NFL players of the week: Peyton Manning and Justin Houston win more awards, continue record pace

Manning hasn’t been able to do any wrong this year as NFL passing records seem sure to fall across the board. A full list of this week’s NFL award winners.

by Kenneth Arthur

Sep 25, 2013, 4:48 PM UTC

Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports

Peyton Manning and Justin Houston are on historical paces right now, and for the second time this season have won AFC weekly honors. Manning was named the AFC Offensive Player of the Week on Wednesday, while Houston won for the defensive side of the ball. Both are well on their way to unbelievable season totals.

More: More on Manning's epic season at Mile High Report

Manning, who won the award in Week 1 after throwing seven touchdowns against the Ravens, 32-of-37 for 374 yards, three touchdowns and no interceptions in Denver's 37-21 win over the Raiders on Monday night. His 86.5 percent completion percentage was the second-highest ever for a player with at least 35 attempts. Manning is on pace to throw for 64 touchdowns and more than 6,000 yards.

Meanwhile, Justin Houston is on pace for 40 sacks. It's important to clarify that it's the player Houston and not the team. Justin has more sacks this year than the Houston Texans do.

Houston won the AFC defensive honors in Week 1 when he had three sacks against the Jaguars. He added 4.5 sacks last Thursday in the Chiefs' 26-16 win over Michael Vick and the Eagles. The third-year outside linebacker had 10 sacks last season, but that's a total he could surpass this year by this Sunday.

Taking NFC honors this week was the Saints' Jimmy Graham, who had nine catches for 134 yards and two touchdowns in New Orleans 31-7 win over the the Cardinals. Graham already has 358 yards this year and is averaging almost double the yards-per-game that he had in 2012.

The Panthers' Greg Hardy had three sacks in Carolina's 38-0 win over the Giants. They were the first three sacks of Hardy's season, after recording 11 of them last year.

Two rookie punters won Special Teams Player of the Week honors for their respective conferences: Spencer Lanning of the Browns won after throwing a touchdown pass in Cleveland's 31-27 win over the Vikings, and Sam Martin of the Lions punted six times for 315 yards, with a long of 72 yards.

As for Manning, it’s hard to say with confidence that a player will throw for 6,000 yards this year but this much we know for sure: He still gets to play the Raiders one more time.