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NHL AWARDS – ACCORDING TO BILL BARNWELL
Bill Barnwell of ESPN.com is giving out the NFL Awards:
With the 2022 NFL regular season officially complete, let’s use Monday to look back at the season we just watched. I’m going to make my picks for who should win the league’s most prominent awards, following up on my evaluations of candidates at the first quarter and first half of the season
I’ll make an important distinction: These aren’t my picks for who I think will win the awards when the votes are announced at the league’s award ceremony in February. These are my selections for who should take home the hardware. I tend to rely on data and reward efficiency over sheer volume, but this is just the opinion of one man who watches too much football. You can also check out my All-Pro team selections.
In addition to the awards we’ve been hitting throughout the season, I’ll pick a few winners for awards which should exist. Before that, though, I’ll start with the guys who did the best job of setting their teams up for victory:
Coach of the Year
3. Doug Pederson, Jaguars
Is there anybody better at turning around NFL organizations than Pederson? He took over an Eagles team in 2016 that had been mismanaged by Chip Kelly and led them to a Super Bowl victory with Nick Foles in two years. Now, after taking over a Jaguars team dragged through the mud by their year-long dalliance with Urban Meyer, he has turned the Jags into AFC South champs.
Of course, it takes two to tango, and the once-2-6 Jaguars would have been stuck in the wild-card discussion if it weren’t for the simultaneous collapse of the Titans via injuries. Remember, though, the Jaguars were actually playing well in the first half of the season, only to have their efforts spoiled by bad luck and subpar timing. They likely will finish in the top 10 in offensive DVOA, with Pederson’s attack and quarterback Trevor Lawrence’s arm generating career seasons for pass-catchers Evan Engram and Zay Jones.
For an organization that was reportedly about to give a second interview to Nathaniel Hackett before he accepted an offer from the Broncos, hiring Pederson is one of the best decisions Jacksonville has made over the last decade.
2. Nick Sirianni, Eagles
The Eagles have lost a bit of steam over the final month of the season amid injuries to quarterback Jalen Hurts and others, but let’s not lose sight of what Pederson’s replacement has done in Philadelphia. Sirianni has helped push Hurts to heights I don’t think many people expected when he entered the NFL. The Eagles have either led the league or been in the top three in most teamwide efficiency metrics for virtually the entire season.
As I’ve mentioned before, though, what really stands out for me with Sirianni is how much better players from outside the organization have looked after joining the organization. Wideout A.J. Brown had a career season after leaving the Titans. Defensive back C.J. Gardner-Johnson was having a Pro Bowl-caliber campaign before suffering a lacerated spleen in November. Edge rusher Haason Reddick and cornerback James Bradberry had stellar seasons. When established players repeatedly hit new heights after joining your team, your coach is doing something right.
1. Kyle Shanahan, 49ers
As good as Sirianni’s work has been in Philadelphia, we’ve seen the Eagles struggle with Hurts out of the lineup. We can’t really say the same thing about San Francisco, where we’ve taken Shanahan’s work for granted. The 49ers lost their starting quarterback, Trey Lance, in Week 2. Jimmy Garoppolo went down in Week 13. They’re playing rookie seventh-round pick Brock Purdy, and the track record of those guys as rookies is almost universally awful.
Instead, the Niners are thriving. They’ve won all five of Purdy’s starts, averaging nearly 34 points per game. They finished the season on the first 10-game winning streak for the franchise in the regular season since 1997. Shanahan’s team has benefited from the league’s second-easiest schedule, but Sirianni’s Eagles have faced the easiest slate. In a league in which franchises typically write off their seasons if they’re forced to turn to a backup, let alone a third-stringer, the 49ers have arguably been the best team in football over the second half of the season.
My pick at midseason: Sirianni
My pick after four games: Sirianni
Comeback Player of the Year
3. Christian McCaffrey, RB, 49ers
After missing 23 games over the last two seasons because of various injuries, McCaffrey has been back to his old self this season. The ridiculous volume we saw from McCaffrey during his All-Pro season of 2019 probably isn’t ever going to happen again, but his 2022 season doesn’t look too far off from what he did during his 2018 breakout season.
Of course, playing for Kyle Shanahan helps, but McCaffrey — who was traded from Carolina to San Francisco in October — has spent this season in offenses quarterbacked by Jimmy Garoppolo, Brock Purdy, Baker Mayfield, Jacob Eason, and PJ Walker. Playing with those passers probably increases his chances of catching passes, but it also speaks to how much he has had to shoulder in keeping those offenses afloat. And unlike other running backs who wanted to be seen as wide receivers in years past, McCaffrey actually produces like a real receiver when he runs routes; he has averaged just under 2 yards per route run this season, which is in line with DJ Moore and Mike Williams.
2. Saquon Barkley, RB, Giants
While Barkley sat out Sunday’s meaningless loss to the Eagles, he already has done more than enough to push the Giants into the postseason. After three seasons ruined by various injuries, he came back to training camp with some semblance of his old burst this offseason. He immediately took over his previously essential role, winning the Giants the Week 1 opener against the Titans by breaking two tackles for a game-winning two-point conversion.
Barkley finished the season with 1,312 rushing yards and 10 touchdowns; his 173 rush yards over expectation ranked sixth in the league among backs. Just five backs generated more first downs. While Barkley is never going to be a super-efficient back in terms of success rate, he made big plays frequently enough to justify his significant role in the offense.
1. Geno Smith, QB, Seahawks
Sunday wasn’t Smith’s best performance of the season, but in beating the Rams, we saw how he has helped spur the Seahawks to a winning record. As has been the case during the second half, he struggled to protect the football, throwing two interceptions with a would-be pick-six dropped by the Rams. He had just four giveaways through his first eight games, but he has turned the ball over 11 times over the ensuing nine contests.
And yet, at the same time, Smith battled back to make plays for his team. His 36-yard touchdown pass to Tyler Lockett was a thing of beauty, the sort of lob-dropped-into-a-bucket we would have more commonly associated with Russell Wilson. Smith also set up what appeared to be the game-winning field goal with a 25-yard scramble on the final drive of regulation, only for Jason Myers to boot a 46-yard field goal off the uprights.
Smith faded out of the MVP conversation, but he’ll finish the season as the league leader in completion percentage (69.8%) and completion percentage over expectation (plus-4.4%) despite averaging 8.0 air yards per throw, which is the league’s 12th-deepest mark. He has become an instant leader and an extremely valuable player for the Seahawks, and he has earned the right to start again in 2023.
My pick at midseason: Barkley
My pick after four games: Barkley
Offensive Rookie of the Year
3. Tyler Allgeier, RB, Falcons
With wide receivers in the top two spots, I have Allgeier third and Kenneth Walker fourth in the OROY race. That might be a surprise given Walker’s big-play ability, but while the Seahawks standout has delivered some highlight-reel runs, he hasn’t been consistent. His 32.5% success rate, which measures how often he keeps the offense on schedule, is the second-worst mark in the league for any back with at least 100 carries.
Allgeier, who has emerged as a useful player for the Falcons down the stretch, has a 43.3% success rate. He averages more yards per carry, rush yards over expectation and expected points added (EPA) per rush than Walker. Allgeier has more rush yards over expectation despite carrying the ball 18 fewer times. He also has run for three first downs over expectation, while Walker has picked up two fewer first downs than an average back given the same touches.
Walker has nine rushing touchdowns to Allgeier’s three, which is a significant difference, and not one predicated on opportunities. They both have 10 carries inside the 5-yard line. Walker has excelled in the deeper portions of the red zone; he’s tied for the league-lead with five scores from six to 20 yards out.
At the same time, Allgeier has generated 139 receiving yards on just 17 targets. Walker has more receiving yards, but his 165 yards have required 35 targets, nearly twice as many. If you value the big plays and the rushing touchdowns, you can put Walker ahead of Allgeier, and that’s fine. Allgeier’s consistency and efficiency have made him a more effective player.
2. Garrett Wilson, WR, Jets
Wilson led all rookie receivers in receptions (83) and receiving yards (1,103), even while catching passes from Joe Flacco, Chris Streveler, Mike White and Zach Wilson. While the Jets have plenty of playmakers on paper, injuries and inconsistency meant he was often the focal point of the offense.
On Sunday, for example, Wilson was targeted on more than 50% of Flacco’s dropbacks and racked up nearly 60% of the team’s receiving yards in the 11-6 loss to Miami.
1. Chris Olave, WR, Saints
You could say the same thing about Olave, who was the primary target for Andy Dalton, Taysom Hill and Jameis Winston. The fellow first-round pick was the target on 12 of Dalton’s 25 dropbacks during Sunday’s 10-7 loss to the Panthers and scored his fourth touchdown of the season, although he also lost a fumble.
Why Olave over Wilson? Efficiency. Olave did miss two games, which would tip the scales toward Wilson, but Olave was much more efficient. He averaged 2.5 yards per route run to Wilson’s 1.9. Olave posted a catch rate 1.2% above expectation per the NFL Next Gen Stats, while Wilson was at minus-4.1%. As a result, Wilson had six fewer catches than what an average receiver would have done with the same targets, while Olave had 1.5 catches more than the same average receiver.
Wilson would be a totally reasonable selection, so I’d have no issue with anyone preferring the Jets standout to my choice. Given how efficient Olave was across 15 games this season, though, I’m opting for the Saints star. These are two more star wide receivers to add to an incredible crop of young pass-catchers across the league.
My pick at midseason: Olave
My pick after four games: Olave
Defensive Rookie of the Year
3. Aidan Hutchinson, EDGE, Lions
There’s still plenty of time before we render a final decision on the debate between Travon Walker and Hutchinson at the top of the 2022 draft, but the Lions have to be happy with how things have gone so far. Hutchinson picked up two sacks in Sunday night’s win over the Packers to get to 9.5 on the season. The only rookie pass-rusher within three sacks of him is teammate James Houston, who finished with eight on just 87 pass-rushing opportunities.
Hutchinson generated 43 initial pressures, which tied him with Khalil Mack and Dexter Lawrence for 18th in the league. He also intercepted three passes, including a zero-man rush against the Bears where Hutchinson was playing as a Cover-2 cornerback and swooped in to jump an out-breaking route. If it weren’t for two preternatural cornerbacks, Hutchinson would be a reasonable pick to win this award outright.
2. Tariq Woolen, CB, Seahawks
After accounting for where they landed and what they did as rookies, I’m not sure anybody was a better draft pick in 2022 than Woolen, who was taken at No. 153 overall. Twelve years after Pete Carroll and the Seahawks used the 154th selection on Richard Sherman and landed a Hall of Famer, they went back into the fifth round and landed a guy who might be the next Sherman.
Woolen’s six interceptions draw in the attention, although he’s more than just a player picking off passes. His 6-4 frame allows him to battle and compete with any wide receiver and take away contested deep passes. Offenses just weren’t able to challenge Woolen deep this season; against throws 20-plus yards downfield as the nearest defender in coverage, NFL Next Gen Stats says Woolen allowed just one catch for 23 yards on 12 targets.
1. Sauce Gardner, CB, Jets
As good as Woolen was during the regular season, Sauce was that much better. The No. 3 overall pick erased one side of the field for the Jets and finished the season generating 28.8 expected points as the nearest defender in coverage. James Bradberry was the only other cornerback who was more impactful as the nearest cover guy.
Woolen intercepted more passes than Gardner (two), which created big plays for the Seahawks, but Gardner wasn’t exactly avoiding the football. He finished with 20 pass breakups, comfortably leading the league. According to the data at Pro Football Reference, Gardner allowed just 5.1 yards per target in coverage through Week 17, one full yard ahead of Woolen.
As with many other awards here, I don’t think there’s much between the options at Nos. 2 and 1, so Woolen would be a totally viable pick, but Gardner was one of the league’s best cornerbacks, full stop.
My pick at midseason: Gardner
My pick after four games: Devin Lloyd, LB, Jaguars
The awards that should exist
Before we get to the offensive and defensive players of the year and my pick for MVP, let me throw out winners for these fake awards. I’d love to see some of these become real honors, but I wouldn’t count on them appearing anytime soon:
Game of the season: Dolphins 42, Ravens 38 in Week 2
We were blessed with a series of dramatic comeback victories from the Vikings, but Dolphins-Ravens was every bit as spectacular. After a 103-yard kickoff return on the opening play of the game by Devin Duvernay, a 79-yard touchdown run by Lamar Jackson put the Ravens up 35-14 with 26 seconds left to go in the third quarter.
Then the Dolphins struck, scoring five touchdowns in a preposterous fourth quarter, with Tua Tagovailoa throwing for 199 yards and four of those five scores. A 51-yard field goal gave the Ravens a three-point lead with 2:18 to go, but Tagovailoa drove the Dolphins downfield and hit Jaylen Waddle for his sixth touchdown pass of the day to win the game.
Catch of the season: Justin Jefferson against the Bills in Week 10
Well, this one won’t be controversial. Jefferson’s spectacular grab extended the game on fourth down for the Vikings, who eventually sealed a win over the Bills in overtime.
Biggest upset of the season: Panthers 21, Buccaneers 3 in Week 7
The Panthers had just fired coach Matt Rhule and traded Christian McCaffrey when they hosted the Buccaneers in October. Their starting quarterback was PJ Walker, who had gone 10-of-16 for 60 yards in a loss to the Rams the prior week. The Buccaneers were 3-3, but Tom Brady was still Tom Brady, right? The Panthers were 13-point underdogs at home.
Walker & Co. blew out the Bucs by three scores. D’Onta Foreman and Chuba Hubbard combined for 181 rushing yards on 24 carries. Walker went 16 of 22 for 177 yards and found DJ Moore for a 20-yard touchdown. Steve Wilks’ defense held the Bucs to two third-down conversions in 12 tries. It wasn’t the only unexpected loss this season for the 2020 champs, but it’s hard to imagine anybody expected a Panthers blowout.
Best individual performance of the season: Minkah Fitzpatrick vs. Bengals in Week 1
I have to go all the way back to the season opener for the single best game I saw from any player. Given what we know about the season that followed, Fitzpatrick deserves the credit for keeping Mike Tomlin’s streak of winning records alive for another season.
Saddled by a Mitch Trubisky-led offense, Fitzpatrick helped produce points for the Steelers, as he took a Joe Burrow interception 31 yards to the house. The lead held up until Burrow found Ja’Marr Chase for what looked like the game-winning touchdown with four seconds to go, but Fitzpatrick saved the day by blocking the ensuing extra point, pushing the game to overtime in the process.
The Steelers still had to fade a 29-yard miss by Evan McPherson, but a Chris Boswell field goal with five seconds left in overtime was enough to win the game. It would be unfair to say Fitzpatrick single-handedly won the game for his team, but it’s difficult for an individual defensive player to do more for his team than Fitzpatrick did in Week 1.
Best offensive lineman of the season: Zack Martin, G, Cowboys
While no Cowboys player is going to look back at Sunday’s loss and feel particularly great about their performance, this has been a vintage season from the 32-year-old Martin. He has played virtually every meaningful snap for the Cowboys while allowing just a half-sack and committing just one penalty. (It was a holding call, and it wasn’t a very good one.)
It was one thing when Martin was playing next to a star center in Travis Frederick and a Pro Bowl-caliber right tackle, as La’el Collins was earlier in his career. Now, he has spent most of the season next to Tyler Biadasz at center and Terence Steele at right tackle before they each suffered injuries last month. Martin makes the guys around him better and is one of the best guards in football as both a run and pass-blocker. He’s a future Hall of Famer.
Free agent signing of the season: James Bradberry, CB, Eagles
You could make a strong case for Geno Smith, who returned to Seattle and excelled after inking a one-year, $3.5 million deal with the Seahawks. If you want to judge this in terms of surplus value, nothing is more valuable than a quarterback who plays like a league-average starter while making low-end backup money.
If it isn’t Smith, though, it would be hard to argue what the Eagles landed in adding Bradberry. Shopped for the entire offseason before being cut by the Giants to create cap space, he ended up inking a one-year, $7.3 million deal to stay in the NFC East and join the Eagles. As an above-average cornerback for the majority of his time in New York, general manager Howie Roseman would have been perfectly satisfied if he had been a solid starter in Philadelphia.
Instead, Bradberry has been a superstar and arguably the league’s best cornerback. Nobody has created more expected points as the nearest defender in coverage for his team than Bradberry, who had allowed a 49.4 passer rating in coverage through Week 17. Opposing quarterbacks were averaging a scarcely believable 4.3 yards per attempt on throws in his direction this season through last week, and he took one of his three interceptions to the house in the 38-35 win over the Lions in Week 1. If Bradberry signs another one-year deal this offseason, it will be because the Eagles needed to use the franchise tag to keep him around.
Defensive Player of the Year
3. Chris Jones, DT, Chiefs
Jones finished his regular season by schooling overmatched Raiders right guard Alex Bars on national television. He racked up 2.5 sacks and six quarterback knockdowns in Saturday’s blowout win in Las Vegas. With 15.5 sacks and 29 knockdowns on the season, he matches his totals from the 2018 campaign, both of which were previously career highs.
With Aaron Donald not qualifying because of his high ankle sprain, Jones blew away the competition on the interior this season. I mentioned these stats in his All-Pro case last week, but the gaps are even more extreme after Week 18. Jones recorded a pass rush win on 21.5% of his attempts from the interior this season. No other interior lineman topped 17.5%. The second-place player, Maliek Collins of the Texans, was closer to 10th than he was to first.
Jones played his first full season since 2018 and took a higher percentage of snaps in the games he played than he ever has before (80%). He had topped 70% only once before as a pro. He’s the third-most valuable player on the best team in the AFC, and the other two guys are going to be mentioned before this article’s over, too.
2. Micah Parsons, EDGE, Cowboys
It’s been a quiet end to the season for Parsons, who hasn’t looked quite like his dominant self over the final month and a half of the campaign. Through the first 11 games, he had 12 sacks, 13 tackles for loss and 21 knockdowns. He was on pace to be a down-ballot MVP candidate, let alone Defensive Player of the Year.
Over the final six games, Parsons had 1.5 sacks, one TFL and six knockdowns. Unsurprisingly, the Cowboys’ pass defense has declined in the process; Dallas has dropped from sixth in QBR allowed during that 11-game stretch to begin the season to 26th over the final six games of the season, including an anonymous performance in Sunday’s embarrassing loss to the Commanders. Should we be concerned that Parsons is off the boil and taken the Cowboys down with him?
Taking a closer look, not really, no. Parsons is still playing at a high level, but the production at the end of the play just hasn’t quite been there. He had a 26.1% pass rush win rate during the first 11 games of the season, and he’s up to a staggering 35.1% clip over the final six games. Likewise, he generated just over four initial pressures per game to start the season and is closer to five first pressures per game over the last six contests.
Parsons likely was running a little hot in terms of sacks versus his underlying pressure rates to begin the season and has been a little unlucky over the ensuing six weeks. He could still tear up Tom Brady and the Buccaneers next Monday.
1. Nick Bosa, EDGE, 49ers
Bosa will finish the season as the comfortable league leader in both sacks (18.5) and quarterback knockdowns (48). Nobody finished within 13 knockdowns of his total, which is the sort of dominance we saw from players such as J.J. Watt or Aaron Donald during their peak seasons. Parsons generated more pressures, but to appropriate a famous Bill James comparison, you could split Bosa’s performance into two half-seasons and both players might be worthy of Pro Bowl consideration.
If anything, given how often Bosa got to the quarterback and the fact that he missed nearly two games with a groin injury, he might have been unlucky to finish south of 20 sacks. The typical pass-rusher turns about 45% of his knockdowns into sacks, which would have pegged Bosa to finish somewhere between 21.5 and 22. Topping 20 sacks will be Bosa’s project for 2023, a season which will likely be accompanied by a record-setting contract for the former No. 2 overall pick.
My pick at midseason: Parsons
My pick after four games: Bosa
Offensive Player of the Year
As always, the differentiation between Offensive Player of the Year and Most Valuable Player makes no sense when the candidates for MVP are perennially offensive players. More than 97% of the votes cast for the AP’s MVP award since the year 2000 have been cast for offensive players.
To make things more interesting, I limit my Offensive Player of the Year discussion to non-quarterbacks. As it turned out, my top three ended up consisting of three pass-catchers.
3. Travis Kelce, TE, Chiefs
I’m not sure anybody dominated their position more than Kelce this season. The future Hall of Famer racked up 1,338 receiving yards, placing Kelce more than 400 yards ahead of any other tight end. The battle was closer in terms of touchdowns, but Kelce still finished with 12, putting him one ahead of San Francisco’s George Kittle. Nobody else had more than seven.
I wrote at length about how unique Kelce’s career has become, and it’s clear that the former third-round pick is a future Hall of Famer. The one stat I keep coming back to, though, is that no tight end in their age-33 (or older) season had racked up 1,000 receiving yards since 1965. Kelce got there with a month of the season left to go.
2. Tyreek Hill, WR, Dolphins
Despite dropping off from Patrick Mahomes to Tua Tagovailoa, Teddy Bridgewater and Skylar Thompson, Hill was the most efficient receiver in football this season. He averaged an eye-watering 3.4 yards per route run, more than a half-yard better than any other player. Since 2007, the only receiver to average more yards per route run in a single season is Steve Smith, who racked up 3.9 yards per route run during a spectacular season in 2008.
Yes, Hill benefits from playing alongside Jaylen Waddle, which limits how drastically teams can shift coverage in his direction. It also limits how often he’s likely to see the ball, which should have caused his numbers to drop. Instead, Hill had a career season. He limped off during Sunday’s win over the Jets, so the hope will be that he is ready to go in the rubber match between the Dolphins and the Bills this weekend.
1. Justin Jefferson, WR, Vikings
As good as Hill has been, I’m not sure anybody stands out as more of a playmaker on the offensive side of the ball than Jefferson. If you needed one first down to win a game and you can throw to only one receiver, who are you choosing? Kelce? Hill? A.J. Brown? Davante Adams? All valid choices, but a lot of people would pick Jefferson, and I’m with them.
Part of that might be Jefferson’s legendary catch to extend the game against the Bills, which was the highlight of a 10-catch, 193-yard performance. Even throwing that out the window, though, he has had an extraordinary season in terms of huge performances. He has four different games with 150-plus receiving yards, coming within one of the NFL record. He led the league in receptions (128), receiving yards (1,809) and first downs (80). Stunningly, he has dropped only one pass all season across 181 targets, and even that came on a crossing pattern thrown behind the star wideout by Kirk Cousins.
A quiet close to the season kept Jefferson from challenging for the single-season receiving record, but he did more than enough to earn this award.
My pick at midseason: Hill
My pick after four games: Hill
Most Valuable Player
Based on recent history, it takes something record-setting or dramatically beyond the typical ranges of production at a given position from a non-quarterback to earn them serious MVP consideration. You need to have a year like Adrian Peterson’s 2,097-yard campaign in 2012 or J.J. Watt’s 20.5-sack masterpiece in 2014 to be in the conversation. With no player like that in the mix this year, the MVP conversation consists exclusively of quarterbacks.
While this was a wide swath of candidates heading into the second half, the pool became much smaller as the season went along. Tua Tagovailoa missed too much time with injuries and struggled for a stretch. Geno Smith and Dak Prescott turned the ball over too often. Lamar Jackson faded before getting hurt.
By the time we got to Week 18, there were really only four candidates to consider. The one in fourth ends up as Josh Allen, whose ceiling is unquestionable but who cost the Bills too many games with turnovers in the red zone. Allen will finish with below-average marks in completion percentage (63.3%), completion percentage over expectation (minus-0.9%) and interception rate (2.5%). His ability to take over games as a runner is incredibly valuable — and we could see a devastating performance or two from Allen in the postseason — but his regular-season résumé is not in the running here.
3. Joe Burrow, QB, Bengals
Advanced metrics don’t love Burrow in the same way they love the other star quarterbacks. Burrow is 10th in Total QBR, below Jacoby Brissett and Lamar Jackson. He ranks seventh in EPA per dropback, just behind Trevor Lawrence. Next Gen Stats publish a metric called “NGS Score,” which attempts to measure a quarterback’s performance by focusing strictly on the factors he can control. Burrow is 11th by that metric, behind Jimmy Garoppolo and Ryan Tannehill.
And yet, having watched this season play out, would anybody have Burrow seventh, tenth or 11th among quarterbacks? He shoulders one of the league’s heaviest workloads as a pure passer, and he has gotten so much better at becoming his own pass protector as the season has gone along. His accuracy remains his calling card; his 2.4% completion percentage over expectation (CPOE) was fifth-best.
If you value a team getting hot at the right time and rolling off a winning streak to finish the season, Burrow is your guy. It was tough for me to put him ahead of Jalen Hurts, though, when the Eagles standout has been a more efficient passer, turned the ball over less often and offered much more as a runner. Burrow can run, but he generated 21.3 rushing EPA on 75 carries. Mahomes generated 33.5 EPA on 60 attempts, while Hurts was at 65 EPA across 165 rushes.
After looking closely, Burrow is better than his numbers and one of the most fun quarterbacks in the league to watch, but there wasn’t that one stellar stat that helped him stand out. He’s accurate, but not the most accurate passer in the league. He hits big plays, but not at the same rate as the other passers in this group. He runs, but virtually every other quarterback in consideration runs more effectively or significantly. Burrow just wins, which is great for real football, but not as great for winning awards.
2. Jalen Hurts, QB, Eagles
I’ve had Mahomes slightly ahead of Hurts throughout this process, with Hurts being a less efficient runner than Allen and a less efficient passer than his Chiefs counterpart. I believe Hurts would have won the actual award if he had played well over the final month of the season, but after getting hurt in a frustrating performance against the Bears, he missed the Week 16 and Week 17 losses to the Cowboys and Saints, tipping the MVP conversation in a different direction.
While the Eagles clinched a first-round bye Sunday, Hurts’ performance in the win over the Giants wasn’t particularly enthusing. He went 20-for-35 for just 229 yards and an ugly interception in the red zone while playing against a Giants team which was resting virtually all of its significant defensive players. Coach Nick Sirianni clearly didn’t want to put Hurts’ health at risk, as he dialed up just one designed run for his quarterback, a third-and-1 sneak that Hurts naturally converted.
Hurts will hopefully feel, look and play better after another week of rest, given that the Eagles can now sit and watch the other teams in the NFC play out the wild-card round. The healthy version of Hurts was neck-and-neck with Allen, Burrow and Patrick Mahomes to be the best quarterback in football. With injuries sapping his effectiveness and costing him time over the final month of the season, though, the gap between Hurts and Mahomes was larger than it seemed.
1. Patrick Mahomes, QB, Chiefs
In the end, Mahomes is a pretty comfortable MVP pick. His Chiefs finished with the league’s best record despite swapping out Hill for JuJu Smith-Schuster and Marquez Valdes-Scantling. He finished with the league-lead in passing yards and passing touchdowns by considerable margins; nobody was within 500 passing yards or five passing TDs.
Mahomes also led the league in Total QBR by six points. He ranked No. 1 in EPA per dropback and NGS Score, too. He isn’t going to be a designed run threat like Allen or Hurts, but he has developed near-perfect instincts for deciding when a scramble is likely to net the Chiefs a first down. He averaged 0.6 rushing EPA per attempt, the most of any quarterback. He generated eight first downs over expectation across just 60 rush attempts, a remarkable number for a player who isn’t exactly encouraged to put his body on the line to convert for first downs during the regular season.
Mahomes and the Chiefs offense isn’t the Star Wars unit we saw during his first MVP run in 2018, but the same defenses who were terrified of getting destroyed deep have unlocked a ruthlessly efficient Mahomes in the process. He has turned 42% of his pass attempts into first downs this season, the best mark in football. The Chiefs were the second-best offense on third and fourth down all season, trailing only the Bills by two-tenths of one percentage point. They were the second-best offense in the red zone despite inconsistent play at running back.
I don’t need to describe Mahomes or any of this to you. If you’re 5,000 words into a column about NFL awards, you already know he’s incredible. Since his last MVP award in 2018, though, the timing hasn’t been quite right for him to claim a second. In 2019, Mahomes missed two and a half games with a knee injury. The following year, an incredible Mahomes season was overshadowed by Aaron Rodgers’ stunning return to MVP form. Last season, he struggled with turnovers while grappling with defenses selling out to take away big plays.
Now, the planets have aligned. Mahomes is healthy, picking apart defenses and thriving while throwing to Justin Watson and Jerick McKinnon. Like LeBron James, who somehow has only four MVP awards, we’ll probably look back in the tail end of his career and wonder how Mahomes didn’t win more individual hardware. Then again, with Mahomes about to win his second MVP award at age 27, there’s a lot of time left for the best player in football to start stacking up trophies.
My pick at midseason: Mahomes
My pick after four games: Mahomes
And Peter King comes to much the same conclusions:
Three reasons why (Mahomes is MVP):
1. He piloted his team to the league’s best record (tied with Philly), 14-3, without Tyreek Hill. The five new wideouts he and the KC coaches had to train from scratch this year caught 171 balls for 2,356 yards—which is 45 percent of his league-leading yardage total. The wideouts he lost this year, including Hill, totaled 2,071 yards last year. (And when I say train from scratch, I mean Mahomes took a lot of that on his own shoulders, working with them individually and collectively through the off-season and for longer hours than normal in training camp.)
2. He led the league in passing yards (5,250) and TDs (41), and he led both categories comfortably.
3. There’s not a quarterback as gifted athletically and intelligently as Mahomes, and not a quarterback able to pilot Kansas City’s imaginative and innovative and ever-changing offense as well as Mahomes. His ingenuity meshes so well with his coaches’.
The next three in line, I believe, can be in any order. I’ll choose this order: Joe Burrow, Josh Allen, Jalen Hurts. Burrow ended a tough year on an eight-game win streak that included wins over Mahomes and Tom Brady. The Bills have been through hell this year and came out 13-3. Hurts, leader extraordinaire, accounted for 35 touchdowns while turning it over just seven times.
San Francisco edge-rusher Nick Bosa is five. I think he’ll edge KC defensive tackle Chris Jones for Defensive Player of the Year, but it’ll be close.
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