Mr Perennial, Gary Ablett Junior, and his apprentice, Nat Fyfe, were the overwhelming favourites for the Brownlow Medal as March ticked over to April. With both back in the pack, the race for this season’s Brownlow medal is wide open.

Ablett and Fyfe were the clear, almost runaway, one-and-two favourites for the Brownlow medal coming into the 2016 season, and here we are, six rounds into the year, and neither are looking like likely winners.

For Fyfe, four-and-a-half games isn’t going to get the job done. In case you are new to this caper, Fyfe suffered another break in his left leg and is likely out for the remainder of the year. Prior to the injury, Fyfe was one of the only Dockers allowed to hold his head high, putting in two insane performances in Round 2 (34 touches, 22 contested possessions, ten clearances and three goals two behinds) and Round 4 (27 touches, seven tackles, 15 contested possessions, four contested marks and four straight goals).

A king dethroned
As for Ablett, things are a little more complicated. We checked in on the little master in January, lamenting that after a season or two dealing with serious injuries, he may not be able to get back to his game-shredding best. This, unfortunately for AFL fans everywhere, appears to be the case in the first six rounds of the year.

If we write his six injury-hit games from 2015 off, GAJ is currently running at near-decade lows across all of the important numbers from his perspective. His 28 disposals per game, while still in the top 20 in the game, is his lowest haul since 2007; contested possessions at 12.5 per game are the lowest since 2008; inside 50 deliveries at 4.3 the fewest since 2009. He’s kicked just three goals (and seven behinds) across his first six starts, or half a goal a game, which if maintained would be the lowest mark in his career.

It is more than the raw numbers, though. Ablett’s outright influence on games appears diminished, albeit from lofty heights. There are fewer ‘WTF’ moments, where Ablett would swoop into a congested situation, pluck the ball and either dish it out to advantage, or simply fly away himself, free of impediment from the defence.

Instead, he’s more frequently a bystander. Defensive work has never been the master’s key domain, and until this year that hasn’t mattered.

I’m aware that I’m writing off a champion, and this is likely to blow up in my face spectacularly in the weeks and months ahead as he chucks a flat Gold Coast Suns side on his back and carries them to the brink of finals come late August. Still, a six-game sample is enough to start making some calls, and this is one of mine. Gary Ablett Junior won’t win the Brownlow medal in 2016.

Look on the bright side
This can be spun as excellent news, though, because in conjunction with Fyfe’s season-ending injury, and the great play of a number of players and teams, means the Brownlow medal race in 2016 is wide open. We haven’t had this situation for a couple of years; in 2014, it was all about Gaz, and last year, Fyfe’s stupendous first half of the year saw him effectively sew up the medal by Round 14.

Let’s take a trip around the competition, and rattle off the names of a bunch of the contenders. These aren’t presented in any particular order, although per usual with these Totally Subjective Power Rankings things, there’s a ranking towards the end. I should also add I threw a bunch of names down before checking the markets to gather evidence where relevant. If you’re feeling particularly speculative on this Wednesday morning, feel free to throw your hat in the ring below.

Lachie Hunter| Western Bulldogs
Possible votes: 0-9

Lachie Hunter is the leader of the Bulldogs’ pack by way of accumulation, and so sticks out as a logical member of the game’s most even team to win votes. However, therein lies the rub: the Dogs are built to be an even, flexible, amorphous beast; Hawthorn on strange, structurally-enhancing drugs. So while he may win votes, there is a very high chance that he doesn’t win votes. Hunter is outside of the top ten in the AFLCA Award despite his monster numbers, which is instructive.

Matt Priddis | West Coast Eagles
Possible votes: 3-10

If there’s one thing we know about West Coast’s work horse, Matt Priddis, it is that he pulls votes.

His shock victory in 2014 was guffawed at – that guy, the dude who can’t kick? Really? Priddis promptly followed that year up with a better season in 2015, and as his team won more frequently, he actually polled more votes than in the year he won the medal itself. In 2014, West Coast players polled a total of 73 votes (seventh in the competition), while in 2015 that figure jumped to 97 (first), and he still led all comers. So say what you will, but Priddis polls.

Can he back it up in 2016? You would be brave to say he’s not in the top few contenders based on recent experience. So far this year the Eagles have looked a little sluggish, everywhere save for the clinches, where a super fit Nic Naitanui is doling out advantage to his inside midfielders like a politician doles out pre-election tax cuts.

It may be instructive, though, that no West Coast player is within 15 votes of the leaders in the AFLCA Award after six games.

Nic Naitanui | West Coast Eagles
Possible votes: 0-10

Could it happen? Surely not, but Nic Nat’s start to the year has been nothing short of extraordinary. Advanced stats, suggest the Fijian ruckman is now one of the game’s top five players. He’s won a staggering 61 per cent of his ruck contests in 2016, and is 14th in the League for contested possessions.

Someone in the comments picked him as a smokey at the start of the year. I say it again: could it happen?

Lance Franklin | Sydney Swans
Possible votes: 3-12

Let’s spend a little time here, because the Lance Franklin case is an interesting one.

Franklin is perhaps the only key forward in the game that polls votes. Indeed, in the past five years, Franklin has earned almost twice as many Brownlow votes per game (0.74) than the next highest ranked key forward, Jarryd Roughead (0.45). If you don’t want to consider Steve Johnson a forward line player, which he arguably wasn’t for most of this sample, Franklin is the only regular goal scorer, period, inside the top 50 for Brownlow votes per game over the past five seasons.

So if a forward is ever going to win this award again, Franklin is going to be the man to do it. How has he gone so far this year? A stat line of 3.8 goals (on 6.1 scoring shots), 5.7 inside 50 entries, 18 disposals and a couple of tackles for good measure is an excellent starting point.

It’s actually a better line than he put up in his debut year for the Swans, where he polled 22 votes to finish equal third in the count behind Matt Priddis and Ablett. In that year (2014), Franklin polled in 10 games, all of which were Sydney wins, and in all but one of his vote-getting games kicked four or more goals and/or had 18 or more possessions. Sound familiar?

Franklin’s biggest problem might be players taking votes off of him – Sydney’s midfield set is probably now the most consistently good at the top end of the talent pool. However you could also say that in 2014, when the Swans made the grand final, and Franklin still earned the most votes in his side. Watch this space.

Luke Parker and/or Dan Hannebery and/or Josh Kennedy | Sydney Swans
Possible votes: 6-12

Luke Parker is just entering prime age, and is a fashionable choice as the Swan-most-likely in 2016. This is interesting on a couple of levels.

Firstly, Josh P Kennedy appears to have fallen right out of favour as Sydney’s perennial Brownlow man, despite polling the most votes in his career in 2015 (25). His output is down a little on the past two seasons, where he has polled 20 votes or more, but he is still doing the work of two regular guys in the clinches. The lack of discussion about him and his role in Sydney’s excellent start is puzzling.

But more importantly, last year’s AFL Coaches Association award winner Dan Hannebery and man-of-the-moment Luke Parker are neck and neck on pretty much every statistical category under the sun. Where Parker may be getting the edge in the sentiment stakes is the impact he is having on individual moments, where Hannebery is plying his trade more in the mould of an accumulator.

Regardless, so long as these three are playing at a high level, and the likes of Tom Mitchell and Kieran Jack bob up and pinch votes every now and again, it is hard to see a Sydney Swan midfielder hoarding enough votes on their own to win the award.

Jack Viney | Melbourne Demons
Possible votes: 3-9

Here’s one a little out of left field – although after checking the markets I see he is in the top ten by way of favouritism. Viney is an emerging superstar, a tier we knew he had the potential to reach early on in his career as he stormed onto the scene as a hustling, bustling pack destroyer in his debut season.

After six rounds, he’s averaging a shade under 30 touches per game, and is third in the competition for clearances. His biggest problem will be timing (this is the first year he’ll be on the radar of the umpires), and the up-and-down nature of Melbourne’s season. Rule a line through him this year, but as the Dees rise, so will Viney.

Robbie Gray | Port Adelaide Power
Possible votes: 6-9

We discussed the Power’s fading season a couple of weeks ag, and the buttressing role that Gray is playing – he’s saving them from becoming a near-lock for the bottom six, and a high chance for the bottom four.

Gray is an excellent player, and is clearly the most important member of Port Adelaide’s playing personnel. His problem, like many of the others listed above, will be winning – or a lack of it. Only Gary Ablett Junior has won the Brownlow medal in a team with a losing record in this century. I simply don’t rate Port Adelaide this year, and so expect this to be too big a mountain to overcome.

In saying that, Gray will probably be the Power’s only consistent vote-getter. So who knows? An 11-11 Essendon in 2012 saw Jobe Watson win the Brownlow medal.

Now we’re into the top three – the players that I rate as the best chances for the 2016 Brownlow Medal after six rounds of play. Two are near the top of the market, and there’s a third who I could see coming from the clouds by virtue of his style of play and his team’s prowess.

3. Callan Ward | Greater Western Sydney Giants
Possible votes: 6-12

Callan Ward might be one of the most under-rated players in the competition across the general AFL population. This is partly to do with where he plys his trade, but also because he’s the consistent veteran cog in a team population with shiny young stars.

Last year, he polled a quite remarkable 19 votes in 22 games, despite the Giants finishing up with an even 11-11 record in the home-and-away season. That was driven by four, three-vote performances in big Giant wins, but he also polled votes in three losses (one two vote game and two one vote games), which is somewhat unusual in this day and age.

He’s started this year in strong fashion, as GWS’ enforcer around the contest. He hasn’t got the possession totals of some of the more fancied chances, but his style of play catches the eye. The umpires appear to like him, too: has the League’s highest individual free kick differential (+14).

Ward is an outside chance, for sure, but as the Giants push for a top-four finish in the remainder of the year, he can be expected to be a driving force. And that’ll mean he earns votes.

2. Patrick Dangerfield | Geelong Cats
Possible votes: 8-14

I have obtained exclusive analytical footage of Patrick Dangerfield’s debut game for the Cats.

His first game in the hoops might be worth four Brownlow votes: 43 disposals, 21 contested possessions, seven clearances, ten inside 50s and three behinds. The shots on goal were mostly sodas, too; imagine if he’d kicked three goals? It could be the best debut for a team-swapper in League history – I can’t remember too many other individual performances that were that impactful in recent times.

There is little doubt he was the catalyst behind Geelong’s victory.

Since then, he’s kept on keeping on, although is playing at a top three level, rather than Michael Jordan in Space Jam level. Dangerfield was a consistent vote winner at Adelaide, averaging a shade over a vote a game since hitting his straps in 2012. But for one reason or another – most likely Adelaide’s broadly 0.500 record during his prime years at the Crows – he never reached the 1.3 to 1.4 votes per game required to win the medal.

Dangerfield has recorded 23 three-vote games in the past five years, behind Fyfe (24) and level with Ablett. He’s currently the market favourite, and with good reason: he’s probably the best player in football with those other two guys on the sidelines.

1. Sam Mitchell | Hawthorn Hawks
Possible votes: 9-14

Sam Mitchell has the most Brownlow medal votes of a non-winner in the Brownlow medal’s 3-2-1 history. Part of that is career longevity (Brent Harvey, for example, is second on this list, but has earned 0.48 votes per game over his 400-game career), but for Mitchell, it is more about quality of play.

In 2011, he earned 30 votes, only for Collingwood’s Dane Swan to set a record for most votes to win the count (34). In 2012, he was joint-runner up to Jobe Watson – and he may still end up winning that medal at the end of this year – with 26 votes, a tally he also put up last season. In many seasons, 26 votes is enough to win the medal.

Mitchell is one of the only things holding the Hawks together right now. His abilities in tight and out wide are undisputed, and like a very expensive wine he’s getting better with age. Mitchell’s numbers have come back from the stratosphere in recent weeks (at one point he was averaging close to 40 disposals per game), but he is still the only player averaging six clearances per game, and 20 uncontested possessions per game.

The thing about Hawthorn is they are built to be even. Sure, they have some generational talents, but in any individual game, those generational talents might be called upon for moment or two, rather than across the whole game like a Patrick Dangerfield. Except this year, Mitchell is shouldering a significant portion of the Hawks’ load, and that is only likely to increase now that fellow veteran Luke Hodge is out for a month or two with a knee injury.

He’s the favourite right now for me, and once the Hawks get back on their diamond-encrusted, gold-plated saddle around the middle of the year, there’s a chance Mitchell runs away with the award like Fyfe and Ablett have done in recent years.

Honourable mentions go to:
Aaron Hall (nine votes isn’t going to do it)
Dustin Martin (will win Richmond’s vote count in a canter, but with, like, ten one vote games)
Rory Sloane (a personal favourite, but has become a roaming impact player in Adelaide’s new scheme)
Scott Pendlebury (sad face)
David Zaharakis (his numbers are more to do with a change in role than high level play, but still, he picked the worst possible year to have a career best year)
Scott Thompson (he can’t play at this level for 23 rounds at age 33, surely)
Any number of other Western Bulldogs players (champion team versus a team of champions, for now)
Max Gawn (the token contending ruckman for 2016)
Joel Selwood (if you didn’t win it as a one-man team…)
Todd Goldstein (if you didn’t win it breaking every ruckman record under the sun…)
Jarrad Waite (see Lance Franklin[italics])
Tom Lynch (see Lance Franklin[italics])
Jack Ziebell (he’s becoming more consistent, but not consistent enough)
Defensive half players everywhere (those in the know know the work you do is incredibly valuable).