Josh Allen of the Buffalo Bills was named NFL MVP on Feb. 6. This was, first of all, an amazing moment for Allen and his career, and secondly not undeserving after accumulating 4,200 yards and 41 touchdowns this season. But from a statistical and even a film perspective, another individual was more deserving.
Lamar Jackson has an even easier argument for the MVP: He was statistically the best. He ended his 2024 campaign with 4,172 passing yards and 915 yards on the ground. In addition to founding the 4000/900 club, Jackson had 45 total touchdowns to just 9 turnovers via ESPN. He led his Baltimore Ravens to a 12-5 record and a second straight AFC North championship, primed for a deep playoff run.
But this isn’t the first time this has happened. Just last year, Jackson won his second MVP even though he accounted for just 29 touchdowns. But his team, led by an all-time defense, ended the regular season with an NFL-best 13-4 record, securing him the MVP. However, the San Francisco 49ers’ Brock Purdy accounted for 33 touchdowns, the Dallas Cowboys’ Dak Prescott accounted for 38 (And a league-high 36 through the air), and Allen accounted for an NFL-best 44 total touchdowns, setting a record for rushing touchdowns in a single season by a quarterback with 15.
In back-to-back years, the MVP was given to someone who was not a statistical leader or the most outstanding player. As an NFL fan, that concerns me. The award is becoming hollow, and it’s hard to use it to weigh legacy.
It almost seems to have become an award for the best regular-season team. In the last 10 seasons, eight MVPs were the quarterbacks with the best regular-season record (Matt Ryan in 2016 and Allen in 2024 were the exceptions). Sometimes the best team is a product of the MVP’s work, like the 2019 Ravens, and 2015 Panthers. However, many of these winners were not statistically dominant.
As discussed above, Jackson won it in 2023 because he had the best record despite having less than 30 touchdowns, and in 2021, Aaron Rodgers was named MVP despite Tom Brady leading the league in yards and touchdowns and Cooper Kupp having arguably the greatest wide receiver season in history.
This isn’t a new phenomenon either. In 1966, Bart Starr won MVP with his 11-win Green Bay Packers team. He had just 16 touchdowns. Don Meredith of the Dallas Cowboys (Who would lose to Green Bay in the 1966 NFL Championship) found the end zone 29 times. It doesn’t make sense to award the quarterback of the best team the MVP automatically, because football is inherently a team sport. A quarterback isn’t even on the field for half the game.
Another line tossed around is that the award is about narratives. And while a media-given award might be chosen for the stories they can write, that simply shouldn’t be the reason. Shouldn’t the MVP be the winner because they were the best in the league, not because “Lamar Jackson and the Ravens are having a dominant season, he should be MVP” or “Despite Josh Allen losing his top two receivers and several defenders, he has the team in position for a deep playoff run”.
The narrative argument also closes the door for players like Joe Burrow, who had an elite season. Burrow had a phenomenal season, leading the league in passing yards, passing touchdowns, completions, and third in quarterback rating. But a generationally incompetent defense kept Burrow and his triple-crown teammate Ja’Marr Chase out of the playoffs. With even a below-average defense, there would be an MVP narrative for Burrow and likely Chase.
Additionally, quarterback bias is a real thing in voters’ minds. Every MVP since 2012 has been a quarterback, and with the exceptions of Shaun Alexander in 2005, LaDanian Tomlinson in 2006, and Adrian Peterson in 2012, every MVP this century has been a quarterback. While quarterbacks do drive the offenses and usually one or two will have a phenomenal season, they shouldn’t always get it.
The 2024 race had 2000-yard rusher Saquon Barkley finish a distant 3rd to Jackson and Allen. In 2023, Christian McCaffrey had 2,023 yards and 21 touchdowns from scrimmage and didn’t receive a single first-place vote. In 2021, Cooper Kupp won the receiving triple crown and set a record for scrimmage yards by a wide receiver; he finished third. In 2020 Derrick Henry had 2000 rushing yards and wasn’t close to Aaron Rodgers. Again In 2019 McCaffrey again had a phenomenal 2000-yard season with 1000 receiving and 1000 rushing yards, totaling 43% of Carolina’s yards. He didn’t even win Offensive Player of the Year.
This again isn’t a new phenomenon. In 1987, Jerry Rice caught 22 touchdown passes and ran for another but was not named MVP. That honor went to John Elway, who had the same number of touchdowns as a quarterback.
Defensive players have it even worse. Lawrence Taylor was the last to win it, doing so in 1986. Aaron Donald’s 2018 season was one of the most dominant and terrifying things the league has ever seen and didn’t win (The Caveat here is that Patrick Mahomes did throw 50 touchdowns and was awarded MVP). And in recent years, no defensive player has finished higher than fifth in MVP voting.
Is the most valuable player always a quarterback?
Obviously, the award can’t just be about the numbers. They don’t tell everything. But the question then becomes how to award it. Most MVPs have memorable moments, just like college players have their “Heisman moment”.
Allen had a four-touchdown season opener against the Arizona Cardinals, where he hurdled a defender into the endzone, leading the team to a come-back victory, a rout of the Jaguars where he became the first quarterback to have four touchdowns, lead his team in rushing and not take a sack or turnover, a fourth-down touchdown run against Kansas City to hand them their first loss, a six-touchdown game against the Los Angeles Rams, an otherworldly performance to take out the NFC leading lions, and he caught a touchdown pass… from himself against San Francisco in another dominating performance.
Jackson dismantled a then-unstoppable Bills team. He threw five touchdowns against the Buccaneers on Monday Night Football and four touchdowns against the Bengals twice in two shoot-out victories.
But then we must also examine their anti-mvp moments. Allen didn’t have a touchdown in a blowout loss to Baltimore and completed less than a third of his passes in a loss to Houston the next week. He almost lost to a 4-13 New England Patriots team.
But Jackson lost to two of the NFL’s worst teams, the Las Vegas Raiders and Cleveland Browns, counting for just 3 touchdowns across the two games. He had a loss to Pittsburgh where his offense scored just 16 points and had a crucial late turnover.
In the NFL, legacy means a lot. These awards can shape a player’s resume, granting or denying them entrance to the Hall of Fame. Meredith was never voted into the Hall of Fame, but would the 1966 MVP have changed that? They mold the way we discuss players, even decades after their retirement. But does this award still hold weight, seeing how it may just be given to someone, even if they didn’t deserve it? No one would want their legacy to be scrutinized because of a hollow award.
