By now, loyal TSL readers are familiar with TSL’s
Defensive Player of the Game award and how it’s calculated. The DPOG award is
strictly numbers-based, and at the end of every win, we throw the defensive
stats into our spreadsheet, crunch the numbers, and spit out that week’s winner.
The weekly winners score anywhere from about 20 points to as much as 40-50
points.

In 2000 and 2001, we also threw the season-ending
statistics into our spreadsheet and awarded Player of the Year awards. That was
part of our old monthly TSL
Extra format, and the Defensive Player of the Year Award was an "Inside
the Numbers" feature (hence the title of this article). Ben Taylor snagged
the award both years, with 251.2 points in 2000 and 306.2 points in 2001.

In late 2002, the TSL Extra monthly format was retired,
and we started streaming pay articles through the home page one at a time,
calling them "TSL Pass" articles. Along the way, the TechSideline.com
Defensive Player of the Year Award was left by the wayside, so in addition to
calculating this year’s winner, we need to catch up on 2002 and 2003. So let’s
get started.

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