it was lost when wanganeen won it as a back pocket picking up 17 disposals a game in a season where ablett and carey put together two of the greatest individual seasons the game has ever seen and greg williams absolutely dominated as the games undisputed best midfielder.
other ridiculous wins include:
goodes first brownlow. Played as a sole ruck picking up 17 unmanned disposals a game and only 12 hit outs. 12! Could probably add jim stynes win here as well as he only averaged 11 hit outs a game as a ruck. But he at least averaged 25 disposals a game when disposals were harder to come by.
judds second brownlow (he wasnt even considered all australian worthy that year)
Priddis (See Judd)
cooney 2008 over ablett. Cooney had a great season but ablett was destructive that year. you could probably add bartel over ablett 2007 as Well. The irony with ablett jnr is he won it in the worst of his four dominant years at geelong.
brad hardie. Yep he won a brownlow.
Judd's second Brownlow was deserved, at least the way the award is put together.
I remember watching his first 5 games and thinking he was probably BOG in all of them, without dominating.
He basically only polled votes by getting 30 touches and being the best contested midfielder in a winning team, which is pretty much standard fare. His first 5 games fit this bill, with the exception being a loss to Collingwood where he had 37 touches.
There weren't really any contentious votes for Judd that year. Swan and Ablett's 3 vote games were better, but that's the system. 39 disposals and 3 goals gets you the same votes as 29 and 1 goal if you are the BOG.
It is also true that Ablett and Swan had team mates take votes. But again, that is the system.
FWIW Judd was in the All Australian team that year, too.