When you throw for 3,837 yards yards and 35 touchdowns (leading the NFL in touchdown rate); when you add 636 rushing yards and another 10 touchdowns (leading all quarterbacks in both); when your team finishes the regular season 15-1 (best in the NFL), chances are you're going to win some awards.

Cam Newton was a very decorated player by the end of the NFL season. He was named a Pro Bowler, First-Team All-Pro, Offensive Player of the Year, and NFL MVP. His and the Carolina Panthers' season didn't end in the ultimate prize, but Newton picked up another one on Wednesday night.

At the 2016 ESPY Awards, he was named Best NFL Player over a field that included Tom Brady, J.J. Watt, Julio Jones, and Antonio Brown.

And when you fight through Hodgkin's lymphoma and come back to football after a year away just as good a player as you were before; when your comeback season involves playing all 16 games and culminates in a Pro Bowl berth, a First-Team All-Pro nod, and the Associated Press' Comeback Player of the Year Award, well, they're going to honor you at the ESPY's as well.

Eric Berry was honored as Best Comeback Athlete, fittingly on a night another cancer survivor (TNT's Craig Sager) was honored with the Jimmy V Perseverance Award.

Berry's acceptance speech was a big hit as well.

Berry's tribute to his parents and his brothers was especially moving, and his message to cancer fighters elsewhere was beautiful: "You honor the ones that come before you and you leave a legacy for the ones that come behind you."