke as well. Most players aren't footy nuffies and don't have the time nor interest to follow other games during the weekend. I'd say even the average Bigfooty poster would be better informed than most footy players.

 

[Lunchtime]

Do you at least like the Coleman medal????

 

[Lunchtime]

Meh, all awards have issues of some sort.

For me though, the Leigh Matthews trophy is my least favourite of the AFL awards.

It’s voted on only at the end of the season so it doesn’t reward week to week excellence and suffers greatly from recency bias.

It’s voted for by a group of people that large sections of openly admit they don’t watch most of the games and in quite a few cases almost none of the games.

It almost always goes to the player most hyped up by the media at the end of the season. Sometimes that’s going to be a good choice and sometimes not.

Bottom line is though, if you don’t like an award then you don’t have to put any store by it.

Are you 100% sure the Leigh Matthews Trophy (AFLPA MVP) is voted on by the players at the end of the Home & Away rounds?

Whats the logic behind that? Surely voting after each game is when the memory is fresh for the players so they can get a better idea about the best players.

The AFLCA is voted by the coaches but they vote after each game. Why cant the players be directed to do the same, I mean it just make sense to do it that way.

 

[RCAB]

Meh, all awards have issues of some sort.

For me though, the Leigh Matthews trophy is my least favourite of the AFL awards.

It’s voted on only at the end of the season so it doesn’t reward week to week excellence and suffers greatly from recency bias.

It’s voted for by a group of people that large sections of openly admit they don’t watch most of the games and in quite a few cases almost none of the games.

It almost always goes to the player most hyped up by the media at the end of the season. Sometimes that’s going to be a good choice and sometimes not.

Bottom line is though, if you don’t like an award then you don’t have to put any store by it.

Which years did AFLPA get it wrong?

 

[HairyO]

So effectively the award is incorrect because 3 of my teams players never won it

Matthews
Ablett Snr
Carey

Generally considered the top 3 (in varying orders) players of all time and none won it.

 

[57 Milner]

Do you think there should be a specal category that promotes spectator engagement through activities like cosplay?
Serious question.

 

[HairyO]

Do you think they should there should be a specal category that promotes spectator engagement through activities like cosplay?
Serious question.