Khalil Mack vs. Aaron Donald
The Raiders (12-4) also finished with a superior record to the Los Angeles Rams (4-12) this season and while this shouldn’t be a greatly-weighed distinction between the two candidates, it is still a distinction that must be weighed when considering a player’s value to his team’s performance.
Los Angeles’s defense (ranked 9th, 337.0 YPG) had a much better showing than Oakland’s (26th, 375.1 YPG) this season, a point that possibly works to Donald’s advantage, and was still marginally better than Oakland’s from Week 3 onward, when the Raiders ranked 18th (extrapolated across the entire season and compared to other teams 16-game totals) at 354.7 YPG, and the Rams would have ranked 10th (340.4 YPG).
Donald also played in all 16 games and paced the Los Angeles defense. Donald recorded all eight of his sacks during a 13-week stretch between Week’s 4 and 16, but that hardly compares to Mack’s 11 in ten games. He also didn’t have a single stretch of multiple games with at least one sack. Disregarding a two-sack performance against a Carolina Panthers squad that allowed the second most sacks in the league, Donald only had 6 sacks in fifteen games.
The Rams’ best defender only forced 2 fumbles, and while he did help spring two other “in-the-box” teammates to 2 additional forced fumbles each, this hardly compares to eleven combined between Mack and Irvin.
Donald had no interceptions or pick-six’s this year (as Mack did) and recovered no fumbles.
He also put no games on ice with a sack or turnover (see Mack weeks 12 & 13).