Most Useless Challenge of the Year
Pat Shurmur, Cleveland Browns
Since that last award was basically impossible to give to anyone but Schwartz for his colossal blunder, the award committee felt it was necessary to hand out a second trophy for non-rule-breaking challenges. That one goes to Pat Shurmur, who might not want to get too comfortable, since he is probably going to make a few walks to the podium during this ceremony.
In the first quarter of Cleveland's Week 8 tilt against the Chargers, Shurmur threw his flag on what could not have been a more meaningless play. On the first play of a San Diego drive from their own 18-yard line, the Chargers picked up six yards on a pass to Robert Meachem. Shurmur saw something on replay and decided to throw his challenge flag. The play was overturned, turning an insurmountable second-and-4 into a dominant position of second-and-10. With about 46 minutes of challengeable action left to go, it's hard to figure that Shurmur got good value for one of his two opportunities to throw the challenge flag without worrying about losing the flag for the rest of the game. As I wrote at the time, "It's like being granted two wishes and using one of them to have a genie take out the trash for you."