Opinion Who wins the 2023 Brownlow Medal? (POLL)

[HimothyTaranto]

Butters won the Coaches award, this is often, but not always a good guide to who wins the Brownlow. Bont 2nd, Daicos 3rd.

Did a little extra research and found that:

2022 - Brownlow winner: Cripps (finished 5th in AFLCA voting)
2021 - Brownlow winner: Wines (finished equal 2nd in AFLCA voting)
2020 - Brownlow winner: Neale (finished 1st in AFLCA voting by 15 votes)
2019 - Brownlow winner: Fyfe (finished 3rd in AFLCA voting - Bont was actually 1st and by 17 votes)
2018 - Brownlow winner: Mitchell (finished 3rd in AFLCA voting)
2017 - Brownlow winner: Dusty (finished 1st in AFLCA voting by 4 votes)
2016 - Brownlow winner: Dangerfield (finished 1st in AFLCA voting by a whopping 28 votes)
2015 - Brownlow winner: Fyfe (finished 2nd in AFLCA voting, just 1 behind Hannebery)

Generally if you're top 5, you're a genuine chance at winning which is Butters, Bont, Daicos, Petracca or Neale from this years votes.

 

[Miss_Brightside]

The Bont is currently 38 votes ahead of the next best candidate.

 

[Russty_]

The Bont is currently 38 votes ahead of the next best candidate.

It feels like it's the right time for the Bont, he's just an unbelievably good player and deserves it, Butters can wait another year or two.

 

[xanderdom]

Personally for me, it would be a disgrace if the Bont doesn't take it home this year.

 

[HimothyTaranto]

For anyone interested, I've done my own Brownlow tracker this year and I've compiled one version with what I believe are "pretty universal votes" and one version that is "hmm, I can see how someone else might give (x) 1 vote instead of 2 votes, 3 votes instead of 2, etc."

From version 1 -
1. Nick Daicos (33 votes)
2. Tim Taranto (31 votes)
3. Marcus Bontempelli (30 votes)
4. Lachie Neale (28 votes)
5. Zak Butters (28 votes)
6. Christian Petracca (26 votes)
7. Connor Rozee (26 votes)
8. Jack Sinclair (24 votes)
9. Stephen Coniglio (24 votes)
10. Zach Merrett (21 votes)

Leader after round 10: Nick Daicos (17 votes)
Leader after round 15: Nick Daicos & Tim Taranto (24 votes)

From version 2 -
1. Marcus Bontempelli (32 votes)
2. Nick Daicos (30 votes)
3. Tim Taranto (30 votes)
4. Zak Butters (29 votes)
5. Connor Rozee (27 votes)
6. Lachie Neale (26 votes)
7. Jack Sinclair (24 votes)
8. Christian Petracca (23 votes)
9. Zach Merrett (22 votes)
10. Jordan Dawson (21 votes)

Leader after round 10: Clayton Oliver and Nick Daicos (15 votes)
Leader after round 15: Tim Taranto (24 votes)

Some things to note:

• I am not SC focused for this. Umps see the game differently, so possessions, CP, goals, clearances, tackles, all very important.
• Clangers do not matter to me. Wines Brownlow year was full of high possession games with insane amount of clangers and poor DE%. Umps apparently do not care about this that much.
• There might be a vote discrepancy between some players because of the "I can see how some people might give (x) 1 vote instead of 2, 2 votes instead of 3, etc."
• Petracca, Butters and Bont all had the unfortunate luxury of their teammates stealing votes from them. Viney, Rozee and Liberatore all had pretty insane years and can easily steal votes from those 3. Daicos however, has very little competition when he's dropping 40 touches and 2 goals.
• Brownlow predictor has Neale winning it with 32, but I'm not sure how he cops some of those votes. In Round 11, they give him 2 votes but they lost by 3 goals and Dawson, Rankine and Laird tore that game apart. He could definitely poll 2, but I didn't give him anything. The nature of Brownlow votes are crazy so give -1, -2, -3 or +1, +2, +3 to all of these overall vote counts.
• I swear I am not biased. Taranto actually had a pretty insane first half of the season, but then fell off hard after the bye. He still sneaks in a few 2-3 vote performances against Hawthorn and Wet Toast.

 

[Darkie]

Some interesting results here, with Neale leading in the AFL’s Brownlow Predictor:

https://www.afl.com.au/news/1020791/brownlow-predictor-stage-set-for-thrilling-race-for-charlie

A real mixed bag of factors as I see it:

Positives - Brisbane won the 2nd most games, Neale played every game, strong poller historically, huge gap to 2nd best Lion on Brownlow predictor (low competition for votes - or just a spread of competitors?), weaker games were generally in losses

Negatives - only kicked 3 goals for the year, typically had 35+ or kicked goals in his 2 and 3 vote games in recent times and only did that 5x this season, 2023 performance a bit down on prior years (SC scores c. 10% below 2019, 2020 and 2022), more consistent than a standout this year (I owned him in Classic but largely forgot about him much of the time, because he was good but not really a C option a lot of the time).

I’ll say that I reckon Lachie will be top 10 but not top 2.

 

[HimothyTaranto]

Some interesting results here, with Neale leading in the AFL’s Brownlow Predictor:

https://www.afl.com.au/news/1020791/brownlow-predictor-stage-set-for-thrilling-race-for-charlie

A real mixed bag of factors as I see it:

Positives - Brisbane won the 2nd most games, Neale played every game, strong poller historically, huge gap to 2nd best Lion on Brownlow predictor (low competition for votes - or just a spread of competitors?), weaker games were generally in losses

Negatives - only kicked 3 goals for the year, typically had 35+ or kicked goals in his 2 and 3 vote games in recent times and only did that 5x this season, 2023 performance a bit down on prior years (SC scores c. 10% below 2019, 2020 and 2022), more consistent than a standout this year (I owned him in Classic but largely forgot about him much of the time, because he was good but not really a C option a lot of the time).

I’ll say that I reckon Lachie will be top 10 but not top 2.

In the games he does poll, I'd say there is strong competition on whether or not he gets 2 votes or 3.

I looked through a lot of the games and there is a discrepancy between what I gave him and what the AFL Brownlow predictor did.

Round 11: They lose by 3 goals, but Neale has a pretty strong game with 26 touches, 8 tackles, 4 FF, 18 contested CP, 11 clearances. He was tagged by Keays early and then was given free reign.

Dawson had 32 touches, 10 tackles, 12 CP. Laird had 27 touches, 16 tackles, 13 CP and 7 clearances.

Rankine was also huge in this game with 23 touches, 2.3, 16 CP and 4 clearances. AFL Brownlow predictor gave Neale 2 votes when they lost and arguably, there was 3 guys on a winning team with just as good as of a performance. However, his name alone can definitely suggest he gets 2 or possibly 1 vote.

Round 15: Lions win by 5 goals, with Dunkley, Neale and Andrews as the standouts. Neale was tagged in this game by Windhager but still finished on 29 touches, 2 tackles, 15 CP, 9 clearances. Harris Andrews was massive with 21 touches, 14 marks and 14 IP. I believe this was a game he tied the intercept marks record. I gave Neale 2 votes (and Andrews 3) for this game whereas the predictor gave him 3 and that is very possible.

Round 17: Lions win by 80. Gunston kicks 6.2 with 20 touches and 8 marks. Neale has a big game with 32 touches, 5 tackles, 0.1, 11 CP and 8 clearances. Ashcroft also has a big game with 28 touches and Lyons 29. I gave Neale 3 votes but he could easily get 2 and 3 goes to Gunston.

Round 19: I gave him 2 votes and AFL predictor gave him none. I think Stewart might get stiffed on votes for this game as Dunkley, Ah Chee and Neale are up there. Dunkley was poor in the first half of this game but came climbing back so this could be a sneaky game where Neale actually gets 2 or 3 votes considering they also won.

Very possible he can win because his name clearly holds high status so some of those games where he gets 0 votes could be 1, 1 could be 2 and 2 could easily be 3.

 

[Darkie]

In the games he does poll, I'd say there is strong competition on whether or not he gets 2 votes or 3.

I looked through a lot of the games and there is a discrepancy between what I gave him and what the AFL Brownlow predictor did.

Round 11: They lose by 3 goals, but Neale has a pretty strong game with 26 touches, 8 tackles, 4 FF, 18 contested CP, 11 clearances. He was tagged by Keays early and then was given free reign.

Dawson had 32 touches, 10 tackles, 12 CP. Laird had 27 touches, 16 tackles, 13 CP and 7 clearances.

Rankine was also huge in this game with 23 touches, 2.3, 16 CP and 4 clearances. AFL Brownlow predictor gave Neale 2 votes when they lost and arguably, there was 3 guys on a winning team with just as good as of a performance. However, his name alone can definitely suggest he gets 2 or possibly 1 vote.

Round 15: Lions win by 5 goals, with Dunkley, Neale and Andrews as the standouts. Neale was tagged in this game by Windhager but still finished on 29 touches, 2 tackles, 15 CP, 9 clearances. Harris Andrews was massive with 21 touches, 14 marks and 14 IP. I believe this was a game he tied the intercept marks record. I gave Neale 2 votes (and Andrews 3) for this game whereas the predictor gave him 3 and that is very possible.

Round 17: Lions win by 80. Gunston kicks 6.2 with 20 touches and 8 marks. Neale has a big game with 32 touches, 5 tackles, 0.1, 11 CP and 8 clearances. Ashcroft also has a big game with 28 touches and Lyons 29. I gave Neale 3 votes but he could easily get 2 and 3 goes to Gunston.

Round 19: I gave him 2 votes and AFL predictor gave him none. I think Stewart might get stiffed on votes for this game as Dunkley, Ah Chee and Neale are up there. Dunkley was poor in the first half of this game but came climbing back so this could be a sneaky game where Neale actually gets 2 or 3 votes considering they also won.

Very possible he can win because his name clearly holds high status so some of those games where he gets 0 votes could be 1, 1 could be 2 and 2 could easily be 3.

Very interesting! I was thinking earlier that my positives and negatives list included some items that are more absolute than relative, but it’s a relative award. Your analysis digs deeper and helps address that aspect.

In the years he has polled really strongly, Neale has received the below votes from BOG performances:

2019 - 26 votes, 15 from 3 vote games
2020 - 31 votes, 30 from 3 vote games
2022 - 28 votes, 21 from 3 vote games

That’s a total of 85, including 66 from 3 vote games (78%). Obviously a 3 vote game will be heavily weighted, but Neale’s reliance on those games seems unusually high to me (especially in 2020 … 10 times he was best on ground, and only managed 1 other vote for the season!).

I suspect Neale won’t manage enough 3s to be at the very pointy end this year.

 

[HimothyTaranto]

Very interesting! I was thinking earlier that my positives and negatives list included some items that are more absolute than relative, but it’s a relative award. Your analysis digs deeper and helps address that aspect.

In the years he has polled really strongly, Neale has received the below votes from BOG performances:

2019 - 26 votes, 15 from 3 vote games
2020 - 31 votes, 30 from 3 vote games
2022 - 28 votes, 21 from 3 vote games

That’s a total of 85, including 66 from 3 vote games (78%). Obviously a 3 vote game will be heavily weighted, but Neale’s reliance on those games seems unusually high to me (especially in 2020 … 10 times he was best on ground, and only managed 1 other vote for the season!).

I suspect Neale won’t manage enough 3s to be at the very pointy end this year.

Interesting since I hadn't thought about that part. I think a lot of the top 5 guys will have a strong majority of their vote totals from being 3 vote games. I adjusted my 2 vote games to 3 votes for Neale which now brings him to a total of 30 on my tracker and 21 of those votes come from 3 vote games (70%). I also don't think there is as strong competition for votes even though Dunkley, Cameron and Andrews all had a good year. For example, I have Bont on 30, but only 18 of his votes come from 3 vote games because Libba and English were super strong competition in stealing votes from him.

I definitely think he is a dark horse to win it this year, given he finishes the year strongly and Brisbane overall had a great year.

 

[Zagbag]

That's how I score Round 11 Ade/Bri for what it's worth.
Not sure you can take a count seriously if it's giving Neale 2 straight out.

 

[HimothyTaranto]

View attachment 61501

That's how I score Round 11 Ade/Bri for what it's worth.
Not sure you can take a count seriously if it's giving Neale 2 straight out.

Agree. That game in particular stuck out to me, but for what it's worth, I did also did look at the AFL Brownlow predictor afterwards and found it to be decently credible but not ground-breaking.

In some of these games, there must've been something we didn't see.

 

[Miss_Brightside]

For anyone interested, I've done my own Brownlow tracker this year and I've compiled one version with what I believe are "pretty universal votes" and one version that is "hmm, I can see how someone else might give (x) 1 vote instead of 2 votes, 3 votes instead of 2, etc."

From version 1 -
1. Nick Daicos (33 votes)
2. Tim Taranto (31 votes)
3. Marcus Bontempelli (30 votes)
4. Lachie Neale (28 votes)
5. Zak Butters (28 votes)
6. Christian Petracca (26 votes)
7. Connor Rozee (26 votes)
8. Jack Sinclair (24 votes)
9. Stephen Coniglio (24 votes)
10. Zach Merrett (21 votes)

Leader after round 10: Nick Daicos (17 votes)
Leader after round 15: Nick Daicos & Tim Taranto (24 votes)

From version 2 -
1. Marcus Bontempelli (32 votes)
2. Nick Daicos (30 votes)
3. Tim Taranto (30 votes)
4. Zak Butters (29 votes)
5. Connor Rozee (27 votes)
6. Lachie Neale (26 votes)
7. Jack Sinclair (24 votes)
8. Christian Petracca (23 votes)
9. Zach Merrett (22 votes)
10. Jordan Dawson (21 votes)

Leader after round 10: Clayton Oliver and Nick Daicos (15 votes)
Leader after round 15: Tim Taranto (24 votes)

Some things to note:

• I am not SC focused for this. Umps see the game differently, so possessions, CP, goals, clearances, tackles, all very important.
• Clangers do not matter to me. Wines Brownlow year was full of high possession games with insane amount of clangers and poor DE%. Umps apparently do not care about this that much.
• There might be a vote discrepancy between some players because of the "I can see how some people might give (x) 1 vote instead of 2, 2 votes instead of 3, etc."
• Petracca, Butters and Bont all had the unfortunate luxury of their teammates stealing votes from them. Viney, Rozee and Liberatore all had pretty insane years and can easily steal votes from those 3. Daicos however, has very little competition when he's dropping 40 touches and 2 goals.
• Brownlow predictor has Neale winning it with 32, but I'm not sure how he cops some of those votes. In Round 11, they give him 2 votes but they lost by 3 goals and Dawson, Rankine and Laird tore that game apart. He could definitely poll 2, but I didn't give him anything. The nature of Brownlow votes are crazy so give -1, -2, -3 or +1, +2, +3 to all of these overall vote counts.
• I swear I am not biased. Taranto actually had a pretty insane first half of the season, but then fell off hard after the bye. He still sneaks in a few 2-3 vote performances against Hawthorn and Wet Toast.

Some interesting results here, with Neale leading in the AFL’s Brownlow Predictor:

https://www.afl.com.au/news/1020791/brownlow-predictor-stage-set-for-thrilling-race-for-charlie

A real mixed bag of factors as I see it:

Positives - Brisbane won the 2nd most games, Neale played every game, strong poller historically, huge gap to 2nd best Lion on Brownlow predictor (low competition for votes - or just a spread of competitors?), weaker games were generally in losses

Negatives - only kicked 3 goals for the year, typically had 35+ or kicked goals in his 2 and 3 vote games in recent times and only did that 5x this season, 2023 performance a bit down on prior years (SC scores c. 10% below 2019, 2020 and 2022), more consistent than a standout this year (I owned him in Classic but largely forgot about him much of the time, because he was good but not really a C option a lot of the time).

I’ll say that I reckon Lachie will be top 10 but not top 2.

Amazing insight, guys. Thank you both for sharing.

 

[Miss_Brightside]

On a slight tangent, does anyone else find it ridiculous that the 'most prestigious' individual award is awarded by umpires? I know that there isn't a perfect solution, but I think it would be great if the award was selected by the All-Australian committee or another panel of experts.

 

[Diabolical]

On a slight tangent, does anyone else find it ridiculous that the 'most prestigious' individual award is awarded by umpires? I know that there isn't a perfect solution, but I think it would be great if the award was selected by the All-Australian committee or another panel of experts.

I kind of like it! Umpires have a completely different perspective from those of us watching. It is a Best & Fairest award after all, and to be honest, umpires probably balance those two facets each game more than most of us!

 

[MC's Mix]

I like that each year the coaches award is gaining more significance.
Each coach voting on who of their own players performed their role for the team, or which of the opposition players prevented their team's success seems a very worthy award.

 

[Miss_Brightside]

I kind of like it! Umpires have a completely different perspective from those of us watching. It is a Best & Fairest award after all, and to be honest, umpires probably balance those two facets each game more than most of us!

I just can't fathom how a) umpires are the best qualified candidates to adjudicate the award, and b) how they can properly judge when they are meant to be umpiring a game.

 

[Diabolical]

I just can't fathom how a) umpires are the best qualified candidates to adjudicate the award, and b) how they can properly judge when they are meant to be umpiring a game.

Isn’t that what makes the Brownlow unique? We have a coaches award. We have a player’s player award. There are a plethora of media awards. I don’t think the fairest part can be discounted. Umpires know who is pushing boundaries, whinging about decisions, etc.

 

[Miss_Brightside]

Isn’t that what makes the Brownlow unique? We have a coaches award. We have a player’s player award. There are a plethora of media awards. I don’t think the fairest part can be discounted. Umpires know who is pushing boundaries, whinging about decisions, etc.

I don't think that it is fair to say that the umpires are the best judges of fair play. As humans, they will be biased to harshly judge anyone who doesn't blindly accept their decisions.

But, I guess this may be one of those agree to disagree situations, @Diabolical. Thank you for the chat.💛

 

[freowho]

On a slight tangent, does anyone else find it ridiculous that the 'most prestigious' individual award is awarded by umpires? I know that there isn't a perfect solution, but I think it would be great if the award was selected by the All-Australian committee or another panel of experts.

It's to do with the betting. Ask a horse person if the Melbourne Cup is the best race in the nation.

 

[Diabolical]

I don't think that it is fair to say that the umpires are the best judges of fair play. As humans, they will be biased to harshly judge anyone who doesn't blindly accept their decisions.

But, I guess this may be one of those agree to disagree situations, @Diabolical. Thank you for the chat.💛

All good Miss B. It would make for a boring world if we all agreed on everything!