Who’s our best Brownlow Medal prospect this season?

[David]

At the end of last year, I bet $5 on Jack Crisp to win the Brownlow at 501–1. At the time, it seemed like a safe enough bet that he’d be our highest vote getter (as he was last year, with 11 votes in total in a season in which we won 6 games, with De Goey and Grundy equal second on 9); what seemed like a long shot was that we’d win enough games for any of our players to qualify.

Crisp is probably a little down on form from his Copeland Trophy-winning 2021, and I think it’s still reasonable to see him as a long shot for the Brownlow (as of now, he’s still 151–1). Yet here we are after Round 19 with 13 wins and 5 losses, with 2 of those being close results in which Collingwood players presumably could have polled. Last season, the finalist with the lowest total of votes was Greater Western Sydney with 71, so there should in theory be plenty of votes to go around.

So do any of our players stand a faint chance of winning the Brownlow this season? And if so, who?

[Skids]

While it's highly unlikely he'll poll enough to win, Josh (66/1) will be our leading vote getter.
Averaging over 26 possessions every week, not missing a game and having that 'flair' that has, no doubt caught the umpires attention, will see him poll plenty of votes.

I think Sidey will also poll well, as will Pendles.

Crisp 150/1
Adams, Sidey, Pendles all @ 500/1

I will be looking for some value closer to the event, when top 10 finisher etc options become available.

[David]

Votes (5+) in previous seasons, for reference:

2021:
Jack Crisp 11
Jordan de Goey 9
Brodie Grundy 9
Scott Pendlebury 6
Taylor Adams 5

2020:
Scott Pendlebury 13
Taylor Adams 11
Brodie Grundy 6
Darcy Moore 6
Steele Sidebottom 6
Jack Crisp 5
Jordan de Goey 5
Brody Mihocek 5

2019:
Brodie Grundy 23
Adam Treloar 18
Scott Pendlebury 14
Steele Sidebottom 7
Jamie Elliott 5

2018:
Steele Sidebottom 24
Brodie Grundy 17
Scott Pendlebury 15
Jordan de Goey 12
Adam Treloar 8
Taylor Adams 6

2017:
Scott Pendlebury 15
Taylor Adams 14
Steele Sidebottom 14
Adam Treloar 11
Jordan de Goey 5

I didn’t include him in the poll, but perhaps Steele Sidebottom is a dark horse here – though he’s dropped off in the past few seasons, the umps certainly seemed to like him in the past!

[David]

Based on his performance against Melbourne, I'm starting to think the reason none of our players will win it this year is the De Goey spoiler effect: he's been very good in patches this year and will pull a lot of votes from those games, but has missed too much football in the second half of the season to be in contention himself. So I guess it's likely that we end up with two or three players in the teens (including De Goey) but nobody cracking 20 votes.