Jan 3rd 2009 1:33PM by Michael David Smith (author feed)
Filed under: Bengals, Patriots, NFL Media Watch
When the NFL Defensive Rookie of the Year voting was tallied, it was no surprise that New England Patriots linebacker Jerod Mayo was the runaway winner, with 49 votes on the 50-member media panel, chosen by the Associated Press.

But it was a big surprise that the one other vote went to Cincinnati Bengals linebacker Keith Rivers, who played in only seven games all season. How on earth could anyone pick Rivers over Mayo? To find out, I asked the guy who voted for Rivers, Jay Paris of the .

Via e-mail, he told me he had no excuse — he just made a mistake and voted for Rivers even though he acknowledges that the award should have gone to Mayo.Continue Reading