We’ve been tracking the league’s hottest players all season as part of this weekly look at the MVP race, but now it’s down to just two men with three weeks remaining. Let’s break it down.
1. Aaron Rodgers, Packers
Part of me thinks this is over. I mean, how is it possible for a guy to not win MVP with a 35-to-3 touchdown-to-interception ratio and a 119.0 passer rating? Rodgers also leads the league by huge margins in terms of yards per attempt and QBR. He’s by far the best player on the league’s best team right now, and he’s putting together a record-breaking season in the Year of the Quarterback.
Tom Brady has five fewer touchdowns, four more picks and a rating that is almost 19 points below Rodgers’. Peyton Manning has eight more interceptions and only one more touchdown. And no other quarterback has a rating within 10 points of his.
There’s still a good chance he breaks his own record (122.5) with the highest single-season rating in NFL history, especially when you consider that he’s posted a 126.8 rating since Week 4 (and a 9-1 record in that span). But even if Rodgers falls short of that mark, he’d likely have to stumble in a major way between now and Dec. 28 to lose out on his second career NFL MVP.
2. J.J. Watt, Texans
A decade ago, Watt would be a shoo-in. Despite facing double teams week after week as a 3-4 defense end, he leads the league in quarterback pressures by a margin of nearly 30 percent. His Pro Football Focus grade of 76.6 is so far off the charts that no other player in football is within 25 points of it.
Oh, and he’s scored five touchdowns this season.
Watt is by far and away the most dominant defensive player in the game and is clearly the best player at his position by the most substantial margin in football. He’s locking up a Hall of Fame candidacy at the age of 25. He’s just that good. We’re talking Lawrence Taylor-good. And Taylor was the last defensive player to win the MVP, way back in 1986.
Hurting his case? Well, that was nearly 30 years ago. It’s a quarterback-driven league now and Rodgers has certainly made more of an impact on the Packers than Watt has on the Texans, who are likely to miss the playoffs.
He might be the league’s most dominant player, but if this is about value it’ll be hard to give it to a defensive player on a so-so team.
Eliminated from contention: Tom Brady, Peyton Manning and Tony Romo, all of whom are just way too far back of Rodgers on paper.
