Individual awards, for me, fall into an ever-growing category of sports topics I used to know and care more about. That’s partly because of screwy voting over the years, either by players or media members who shun available evidence of players’ value and settle for their own biased opinions, thus ruining the award.
There are too many examples of this to bother listing, but let’s just go ahead right now and congratulate the 2021-22 Jack Adams Award winner for the being the coach of an “overachieving” NHL team whose PDO (save percentage plus shooting percentage) came in near the top of the league.
We based our votes on our (very likely wrong) preseason assumption that your team would stink, and when it didn’t we knew you had done a fabulous coaching job.
The other part that’s made the subject less interesting, to me, is that there is only so much room in your brain. All these awards, championships and big moments keep piling up, all while you age and your recall becomes more and more challenging. Better to intentionally ignore some of this stuff and improve your chances of remembering things that really matter to you.
Do I need to know who won the NBA title in 2008 (no idea) more than I do my daughter’s student number that I need to enter on a health app each day for the school to allow her entry? No, I don’t think I do.
However! Right now we’ve got a live one – the “race” to the 2021 NFL MVP award.
I say race in quotation marks not because it isn’t closely contested; quite the contrary, as we have numerous good-looking candidates that we’ll lay out here. It’s in quotes only because it’s not technically a race.
It is going to be very interesting to track, though. It is already. The betting favorite*, at the moment, is none other than Buffalo Bills quarterback Josh Allen.
* - BetOnline odds as of Oct. 12
Allen leads the way through five weeks at +450 odds, meaning a bet of 100 units would win you 450.
Allen is atop a list of 10 players I want to take seriously as candidates. If you go strictly by the odds, that number is nine, with that many players coming in at +1200 or better. That’s really tight, and clues us in as to how competitive and fun the battle for this award should be.
I’m adding a 10th player - Derrick Henry at +4000. That's because his incredible level of production is becoming historic, and because the top-nine favorites are all quarterbacks.
Maybe voters will end up seeing Henry and his season as a kind of undeniable outlier. Maybe the quarterbacks will look so even that the “quarterback vote” will be split, and Henry will win almost as a kind of cause. Probably not, but we’ll see.
As it happens, no non-quarterback has won the award since Adrian Peterson did so in 2012.
The top-nine favorites all have makeable arguments, if not always easy ones. They are:
1.) Josh Allen - Buffalo Bills: +450
2.) Tom Brady - Tampa Bay Buccaneers: +525
3.) Dak Prescott - Dallas Cowboys: +550
4.) Kyler Murray - Arizona Cardinals: +650
T-5.) Lamar Jackson - Baltimore Ravens: +700
T-5.) Justin Herbert - Los Angeles Chargers: +700
T-7.) Patrick Mahomes - Kansas City Chiefs: +1200
T-7.) Aaron Rodgers - Green Bay Packers: +1200
9.) Matthew Stafford - Los Angeles Rams: +1200
What, in the end, is going to matter in voting for this award?
Incredible statistics, the kind in a 17-game season should mean a broken record or two. The single-season passing yards record is held by Peyton Manning, who averaged 342.3 yards in 2013. Brady (+525) is the only player through five games above that pace (353).
Jackson (+700) is fifth on the list (303.8), but is also averaging 68 rushing yards per-game, which puts his total yardage production above everybody’s. He’s on track for a historic season, with three game-winning drives already in the bank.
Voters tend to love stuff like “game-winning drives”. For me, touchdowns count the same in the first quarter, but OK.
We want to acknowledge the narratives that enhance great quarterback seasons, laugh at them or not, because they tend to matter to voters, in this case all media members. Quarterbacks have always been given more credit (or blame) for a team’s results. This is, of course, a very treacherous area when trying to pinpoint individual value.
Does Jackson make his team better to a greater degree than Brady or Allen? It’s very tough to say. Players can get penalized, essentially, for having a better team around them. A quarterback needs an offensive line and receivers good enough to make him shine, but if those other players are too good, it can leave us thinking the quarterback is not quite as responsible for his team’s success as the next guy. (I know, it gets twisted.)
And how important is your defense?
In Allen’s case, the Bills’ defense has been tremendous through five games, as Buffalo has racked up four-straight lopsided wins.
If you play the game where you imagine replacing the quarterback with someone less good, the Bills are having a season where you can imagine them being a playoff team with Mitchell Trubisky at the helm. That includes how relatively easy their schedule is.
To win the MVP, you need challenges. This guy’s schedule was hard, that guy had to overcome injuries, etc.
You also need moments - Plays and wins that get us talking.
When Jackson won the award in 2019, there were highlight-reel runs seemingly every week. He had the stats too, leading the league in touchdown passes. His team also won the first playoff seed in the AFC.
But it was still more. The football world was so stunned by his excellence (say what you want about why) that it made it only easier for him to win.
No doubt Jackson was great that year, but Russell Wilson, in my opinion, also had a strong case for the award. Wilson, however, was not a new thing. His excellence had become established already. And, it turns out, he didn’t receive a single vote.
Allen’s great performance Sunday night in the Bills’ win over Kansas City was one of those games. He and the Bills were, to some extent, doubted, and they ended up winning handily. No surprise that after that game he became the solo favorite in these odds. No surprise either that after Baltimore’s spectacular comeback win over the Indianapolis Colts on Monday night that Jackson got a bump himself.
Murray is the quarterback of the league’s only undefeated team. Prescott has been great, again, and Dallas is 4-1. Herbert’s Chargers are 4-1 also, and his stats are awesome. Rodgers’ Packers, Mahomes’ Chiefs, Stafford’s Rams … all Super Bowl contenders.
Right now is an amazing time to watch and track quarterbacks in the NFL. The 2021 MVP award likely will go to a player who will have just put down an incredible season for a Super Bowl contender.
It’s just a matter of deciding which one.
