Time to take another look at the NFL MVP race and update my predictions from the first quarter of the season.
At the midway point, it's fair to say that we're dealing with a chaotic season. Just about everything we take for granted about the league is up for grabs. The Chiefs are a mess on offense. The Ravens are struggling mightily on defense. The Jaguars just beat the Bills. We're one week removed from Jets backup Mike White being the most productive quarterback. Everything is confusing.
So, too, is this race for the MVP. I'll try to use data and common sense to give my feelings about who should win this award, based on what they've done over the first half of the season. I might write about who I think will win the award or how the voters will feel about a player's résumé at the end of the season, but these are my opinions based solely on what we've seen from Weeks 1 through 9.
Let's start on the fringes of the race and work our way back toward the top of the leaderboard:
Jump to a section:
Non-QBs who are longshots
QBs on the fringes of contention
Ranking the top five favorites
The non-quarterbacks in the MVP race
Given how valuable quarterbacks are, we have to start by considering whether there are any non-quarterbacks who are far enough ahead of the pack to merit serious MVP consideration.
Derrick Henry's injury will likely take him out of the race, but as ridiculous as his season was through the first six weeks, so much of it revolved around a historic amount of volume. I wrote at length about Henry last week; if he had kept up that volume, the Titans star running back might have been able to set the single-season rushing record, which would have attracted serious MVP consideration. As it was, I don't think he had been such a difference-maker as to really threaten the quarterbacks on this list.
The most productive back in football, now that Henry is out indefinitely, is clearly Indianapolis' Jonathan Taylor, who had 200 yards from scrimmage on 21 touches against the Jets on Thursday night. The second-year back is far ahead of the pack by advanced metrics. He has generated 259 rushing yards above expectation. Cleveland's Nick Chubb is second with 186 yards over expectation, thanks to a boost from his 70-yard run against the Bengals on Sunday. Then there's another huge drop-off to Jacksonville's James Robinson at 107 yards. Henry had 411 yards over expectation on 378 carries a year ago, which would make a good target for the Colts back.
Taylor also leads the league in first downs over expectation and ranks fifth among running backs in receiving yards. Henry is one of a kind, but Taylor is the closest back in the league in terms of combining plus size with big-play ability. I'm not sure he's going to post the sort of cumulative totals to get MVP consideration, but he is the most complete back in football at the moment.
Could Cooper Kupp be in the mix? The Rams star didn't have a big game by his lofty standards on Sunday night, but he still became just the 17th player in league history to rack up 1,000 or more receiving yards in the first nine games of a season. The only receivers with at least 1,000 yards and 10 or more touchdowns in the first nine games of a season since the merger are Kupp in 2021 and Jerry Rice in 1990. With the extra game, Kupp is on pace for 1,924 receiving yards and 19 receiving touchdowns. He's 137 yards ahead of second-place Deebo Samuel for the league lead in receiving yards.
Of course, quarterback Matthew Stafford is also an MVP candidate (more on him below), which is one of the reasons it has been so difficult for a wide receiver to attract consideration for this award. It's almost impossible for a wideout to post a historic season without his quarterback also putting up huge numbers. We basically need to have a season in which a receiver plays with two quarterbacks and continues to lead the league in most receiving categories, and in most cases, they are going to struggle to keep up their league-leading production if they lose their starting quarterback. It's a near-impossible tightrope to walk.
The one exception I can think of is if a receiver breaks records while his quarterback does not. If Kupp becomes the first 2,000-yard receiver in league history, he's going to attract attention. I don't think it would be enough to lead me to pick him over Stafford if I were going for a member of the Rams' passing attack, but it might be enough to siphon a vote or two away from Stafford once the real voting happens.
Myles Garrett is the only edge rusher who could muster serious support. He leads the league in sacks (12), knockdowns (22) and pass rush win rate (28.7%), albeit by narrow margins in each category. The only edge rusher over the past decade to draw an MVP vote is J.J. Watt, whose 2014 season was head and shoulders above the competition. Garrett probably needs to get to 25 sacks, if not 30, to get the distance he needs on the rest of the league. Thirteen sacks in eight games? It's not likely, but I wouldn't put it past the Browns star.
As was the case after the first quarter of the season, though, the best non-quarterback candidate is Cowboys cornerback Trevon Diggs. Diggs' seven interceptions -- including a pair of pick-sixes -- make him significantly more valuable than any other defender so far. Generating two touchdowns and five additional possessions for your team is more than just about any non-quarterback can do in a half-season of work.
That two-play series against the Patriots in which Diggs took a Mac Jones interception to the house before being involved in coverage on a 75-yard Kendrick Bourne touchdown on the next play from scrimmage has led to suggestions that he has been a boom-or-bust cornerback, but I don't think that's accurate. I'm not even sure he should have been blamed for that score, given that Damontae Kazee was the deep safety in the middle of the field and got caught between trying to intercept Jones' pass and attempting to break it up, doing neither.
With that being said, Sunday's loss to the Broncos was Diggs' worst game of the season. He committed pass interference in the end zone against Courtland Sutton, setting up one touchdown. Tim Patrick then caught a 44-yard touchdown past Diggs in Cover 3. Diggs made a nice play later in the game in breaking up a deep crosser to Patrick, but the Broncos had more success against him than any other corner this season. Diggs would still be my Defensive Player of the Year pick, but he's just outside the top five when you compare him to the league's quarterbacks.
The quarterbacks outside the top five
Let's run through some of the honorable mentions on the outside looking in before we get to the top five. In no particular order, here's who didn't make it to the top five (including the guy I chose as MVP after the first four weeks of the season):
Kansas City QB Patrick Mahomes' struggles have been overstated -- and his receivers haven't helped out the future Hall of Famer -- but with his turnover issues, there's no realistic case for him as MVP. Since Week 5, Mahomes ranks 27th in QBR and has as many touchdown passes as interceptions (six). The only quarterbacks with a worse completion percentage over expectation (CPOE) than Mahomes' minus-7.1% over that time frame are Jameis Winston and Sam Darnold. Mahomes also fumbled in four consecutive games after not fumbling once during the first quarter of the season. The only reason he came away without an interception in Sunday's 13-7 victory over the Packers is because Kevin King dropped a gift.
Seattle's Russell Wilson was averaging 9.6 yards per attempt with 10 touchdown passes against one pick to start the season, but a finger injury has limited him to just four complete games. It's impossible to win MVP when you miss more than game or two, let alone something close to half the season.
Ryan Tannehill might start getting more attention if the Titans continue this impressive winning streak. I can't make a strong case for him here, though. He was a super-efficient quarterback in 2019 and 2020, but he's at a league-average 7.4 yards per attempt this season. He has also thrown eight interceptions, and his passing volume continues to be below average, with just over 32 pass attempts per game. Tannehill is extremely underrated and valuable as a runner, and the offense might change in the weeks to come, but he doesn't have an MVP résumé right now.
Like Mahomes, the Chargers' Justin Herbert took a step backward after a hot start. The second-year quarterback had back-to-back games with a passer rating between 66 and 68 in frustrating losses to the Ravens and Patriots. The good news is that Herbert was able to pick apart the soft zone coverage of the Eagles during Sunday's win, going 32-of-38 for 356 yards with two touchdowns and a rushing score. Herbert has posted a slightly negative CPOE (minus-0.6% below expectation) and consistency has been an issue, but his best games have been good enough to leave him somewhere in the lower half of the top 10.
Joe Burrow has made big plays at the right time, with a handful of fourth-and-short conversions and well-timed audibles to help win games for the Bengals. After struggling to hit chunk plays last season, he's averaging 8.7 yards per attempt, a product of his preternatural connection with former LSU teammate Ja'Marr Chase. The only thing keeping Burrow from rising higher are turnovers: He has 11 interceptions, and his giveaways dearly cost the Bengals in their losses. Sunday was no exception, as he threw a pick-12 (a pick-six that also nullifies what should've been a score for the offense) against the Browns when Denzel Ward returned his poorly positioned out throw 99 yards for a Cleveland score.
If you focus on touchdown-interception ratio, Colts quarterback Carson Wentz looks cured of the problems he dealt with during his final season with the Eagles. He has thrown 17 touchdown passes against just three picks. He has also inherited Joe Flacco's title as the king of the pass interference penalty, drawing 223 yards in calls already. With Wentz's sack rate regressing back to where it was before the 2020 season, you can make a case that the 2016 No. 2 overall pick should be on the outskirts of this race.
I'm not as optimistic as that story might indicate. Wentz is completing only 63.3% of his passes and averaging 7.3 yards per attempt, both of which are below league average. He has been one of the luckiest quarterbacks in terms of getting away with dropped interceptions, something I suspect we'll see Football Outsiders confirm after the year. He has also fumbled five times in nine games. Wentz ranks 22nd in terms of turning his passes into first downs, rating right behind curiosities such as Taylor Heinicke, Tua Tagovailoa and Jared Goff. He is certainly playing better than he did in 2020, but he's not close to an MVP right now.
Derek Carr is having his best NFL season. He has never been a consistent deep thrower, but his yards per attempt have continued to rise; he's at 8.2 yards per attempt so far. The departure of Jon Gruden has also opened up an avenue that the former head coach typically did not employ: the play-action game. Under Gruden, who didn't believe that play-action was effective against man coverage, Carr used play-action just over 19% of the time. Since Gruden was fired, though, the Raiders have used play-action on exactly 25% of Carr's dropbacks. It has gone well: Carr is 21-of-27 for 226 yards and two touchdowns on those pass attempts.
Carr is average or better in just about every facet of the game and consistently comes in the top 10 in most categories, but it's hard to find many in which he's ranked in the top five, let alone leading the league. That sort of steadiness makes him a valuable quarterback, but it's tough to push him into MVP consideration when he's not close to being the best in the league at any one thing. Sunday didn't help, with Carr turning the ball over three times in an upset loss to the Giants.
Dak Prescott rates out much better by pure passing metrics than he does by total value metrics, because he has been the least valuable runner of any quarterback in the league. Prescott is normally extremely efficient on the ground, but his 24 carries have generated minus-16.9 expected points added (EPA) by the Next Gen Stats model, wiping away a huge chunk of the 53.2 EPA the Cowboys star has generated as a passer. Those rushes have produced only one first down, with Prescott fumbling twice and getting stuffed twice on fourth-and-1.
He was one of the many candidates who didn't help his case Sunday, as he went just 19-of-39 for 232 yards in an ugly loss to the Broncos. Most of that production came in garbage time, as he was 4-of-12 for 54 yards and a CPOE of minus-28.6% before the Cowboys' win expectancy fell below 10%. It might have just been a bad day at the office for the usually explosive Cowboys offense, but Prescott hasn't been quite as good this season as stats such as completion percentage and passer rating might suggest.
Josh Allen had nothing go right in Sunday's loss to the Jaguars. The Bills couldn't protect against the previously innocuous Jaguars pass rush, which pressured Allen on nearly 31% of his dropbacks. Buffalo's receivers struggled with drops, but Allen also made his own messes at times. His two interceptions were late throws over the middle and more reminiscent of the mistakes he made in 2018 and 2019, while his fumble on third-and-2 in the fourth quarter cost the Bills a chance to try a game-winning field goal. Allen didn't exactly mince words in criticizing his own performance after the game.
In the big picture, though, Allen has been just about what we would have expected this season. His accuracy has dipped a bit after making a record-setting leap between 2019 and 2020, but he's still completing 65.5% of his throws, which is right in line with his expected completion percentage. That's fine. More problematic is that he's not picking up chunks of yardage as frequently; he's averaging just 7.0 yards per attempt, which is below the league average and down from 7.9 yards per attempt a year ago. His otherworldly connection with Stefon Diggs hasn't been quite as consistent in 2021, with Diggs topping 100 yards in a game only once so far.
Allen has made up for that drop-off by lowering his interception rate, having thrown just three picks before Sunday's fiasco. He has generated 21.6 EPA on 57 carries as a runner, nearly matching what he has done as a passer. He is still one of the league's best quarterbacks, and I would hardly be surprised if he took out this ugly performance on the Jets in Week 10. As of right now, though, Allen has taken a step backward versus the guy who blew away the league a year ago. The loss to Jacksonville knocks him out of the top five and into sixth place.
Ranking the top five MVP candidates
5. Aaron Rodgers, QB, Packers
After elevating his game in 2020 and winning league MVP, Rodgers is playing closer to the guy we saw in 2018 and 2019 than the one who blew away the league a year ago. For example: He averaged 8.1 yards per attempt in 2018 and 7.6 in 2019 before jumping to 9.6 last season, which led the league. It was the first time he had topped 8.1 yards per attempt since 2014, when he won the second of his three MVP awards. He finished last season with 20 completions traveling at least 26 yards in the air, the second most of any quarterback.
This season, Rodgers is back averaging 8.1 yards per attempt; that's above average, but it's not at that MVP level. After going 20-for-50 on those ultra-deep passes in 2020, he is 4-for-22 with two picks on those throws this year. His sack rate and interception rate have creeped up. This version of Rodgers is still effective, but the future Hall of Famer isn't as explosive as he was a year ago. That Rodgers also played all 16 games, while this Rodgers just missed Sunday's loss to the Chiefs after testing positive for COVID-19. One game might not be a big deal over a full season, but that absence is more significant when you remember that we're evaluating over a half-season.
4. Lamar Jackson, QB, Ravens
I covered Jackson's heavier workload as a passer in my column on the AFC North last week, but don't think that he has lost any of his ability as a runner. As good as Jonathan Taylor has been, Jackson has nearly as many rushing yards over expectation (231) as the Colts star, and Jackson has done it on 53 fewer carries. The 2019 MVP has run for 36 first downs, which is 12 more than a typical rusher would have netted in the same situations, the best mark in the league. He has only two touchdowns, but he moves the chains frequently.
As a passer, Jackson has been more good than great in 2021, although he has been hurt by one of the worst drop rates in football. He's throwing the deepest average passes of anybody, so his drops have been more damaging. With better work from Marquise Brown earlier in the season, his passing numbers would be even better. I'm not sure we can give credit to Jackson for those passes when they weren't caught in reality, but it's something to keep in mind when it comes to his production.
Jackson has also filled in a missing piece of his résumé. The arguments that he couldn't lead his team back when trailing were always shortsighted, because they ignored that he was the league's best quarterback at getting his team to halftime with a lead since taking over as the starter, doing so 34 times. If that mattered to you, well, he brought the Ravens back from halftime deficits against the Chiefs and Colts. He has three fourth-quarter comebacks already this season, more than he posted in his first three seasons combined. If the Ravens catch more of Jackson's deep shots in the second half, he's going to be in the thick of the MVP race again.
3. Tom Brady, QB, Buccaneers
Brady is sort of having the quarterback equivalent of the season Derrick Henry was having before the star back suffered his foot injury. Brady is just a little more efficient throwing the football than we would expect. His completion percentage is right in line with his expected completion percentage, at 67.3% versus 67.0%. He's 10th in yards per attempt. The hallmarks of a typical Brady season are there: the high off-target percentage (18.7%, seventh worst in the league, and a product of him throwing the ball in safe places when nothing's open), the low pressure and contact rates (18.4% and 9.7%, both No. 1 in the league) and the quick release (at an average of 2.5 seconds, the second fastest in the league behind Ben Roethlisberger).
Of course, Brady makes it work by almost always avoiding disaster plays. He has the second-lowest sack rate and the sixth-lowest interception rate. He might be 10th in yards per attempt, but when you use a stat like adjusted net yards per attempt, which incorporates interceptions and sacks, he moves up to fourth, and one of the people ahead of him is Wilson, who hasn't played in a month.
Where the Henry part comes in is with volume. Brady has thrown 343 passes in eight games, an average of nearly 43 per contest. That's the eighth most for any player in NFL history through eight games, and while that's not quite as impressive as Henry's volume when you consider that teams are passing at a higher rate than ever before, it's still a huge workload by any standard. Consider that when Brady started 14 games in his first year as a starter in 2001, he threw 413 passes all season. With the Bucs throwing at the fourth-highest early-down rate in the league, he should reach his 2001 total in a couple of games.
As a result, he led the league in passing yards, first downs and passing touchdowns heading into his Week 9 bye. He has posted an 18-0 touchdown-interception ratio in the red zone and thrown a league-high nine touchdown passes inside the 5-yard line. This would be a huge workload for a 27-year-old. Brady is doing this at 44. It's fair to say that someone's age shouldn't factor into the MVP race, since the value he's generating doesn't have anything to do with how old he is, but it might matter a bit when people vote.
Brady is also aided by the fact that just about every one of the other top candidates had a disappointing Week 9. Of course, he turned the ball over three times in his last game before the bye, but our collective memory for just about anything NFL-related is about 72 hours. Even with the rest of the league giving away some ground, Brady is No. 3 in the race.
2. Kyler Murray, QB, Cardinals
Murray missed Sunday's blowout win over the 49ers, which hurts his candidacy some. It won't matter as much if he's able to return in Week 10 against the Panthers. You wouldn't fault a Cardinals team with Super Bowl aspirations if they sat him for a second consecutive game, but missing two meaningful regular-season games would do serious harm to his MVP chances, if not eliminate them altogether.
It feels at times like Murray is the Cardinals' offense; few players in the league feel more capable of making the impossible happen on any given snap than the Arizona star. He has been the NFL's most effective deep passer this season, posting a league-best 99.3 QBR on throws traveling at least 16 yards in the air. Carr is the only quarterback with more completions or passing yards on those throws. Teams just can't shake or scare Murray, who has the league's second-best off-target percentage (11.5%) and is tied with Wilson for the best adjusted completion percentage (76.8%).
Murray's presumed edge over Brady and Stafford is what he offers as a runner, but he really hasn't done much on the ground this season. He has generated minus-1.7 EPA on his 49 carries; mixed in with his three touchdowns and 12 first downs are seven fumbles, most of which have come on bad exchanges or dropped snaps, which are counted in the run totals. He has also taken a safety, and while that might be preferable to the horrific interceptions Wentz and Stafford have thrown while trying to avoid safeties against the Titans in recent weeks, they're not good for your team. With seven interceptions -- including that bizarre pick at the end of the loss to the Packers -- Murray is kept from the top of the rankings by turnovers.
1. Matthew Stafford, Rams
Well, this is awkward. Stafford just had his worst game of the season on Sunday night, throwing a terrible pick in his own end zone to set up one Titans interception before tossing a pick-six to Kevin Byard on his next pass attempt. It's hardly an exaggeration to suggest that he handed the Titans the game; Tennessee averaged 3.5 yards per play on offense and had only two drives top 30 yards. The Los Angeles offensive line struggled badly against Jeffery Simmons and Denico Autry on the interior, but Stafford simply didn't make smart decisions with the football.
Even after you account for that dismal performance, though, he is simply head and shoulders above the competition as a passer this season. The longtime Lions starter has produced 94.8 EPA in the passing game so far. No other quarterback has topped 53.3 EPA. Murray, Prescott and Brady are within 0.1 EPA of each other for second, third and fourth; they're each about as close to Jimmy Garoppolo in EPA as they are to Stafford.
OK, maybe you don't like EPA. Stafford leads the league in Total QBR (69.8) and is averaging 9.2 AY/A, which is the best mark in football (Murray is the only quarterback within a half-yard). As ugly as Sunday's game was, Stafford still has only six interceptions and one fumble. That fumble was a dropped snap which he picked up and then threw to Kupp for a 25-yard gain.
Stafford is doing all of this, strangely, with a negative CPOE! The Rams are creating such huge passing opportunities that his expected completion percentage is 68.8%, and he's completing "only" 68.2% of his throws. In contrast, though, he is picking up huge chunks of yardage when he throws; he's averaging 8.6 yards per attempt, a figure topped by only Murray and Joe Burrow. When you hit lots of big plays and don't turn the ball over very often, you're going to be a very valuable quarterback. So far, even after a disappointing prime-time game, Stafford has been the league's most valuable player.