During his playing career, Ozzie Newsome became one of the best tight ends in NFL history; he’s one of only seven tight ends enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

Since his career ended, Newsome has become one of the best personnel guys in the business, winning a Super Bowl as the V.P. of player personnel in Baltimore and thereafter becoming the league’s first African-American General Manager.  It seems like he’s been around forever, but he’s still only 51.

For his exploits on and off the field, the non-hardware hardware that we’ll annually give out to the best tight end in the game will be named for Newsome.

And its first recipient is a guy who plays for Newsome’s old team, and who is named for one of the other Hall of Famers at the position:  Kellen Winslow.

We’ve given Winslow plenty of criticism over the years, and all of it has been deserved.  Sure, the “f–king solder” remark likely had a lot to do with a child of privilege scoring street cred, but it was still goofy and inappropriate.  And he has paid the price for that stoopid decision to do tricks in a parking lot on his crotch rocket.

But at a stage in his career when many other men would have called it quits, Winslow has played through injury and pain.  In 2007, he made an unlikely return from microfracture surgery on the knee he destroyed in that motorcycle accident, and he qualified for his first career Pro Bowl.

Though his knee very well might betray him long before he puts together a body of work worthy of Canton, his efforts this past season make him, in our estimation, the best in the business.