With 14 whole weeks remaining in the 2015 NFL regular season, here’s how we view the MVP race…
1. Aaron Rodgers, Packers — To give you a feel for just how dominant Aaron Rodgers has been…
- His career passer rating of 106.8 is nine points higher than the second highest-rated passer in NFL history.
- His career touchdown-to-interception ratio is 4.14. No other qualified quarterback in NFL history has a ratio above 3.0. Tom Brady’s at 2.80 and Peyton Manning’s at 2.26. In this field, the gap that separates Rodgers from second-place Brady is about the same size of the gap that separates Brady from Kyle Orton, who ranks 34th all time in that area.
- And in case you think those numbers are inflated because the Packers have made things easier on him, consider that he ranks first among all modern-day quarterbacks with a yards-per-attempt average of 8.2.
This year, Rodgers has become just the second quarterback ever to throw 10-plus touchdown passes without an interception in the first three weeks of a season, and he’s doing it without his No. 1 receiver, Jordy Nelson. Rodgers is now 7-0 in his career without Nelson and has now thrown 43 touchdowns and zero interceptions in his last 15 home games. The Packers have now won 20 consecutive home games in which Rodgers has thrown at least three passes.
And to think that he’s 31, which is smack dab in the middle of his prime, and based on precedents should — barring something catastrophic — play another 7-9 seasons (he has said he wants to play until he’s 40). Remember, he’s got more tread on his tires than most other modern-day 31-year-old quarterbacks because he held a clipboard for Brett Favre during the first three years of his career.
Call me a cynic, but because the majority of our too-good-to-be-true modern-day sports accomplishments have indeed been too good to be true, I can’t help but watch and wait for the other shoe to drop. This feels like the steroid era in baseball and is Lance Armstrong-level dominance, but we have to understand that there’s nothing nefarious this time. Rodgers probably isn’t using some sort of undetectable drug that has yet to be discovered by the rest of the sports world. The footballs he’s throwing appear to be fully inflated. Lambeau Field isn’t some sort of Truman Show-style facade designed by conspiracy only to trick us into thinking we’re witnessing history, with everybody but the viewers in on the scheme.
Aaron Rodgers is just great, and while it’s tough to compare players from separate eras, he’s so much better on paper than everybody else around him that it’s fair to wonder if he’ll retire as the greatest we’ve ever seen.
The rest of the field…
2. Tom Brady, Patriots –Nine touchdowns, no picks and stomping on the throats of opponents. But still not quite in Rodgers’ range. That’s 2015 for ya.
3. Andy Dalton, Bengals — Quietly dominant thus far with a 121.0 rating, which ranks second only to Rodgers, and a 3-0 record.
4. Carson Palmer, Cardinals — The league’s fourth highest-rated passer has also been lights-out. If he can stay healthy, he could have a career year.
5. Tyrod Taylor, Bills — If he could have been just a little bit better against Brady and the Pats, he’d be the runner-up right now.
6. Julio Jones, Falcons — On pace to shatter records for catches and yards in a season, so that has to include you in this conversation.
7. Antonio Brown, Steelers — Only four yards back of Jones, so same deal. But that could change without Ben Roethlisberger.
