In past years, we’ve delayed the PFT post­sea­son awards until after the con­clu­sion of the post­sea­son. But with the Asso­ci­ated Press now unveil­ing its post­sea­son awards the week before the Super Bowl, we’ve decided to announce ours in one fell swoop.

We’ll engage in a more com­pre­hen­sive debate, with PFT Planet polling, when the recip­i­ents are named.

For now, at a time when you still actu­ally care about these things, here are the men who, in our opin­ion, deserve spe­cial recognition.

1. MVP.

Win­ner: Pack­ers quar­ter­back Aaron Rodgers.

Runner-up: Saints quar­ter­back Drew Brees.

Hon­or­able men­tion: Patri­ots quar­ter­back Tom Brady.

I joked dur­ing Foot­ball Night In Amer­ica that Sunday’s per­for­mance from Pack­ers backup quar­ter­back Matt Flynn arguably revealed Rodgers as a sys­tem quar­ter­back. And it’s pos­si­ble that some of the 50 vot­ers will down­grade Rodgers based on the per­cep­tion that he’s not all that much of an upgrade over Flynn.

But that would be unfair to Rodgers, who took a team that climbed to the top of the moun­tain in Feb­ru­ary 2011 and, with no off­sea­son train­ing and a trun­cated train­ing camp, led them out of the val­ley of 0–0 to a 13-game win­ning streak. Along the way, Rodgers had only one clunker – the Week 14 loss at Kansas City.

For the sea­son, Rodgers gen­er­ated an uncanny 122.5 passer rat­ing, with 45 touch­down passes and six inter­cep­tions. Mak­ing the assump­tion that Rodgers would have per­formed at least as well as Flynn on Sun­day against the Lions, Rodgers would have fin­ished the year with 5,163 yards and 50 touch­down passes, tying Brady for the all-time single-season record. Though Rodgers obvi­ously didn’t churn out those num­bers, he shouldn’t be pun­ished for the fact that he plays for a head coach who, unlike Pats coach Bill Belichick and Saints coach Sean Pay­ton, isn’t will­ing to expose a key player to injury in mean­ing­less games in the name of sta­tis­ti­cal achievement.

We strongly con­sid­ered a Brees/Rodgers co-MVP. In the end, how­ever, we decided that there should be only one MVP – even though the vot­ing sys­tem is con­ducive to ties, since it employs only 50 total votes and per­mits vot­ers to split their ballots.

And here’s one last point, aimed specif­i­cally at the vot­ers who are con­tem­plat­ing fol­low­ing the lead of NFL Mag­a­zine and vot­ing for Colts quar­ter­back Pey­ton Man­ning based on the demon­stra­tion of his value via his absence. With momen­tum build­ing for Brees, a Ralph Nader-style vote would dis­re­spect the legit­i­mate con­tenders. In the end, a wasted bal­lot on Pey­ton could deter­mine the out­come of the entire voting.

2. Offen­sive player of the year.

Win­ner: Saints quar­ter­back Drew Brees.

Runner-up: Patri­ots quar­ter­back Tom Brady.

Hon­or­able men­tion: Lions quar­ter­back Matthew Stafford, Jaguars run­ning back Mau­rice Jones-Drew, Patri­ots tight end Rob Gronkowski.

Though the MVP vote likely won’t be unan­i­mous, this one should be. Brees oblit­er­ated the 27-year-old single-season pass­ing yardage record with 5,476, he became the only player in league his­tory to throw for 5,000 or more yards twice in his career, and he broke his own record for com­ple­tion per­cent­age, con­nect­ing on 71.2 per­cent of his throws. Brees also com­pleted more passes (468) than the pre­vi­ous single-season record holder, Pey­ton Man­ning (450, in 2010).

Brees’ efforts eas­ily over­come note­wor­thy per­for­mances from Brady (5,235 pass­ing yards), Stafford (5,038 pass­ing yards), Jones-Drew (1,606 rush­ing yards), and Gronkowski, who set single-season tight end records for receiv­ing touch­downs (17) and total yards (1,327).

3. Defen­sive Player of the Year.

Win­ner: Ravens line­backer Ter­rell Suggs.

Runner-up: Giants defen­sive end Jason Pierre-Paul.

Hon­or­able men­tion: Vikings defen­sive end Jared Allen, Jets cor­ner­back Dar­relle Revis, 49ers defen­sive line­man Justin Smith, Cow­boys line­backer DeMar­cus Ware.

Tying for fifth in sacks and deliv­er­ing three of them in a season-opening shel­lack­ing of the Steel­ers and dur­ing the prime-time Har­bowl on Thanks­giv­ing night, Suggs has become the lat­est great player on a Ravens defense that is poised to make a seri­ous run at a Super Bowl. He did enough to squeak past Pierre-Paul, who went from first-round project in 2010 to Pro Bowler (who wasn’t even on the bal­lot) in 2011. Dis­rup­tive and show­ing the kind of poten­tial that could make him the franchise’s best defen­sive player since Michael Stra­han or maybe Lawrence Tay­lor, Pierre-Paul will win this award once or twice, eventually.

But for the fact that the Vikings won only three games this year, Allen would have cap­tured this award eas­ily. His 22.0 sacks on an oth­er­wise punch­less defense rep­re­sents a tremen­dous accom­plish­ment, and he deserves credit for con­tin­u­ing to play hard even as plenty of team­mates failed to rec­og­nize and emu­late his example.

4. Coach of the Year.

Win­ner: Jim Har­baugh, 49ers.

Runner-up: Mike McCarthy, Packers.

Hon­or­able men­tion: Gary Kubiak, Tex­ans; Mar­vin Lewis, Ben­gals; Jim Schwartz, Lions; Bill Belichick, Patri­ots; John Fox, Broncos.

Har­baugh did the unthink­able. Though some (i.e., me) pre­dicted that the Nin­ers would win the NFC West, the pre­dic­tion came more from a “none of the above” vibe. No one expected the Nin­ers to emerge with 13 vic­to­ries, espe­cially with Harbaugh’s first year being ham­pered by the lockout.

But Jim Har­baugh would make nor accept excuses, and the team’s per­for­mance reflected that attitude.

McCarthy mer­its con­sid­er­a­tion because he man­aged to moti­vate a team that had every right to be com­pla­cent. Kubiak over­came a mine field of obsta­cles to take the Tex­ans to the play­offs for the first time. Lewis helped the young Ben­gals scratch and claw their way to the play­offs. Schwartz led the Lions back to the post­sea­son for the first time since 1999, revers­ing more than a decade of futil­ity. Belichick the coach made chicken salad out of the ros­ter that Belichick the per­son­nel guru assem­bled. And Fox was will­ing to change the offense to suit Tim Tebow, win­ning an unlikely divi­sion title because of it.

5. Come­back Player of the Year.

Win­ner: Browns line­backer D’Qwell Jackson.

Runner-up: Bron­cos defen­sive end Elvis Dumervil.

Hon­or­able men­tion: Lions quar­ter­back Matthew Stafford, Pan­thers receiver Steve Smith.

There’s a chance that some vot­ers may choose to vote to Stafford, cit­ing his return from two years of injuries and influ­enced by his strong late-season show­ings against the Raiders, Charg­ers, and Pack­ers. But “come­back” implies that there was a pre-existing NFL stan­dard set by the player. Stafford, due to injuries, had no base­line. (Under that logic, Giants receiver Vic­tor Cruz would get some votes, too.)

Jack­son did. And he fin­ished sec­ond in the league in tack­les after miss­ing all of 2010 with a torn left pec­toral mus­cle and 10 games in 2009 due to the same injury on the right side. He also pro­vided a rare bright spot in a dreary Browns’ roster.

Dumervil gets the second-place nod because he made it back to the Pro Bowl a year after miss­ing the full sea­son with a torn pec­toral of his own, get­ting back to elite level even though the Bron­cos hired a new head coach and a new defen­sive coor­di­na­tor – and shifted from the 3–4 back to the 4–3 alignment.

Smith went from 554 receiv­ing yards and a pre­sump­tion he’d be traded or released to 1,394 yards.

6. Offen­sive Rookie of the Year.

Win­ner: Pan­thers quar­ter­back Cam Newton.

Runner-up: Ben­gals quar­ter­back Andy Dalton.

Hon­or­able men­tion: Ben­gals receiver A.J. Green, Cow­boys tackle Tyron Smith, Fal­cons receiver Julio Jones.

New­ton had the great­est rookie sea­son of any quar­ter­back in league his­tory, giv­ing him the edge over Dal­ton and his first-year play­off berth. Pass­ing for a rookie record 4,051 yards, account­ing for a rookie record 35 touch­downs, and rush­ing for an all-time quar­ter­back record of 15 touch­downs, New­ton showed a com­bi­na­tion of tal­ent, com­pet­i­tive­ness, and lead­er­ship that will draw free agents to Car­olina for years to come.

Dal­ton made Ben­gals fans quickly for­get about Car­son Palmer, but the pres­ence of Green gave rise to the chicken-egg ques­tion regard­ing whether a great quar­ter­back makes a great receiver, or vice-versa.

In Dal­las, Smith has become a key con­trib­u­tor at right tackle, good enough that he could end up being the team’s long-term left tackle.

For the Fal­cons, Jones had a strong year despite chronic ham­string injuries. The jury is still out on whether the trade up to get him was worth the investment.

7. Defen­sive Rookie of the Year.

Win­ner: Bron­cos line­backer Von Miller.

Runner-up: 49ers line­backer Aldon Smith.

Hon­or­able men­tion: Tex­ans defen­sive end J.J. Watt, Red­skins line­backer Ryan Kerrigan.

Miller quickly became one of the lead­ers of the Den­ver defense. Though Smith has more sacks (14.0 vs. 11.5), Smith didn’t start a sin­gle game. Miller started 15.

Watt and Ker­ri­gan became dis­rup­tive forces on their respec­tive defenses. All four men could be peren­nial Pro Bowlers.

8. Exec­u­tive of the Year.

Win­ner: Ben­gals pres­i­dent Mike Brown.

Runner-up: 49ers G.M. Trent Baalke.

Hon­or­able men­tion: Lions G.M. Mar­tin May­hew, Tex­ans G.M. Rick Smith.

By pick­ing receiver A.J. Green in round one and quar­ter­back Andy Dal­ton in round two, Brown landed a cor­ner­stone com­bi­na­tion that should fuel the pass­ing game for years to come. And by fleec­ing the Raiders for a first-round pick and a second-round pick in exchange for the rights to a quar­ter­back who never would play again for the Ben­gals, Brown put him­self in posi­tion to fur­ther lay the foun­da­tion for a bright future.

In San Fran­cisco, Baalke has been closely involved in the build­ing of a ros­ter that under­achieved in 2010, but that found its full poten­tial in 2011. Under May­hew, the Lions have steadily improved since the ouster of Matt Millen. And the Tex­ans did enough to upgrade their defense in order to do what no Tex­ans team had ever done – get to the playoffs.