Voting is now open for FedEx Air & Ground Players of the Year, with the winner being announced during the two-hour primetime "NFL Honors" awards show in Arizona on Jan. 31 on NBC the night before Super Bowl XIX.
Each week leading up to "NFL Honors", we'll take a look at monumental games during the 2014 season for one FedEx Air and one FedEx Ground Player of the Year nominee. This week, we'll kick it off with two players who will face each other in the divisional playoffs on Sunday.
Aaron Rodgers, Green Bay Packers
One Look Back to Week 10:
Packers 55, Bears 14
In 2014, the Green Bay Packers owned the Chicago Bears. The combined scores of the two teams' meetings was 93-31 (the Packerstoppled the Bears, 38-17, in Week 4). Rodgers was virtually unstoppable in the two teams' second meeting on "Sunday Night Football" at legendary Lambeau Field. Rodgers had six touchdown passes, all in the first half, becoming just the second quarterback in NFL history with six touchdown passes in the first half (Daryle Lamonica was the other, doing so in 1969 for the Oakland Raidersagainst the Buffalo Bills).
Like Lamonica before him, Rodgers would finish the game with six touchdown passes (one short of tying the NFL record of seven, held by seven players). That's because the Packers held a commanding 42-0 lead at halftime, and Rodgers was pulled from the game with the score out of reach. in two games against the Bears this season, Rodgers registered 10 touchdown passes and no interceptions, and this was a first against a single team in a single season.
DeMarco Murray, Dallas Cowboys
One Look Back to Week 7:
Cowboys 31, Giants 21
Murray made an early season run at history in 2014, and a 128-yard, 1-touchdown effort against the Giants put the Cowboys running back into a class all by himself. A week prior, Murray matched Pro Football Hall of FamerJim Brown's start in 1958, having rushed for 100-plus yards in each of his first six games. Murray then eclipsed Brown in Week 7.
Through seven games, Murray already had 913 yards rushing, which at the time were more than every NFL team except the New York Jets, Seattle Seahawks and Baltimore Ravens. At season's end, Murray had a league-leading 1,845 yards rushing (easily outdistancing the second-best total, Le'Veon Bell's 1,361 yards). Murray's yardage total was also better than the totals for 20 teams. Murray also set a new Cowboys single-season rushing yardage record, topping Emmitt Smith's mark of 1,773 from 1995.
