{"id":85469,"date":"2025-05-28T14:05:09","date_gmt":"2025-05-28T14:05:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/85469\/"},"modified":"2025-05-28T14:05:09","modified_gmt":"2025-05-28T14:05:09","slug":"who-is-indianapolis-colts-top-contender-for-protector-of-the-year-award","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/85469\/","title":{"rendered":"Who is Indianapolis Colts’ top contender for Protector of the Year award?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Which of the Indianapolis Colts’<\/a> offensive linemen should be considered the top contender for the NFL’s new Protector of the Year award?<\/p>\n

It was reported last week that the NFL will be unveiling a new end-of-season award to go along with MVP and the other high-profile awards. The Protector of the Year <\/a>will recognize the best offensive lineman each season and will be decided by a panel that features a number of former offensive linemen greats.<\/p>\n

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Pro Football Network<\/a> recently selected the top Protector of the Year candidate from each team and then ranked those players in terms of likelihood to win the inaugural award in 2025.<\/p>\n

For the Colts, the choice was pretty straightforward with PFN selecting Quenton Nelson, who was 12th overall in their rankings.<\/p>\n

“Nelson has been a Pro Bowler seven times (2018-24), while racking up five All-Pro nods along the way,” wrote PFN. “He figures to be a strong contender for Protector of the Year and the anchor of the Indianapolis Colts<\/a>‘ offense in 2025.”<\/p>\n

In this most recent 2024 season, Nelson made his seventh consecutive Pro Bowl team and was also named a second-team All-Pro–his first All-Pro nod since the 2021 season.<\/p>\n

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By PFF’s metrics<\/a>, Nelson ranked 15th among all guards in pass-blocking efficiency, and he was fourth in run-blocking grade, with Jonathan Taylor averaging 4.8 yards per rush when running to Nelson’s direct left and 5.3 yards per rush when running to his direct right.<\/p>\n

At the top of PFN’s rankings were Penei Sewell at No. 1, followed by Tristan Wirfs, Jordan Mailata, Creed Humphrey, and Trent Williams.<\/p>\n

This article originally appeared on Colts Wire: Quenton Nelson named Colts’ top contender for Protector of the Year<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Which of the Indianapolis Colts’ offensive linemen should be considered the top contender for the NFL’s new Protector…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":85470,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2059],"tags":[2005,7738,7,2004,392,2381,1753,13945,6,453,3501,645,9166,7127,4982,23554,2983,13221],"class_list":{"0":"post-85469","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-indianapolis-colts","8":"tag-colts","9":"tag-creed-humphrey","10":"tag-football","11":"tag-indianapolis","12":"tag-indianapolis-colts","13":"tag-indianapoliscolts","14":"tag-jonathan-taylor","15":"tag-jordan-mailata","16":"tag-nfl","17":"tag-offensive-lineman","18":"tag-offensive-linemen","19":"tag-penei-sewell","20":"tag-pro-bowler","21":"tag-pro-football-network","22":"tag-quenton-nelson","23":"tag-top-contender","24":"tag-trent-williams","25":"tag-tristan-wirfs"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/114585844367906241","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85469","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=85469"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85469\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/85470"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=85469"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=85469"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=85469"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}