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The NFL regular season draws to a close this weekend and it is traditionally a time for handing out awards.

Not wanting to feel left out, here are my own personal awards for the 2009 campaign. Please be sure to give your opinions at the end and tell me who you would have picked instead.

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Lounging around the house, playing with my children and attempting to eat my own body weight in chocolates has given me a great deal of time to think over Christmas.

And being a true NFL anorak, it hasn't taken long for my thoughts to turn to the latest news and views from across the pond. One subject has really caught my attention as the decade draws to a close with a thrilling 2009 campaign.

The will soon be announcing their Team of the Decade for the noughties and it will be fascinating to see who gets the nod at quarterback.

Usually, you can find a clear winner, but not this time. , of the Indianapolis Colts, and , of the New England Patriots, are not only the dominant quarterbacks of the past 10 years, they are among the very best in NFL history.

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I set a personal record in the summer of 2008 when I went on a trip to the United States for a grand total of just 27 hours. It was for a short piece of filming in New Jersey which required me to fly in and out of Philadelphia.

On the way back to the airport, the taxi driver asked me why I was in America and as soon as I uttered the letters N, F and L, I couldn't shut him up. He simply refused to stop talking about his favourite sport and his beloved Eagles, who star in our featured game this weekend on ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ 5 live sports extra.

In 45 minutes, he highlighted the challenge facing Philadelphia Eagles players and quarterback Donovan McNabb, in particular. One minute, the guy was telling me how much he hated McNabb and the fact he had never led the Eagles to Super Bowl glory despite numerous NFC Championship Game appearances. And the next, he was explaining how he often drove down McNabb's private road and parked outside his house hoping to get a glimpse of the star passer.

That kind of behaviour might be a little bit strange but it is not too different to other Eagles fans in Philadelphia. They love their team with a passion but they also love to hate their team.

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UPDATE: This blog was written before news reached us of Bengals wide receiver from injuries suffered in a fall from a pick-up truck.

The build-up to some NFL games can be rather dull as players and coaches are afraid of giving motivation to the opposition with some ill-chosen words.

New England Patriots are the worst in the NFL at playing down an upcoming game. I remember being in Boston in October when the Pats were preparing to take on the winless Tennessee Titans and head coach could not have been less controversial if he tried.

Talking about the Titans, who had been mostly awful up to that point of the season, Belichick said: "The Titans have a good quarterback ( had been terrible), a good running game, good receivers (really, coach?), a strong offensive line, a good defensive line, good linebackers and a strong secondary (this was the same unit that ). And they're good on special teams."

Seriously, he listed every available department and praised the Titans to the absolute maximum, even though they had not won a single game. The local Boston media stopped taking notes after the first sentence. It was a pointless waste of air.

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At the halfway point of the 2009 season, the Houston Texans had won five of their eight games and looked set to compete for a play-off berth for the first time in Gary Kubiak's four years as head coach.

And then the wheels came off for a team that seems to find it impossible to win big games when the chips are down.

The Texans twice lost games they should have won against the undefeated Indianapolis Colts and also suffered reverses at the hands of the Tennessee Titans and Jacksonville Jaguars.

That four-game losing streak saw made Houston long shots to reach the play-offs as a wild-card team. They are, once again, on the outside looking in.

The Texans snapped that losing run in emphatic fashion on Sunday,

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, club officials made all the right noises about how it was a terrible shame and a huge blow.

And they were right, to some degree. It was a shame. Pennington is a fighter who has come back from career-threatening injuries and he is the perfect guy to have in your locker room. He is smart, dedicated and a good leader. So dealing with Pennington on a personal level, the Dolphins felt bad about his injury and the fact his career was, once again, hanging in the balance.

However, while they would never admit such a thing publicly, there must also have been some in the organisation who saw the situation as a blessing in disguise because it accelerated the move to get Chad Henne into the starting line-up.

Even as a rookie in 2008, the . But with Pennington playing well and leading Miami to the playoffs, they could not throw the youngster into much live action in his first year.

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The NFL playoffs begin on Saturday January 9 and ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Radio 5 live sports extra will chart every step on the road to the Super Bowl with our commentary teams bringing you the action each weekend from the United States.

For the New York Giants - the preseason Super Bowl favourite of many pundits, myself included - the playoffs begin this weekend when they take on the Dallas Cowboys in a must-win game

That may sound like a rash statement with five weeks remaining in the regular season, but the Giants have got themselves into a bit of a pickle. After opening the year with five straight wins (albeit against fairly weak opponents), they have lost five of their last six encounters and are two games behind the Cowboys in the ultra-competitive NFC East. If they lose on Sunday, the Giants will be three back with four to play.

That makes this a fascinating encounter and means I will be following the game very closely on Sunday, even though I have a rare weekend off from the studio.

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Tennessee Titans quarterback Vince Young has never been short on confidence. There have been times during his short career when that confidence has been misplaced, but it has always been there.

On Sunday night, Young needed every ounce of that self-belief as he trotted onto the pitch at LP Field with his Titans trailing the Arizona Cardinals 17-13 with two minutes and 37 seconds left on the clock. A daunting 99 yards stood between Young and a game-winning touchdown as he gathered his team-mates on their own one-yard line.

And what followed was the highlight of Week 12, proving that Young has matured on and off the field. It also placed the Titans right back in the AFC playoff race, with five successive victories following a shocking start of six successive defeats.

Young guided the Titans on an 18-play, 99-yard drive that was a thing of beauty. If a quarterback is truly judged on how he performs when the stakes are at their highest, Young passed his latest test with flying colours.

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