don't know about 5th place, I assume maxwell polls well in the key criteria used for this award. Anyway, in the games I saw this year Maxwell played consistent good footy, replete with the 1%'s he's renowned for. Maybe not as good as 2009 but not that far off and massive improvement on 2011.
I don't know what pace you think he dropped off? Certainly wasn't the pace of his teammates in the backline or the team in general.
So you rate players who get ball run 15m bomb on top of a 2v1 or 3v1 or miss the target entirely as good?