Raffaele Morelli- Defensive Player of the Year

Defensive Player of the Year-Raff Morelli

This writeup is coming a little later than promised.  Raff Morelli asked me to do this write-up because as the division 4 writer it’s weird to talk about yourself winning an award.  It would have been fun, conversely for us all to read a, tongue-in-cheek, ostentatious acceptance speech.  Nonetheless, to spear him discomfort for our benefit I decided to put this together.  Now, I know, it’s late; so rather than burying it in the article he posted earlier this week I decided to separate this write-up for my colleague, friend and, defensive player of the year.

With 18 sacks, 2 interceptions and one of which going for 6 (against yours truly), Raffaele edged out Gab Wiseman who also made his case with 18 sacks, William Power with 8 interceptions and Jerome Hovington with 7 interceptions.  Raff’s style as a rusher is everything you want from the position.  He is fast, takes good angles, has an elite ability to change direction and he doesn’t miss a flag.  More than that he’s adaptive. Most quarterbacks begin to time the rusher by game’s end.  However, the best rushers are adept at changing techniques and taking away throwing windows and this is where Morelli excels.

Oddly enough, there were moments this season where Raff felt as though he wasn’t playing to his standard (he told me as much).  I guess when you’ve  had two seasons with 20+ sacks it creates an incredibly high standard.  I know this is a regular season award but it’s impressive nonetheless that Morelli recorded 7 sacks in a playoff loss to Finals contestant Dime and Bougie.  Certainly a performance like that has the all-star nominating committee feeling good about their choice.