The Sporting Tribune’s Eric Lambkins II won first place in the Dave Anderson Column Writing category of the Professional Football Writers of America’s 2026 Dick Connor Writing Awards, earning his first top writing honor from the organization.
Lambkins was recognized for his column, “How petty voters in secret rooms tarnished Belichick’s moment.” He was one of eight journalists to receive first-place honors in the annual competition, joining writers from The Athletic and ESPN.com.
The column writing award is named for Dave Anderson, the Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times columnist and the PFWA’s 1998 Bill Nunn Jr. Award recipient. Lambkins finished ahead of second-place winner Mike Sielski of The Philadelphia Inquirer and third-place finisher Rob Reischel of Forbes.
The recognition places Lambkins and The Sporting Tribune among the winners in a competition that drew 296 stories and 28 beat reporter portfolios. In all, 19 PFWA members earned first-, second- or third-place awards.
The Connor Awards recognize work across beat reporting, columns, features, enterprise reporting, breaking news and game coverage. This year’s contest encompassed stories written by PFWA members during the period following Super Bowl LIX in New Orleans through Super Bowl LX in Santa Clara.
The Athletic earned five first-place awards. Pittsburgh Steelers reporter Mike DeFabo won the Bob Oates Beat Reporting Award, his first top PFWA honor, while Kevin Fishbain won the Bryan Burwell Feature Writing shortform category for his story on how “Good, better, best” became a motto for Ben Johnson’s Chicago Bears.
Zak Keefer won the Burwell longform category for his feature examining Andrew Luck’s return to Stanford after pain drove him away from football. Ian O’Connor took first in the Lesley Visser Enterprise News/Features category for his account of the New York Giants’ deal with John Harbaugh and the conversations that preserved it.
Michael Silver won the Dave Goldberg Game Story Award for his coverage of Cooper Kupp’s performance for Seattle against his former team, the Rams, in the NFC championship game.
ESPN.com’s Kalyn Kahler and Don Van Natta shared first place in the Will McDonough Breaking News category for their reporting on former NFL Players Association executive director Lloyd Howell’s strip club expenses being sent to an investigator.
ESPN.com’s Rich Cimini earned three placement awards, the most of any writer in this year’s competition. O’Connor and Van Natta each received two.
The awards are named for Dick Connor, the former Denver Post and Rocky Mountain News journalist who served as the PFWA’s ninth president from 1980-81. Connor received the organization’s Bill Nunn Jr. Award in 1991 and was inducted into the National Sportscasters and Sportswriters Association Hall of Fame in 1992.
This year’s competition was judged by Dallas Morning News managing editor Amy Hollyfield and journalism educators Mark Hyman, Vicki Michaelis and Malcolm Moran.