{"id":27875,"date":"2018-02-04T03:13:32","date_gmt":"2018-02-04T03:13:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=27875"},"modified":"2018-02-04T03:13:32","modified_gmt":"2018-02-04T03:13:32","slug":"nfl-well-man-year-selection","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=27875","title":{"rendered":"NFL does well with its Man of Year selection"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/jj-watt.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-27876\" src=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/jj-watt-300x201.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"201\" srcset=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/jj-watt-300x201.jpg 300w, https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/jj-watt-768x513.jpg 768w, https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/jj-watt.jpg 920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>I don&#8217;t normally get excited about pro football awards.<\/p>\n<p>This year is different. The National Football League today announced its Walter Payton Man of the Year award. It goes to someone I just <em>knew<\/em> would get it: J.J. Watt, the standout defensive end for the Houston Texans.<\/p>\n<p>What did Watt do to earn this honor, named after the late Walter Payton, the Hall of Fame running back and one of the great all-round great gentlemen of all pro sports?<\/p>\n<p>Watt decided to launch a fundraising effort to help victims of his adopted hometown of Houston, after the wrath it suffered from Hurricane Harvey. He set a modest goal of $250,000.<\/p>\n<p>Uh, Watt finished with a<em> lot more<\/em> than that. He ended up raising a cool <em>$37 million<\/em> for the waterlogged residents of Houston, whose homes were destroyed by the epic rainfall.<\/p>\n<p>J.J. Watt is a tremendous athlete. I am delighted to know that the NFL has recognized him for possessing a tremendous heart.<\/p>\n<p>Many of us far away from the coast saw this award coming. Our hearts were broken when Harvey came ashore not once, but <em>twice<\/em> along the Texas Gulf Coast. It pounded the Coastal Bend with killer winds and storm surge, then backed away from the coast and returned as a tropical storm.<\/p>\n<p>It was on its second visit to the coast that Harvey did its damage to Houston and to the Golden Triangle, just east of the big city.<\/p>\n<p>J.J. Watt stepped up in a big-time way to raise money for those victims &#8212; and has richly earned the title of the NFL Walter Payton Man of the Year.<\/p>\n<p>Well done, young man. I would bet that Walter Payton, the man they called &#8220;Sweetness,&#8221; would be proud of you, too.<\/p>\n\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I don&#8217;t normally get excited about pro football awards. This year is different. The National Football League today announced its Walter Payton Man of the Year award. It goes to someone I just knew would get it: J.J. Watt, the standout defensive end for the Houston Texans. What did Watt do to earn this honor, &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=27875\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">NFL does well with its Man of Year selection<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,18],"tags":[1936,2022,7268,7314,3302,7315,7563],"class_list":["post-27875","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports-news","category-state-news","tag-golden-triangle","tag-gulf-coast","tag-hurricane-harvey","tag-jj-watt","tag-nfl","tag-walter-payton","tag-walter-payton-man-of-year-award"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27875","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=27875"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27875\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27877,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27875\/revisions\/27877"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=27875"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=27875"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=27875"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}