Is This the Worst NFL MVP Race Ever?

With only four weeks to go in the 2023 NFL regular season, Brock Purdy is the odds-on leader for the league’s MVP honors.

Purdy’s Niners are one of the best teams in pro football and a top contender to celebrate a championship in Paradise, and the team’s quarterback is an important reason why. The seventh-round sophomore has been a steady hand for much of the campaign, and he ranks first in the league in touchdown passes (29), second in passing yards (3,795), and second in completion percentage (69.8 percent). Combine this with San Francisco’s 11-3 record, its active six-game winning streak, and the AP’s awarding of NFL MVP recognition to one non-quarterback since 2007, and why Purdy has climbed to the top of the current leaderboard, according to bookmakers, comes into focus.

But the underlying question at hand isn't if Purdy is worthy - it’s the state of the NFL MVP award.

2023 Is Not the Year of the QB

In the mid-2010s, NFL fans were lamenting the overall quality of quarterback play in the league outside of the few elite regulars: Tom Brady, Aaron Rodgers, Peyton Manning, Drew Brees. In the later half of that decade and the start of this one, a new generation of quarterbacks led by the likes of Patrick Mahomes, Jalen Hurts, Josh Allen, Lamar Jackson, and more to provide pro football with a much-needed renaissance.

But those same QBs who held it down for years are now not producing like they once did. Whether that is a trend that will persist or simply a one-year hibernation remains to be seen, but it is the modern reality regardless.

Mahomes is currently averaging about 20 passing yards below his single-season low of 284.0 from when he was a rookie in 2017, and he will match a season-long interception total untouched since Texas Tech following his next flub. Hurts has already thrown the most INTs of his pro career by three, and he’s doing less damage on the ground than in past years, Brotherly Shove notwithstanding (tough to give him too much credit when he’s merely the messenger on a well-oiled machine). Allen is one interception off the league’s leader and has a worse interception percentage than Desmond Ridder (2.9). Injuries have made Jackson make alterations to how he plays - the Baltimore quarterback’s rushing yards per attempt and rushing yards per game are at the lowest they have  been since he was a 21-year-old rookie (5.5 and 52.93, respectively) - robbing him of fully utilizing his greatest asset. And Joe Burrow is nowhere near as effective as usual while coated in a full body cast.

Yet this is the cast of characters, sans Burrow and plus Dak Prescott, whose season is comparable to the others outlined in its good-not-great nature, with some of the best odds to be named the Most Valuable Player of 2023.

Purdy is enjoying one of the best seasons of any quarterback in this league in 2023. An award given to the campaign’s most valuable quarterback could arguably end in his arms, and deservedly so. But has his season matched that of MVP quarterbacks before him?

Not even close.

In 2022, Mahomes threw 41 touchdowns and about 500 more yards than the second most-prolific passer at more than 5,200; that is the fourth-most passing yards ever recorded in a single NFL season. In 2021, Aaron Rodgers tossed 38 TDs and just four picks, a quality follow up to his even more incredible 2020 MVP season, in which he slung for 48 scores and built a QBR of 79.1. Jackson’s 1,206 rushing yards in 2019 was something to behold, blasting through the record for the most yards on the ground gained by a quarterback in a season that Michael Vick previously set back in 2006. Mahomes’s 2018 performance is the only one that matches his 2022, with nearly 5,100 passing yards, 50 touchdown passes to match Brady for the second-most in a single season, and a QBR of 80.3 to his name.

Purdy is not having a season that rivals any of the previous five MVPs. None of the quarterback candidates are. In a normal year, or at least in recent years, the Niners’ QB wouldn’t be in contention.

Of any year lately, this is the year for a non-quarterback to be declared the league’s most valuable player.

More Positions Exist (And Are Important)

As mentioned, just one non-QB has won this honor in the last 16 seasons; it was Adrian Peterson, and that was in 2012. We’ve surpassed a decade of quarterback dominance over this award, and the odds right now display an unlikely divergence from that norm.

As of a few weeks ago, it was a mix of Hurts, Mahomes, Prescott, and Jackson among the leaders. But at the present, Purdy is the frontrunner (-225). His performances in San Francisco’s latest triumphs, and lackluster outings elsewhere, have catapulted him up the charts to where he stands now.

His teammate, Christian McCaffrey, is on pace for the most rushing yards he has ever put together in one campaign; the running back has almost reached 1,300 for the year, blowing the rest of the competition out of the water. He’s putting up 92.3 yards per contest on the ground, he’s by far responsible for the most rushing first downs of any player in the league, and he’s ironmanned to the most carries of anyone (244), featuring in all 14 of San Francisco’s showdowns so far.

McCaffrey is who Purdy would nominate for MVP.

“I think Cristian should be the MVP,” Purdy told the media after Sunday’s victory over the Cardinals. “ I really do believe that. He does everything for us. Runs the ball well. Can catch the ball. He does everything, so in my eyes, that’s an MVP. I’m the guy that hands him the ball off and then turns around and watches what he does.”

McCaffrey’s odds to win MVP are +1000, placing him fourth on the list but still a far way away from his quarterback.

There are others across the league having outstanding seasons without throwing passes. Before the campaign began, Tyreek Hill promised to become the first player in NFL history to surpass 2,000 receiving yards in a year. Through 13 games played, Hill is at 1,542 and on pace, to do exactly what he said he would. His 69 first down receptions are the most of anyone in the league, and his 118.6 receiving yards per game eviscerates everyone else.

Even defensive players deserve more discussion than they get. Myles Garrett in particular should get more love than he’s finding. The defensive end has been a wrecking ball for opposing offenses this season, kept Cleveland in some games seemingly by himself, and his numbers of 13.0 sacks, 26 quarterback hits, and four forced fumbles back up how good he’s been on the field. Garrett is the frontman for one of the best defenses in the NFL and certainly Cleveland’s most valuable player, something that should be taken into account when determining the league's most valuable player.

The de facto rule that only signal callers can be the most valuable player in the league is laughable in its own right. That’s not to diminish the relevance of what is certainly the single-most important position in the sport. But for as crucial as the quarterback is, it is not the only position that impacts the game.

What Are We Doing?

If I had an MVP vote, it would be cast in favor of either Hill or McCaffrey, the tiebreaker contingent on how the final weeks of the campaign close for each. No quarterback has had a truly special season, and that’s okay. Even in a quarterback-driven league like the NFL, aberrations are inevitable. No impenetrable, natural force is insisting for us to pretend otherwise.

This is not a hit piece aimed at Brock Purdy. I think his story is remarkable, he should be proud of what he’s done so far this season, and he can be a meaningful quarterback in this league for a long time. This is also not a hit piece aimed at any of the other quarterbacks mentioned. They are all good-to-great quarterbacks with good-to-great careers ahead of and behind them.

This is a hit piece directed at the discourse. Where has our imagination gone? Has our understanding of football degraded to the degree that people are no longer able to assess anything outside of the scope of the signal caller? Are we this rudimentary?

There are 22 players who take the field for each play, and only one of them is a quarterback. We can, and should, recognize the greatness that occurs outside of that position. Football is a team game, not an individual sport.

Being the starting QB for a Super Bowl favorite does not equate to being the NFL’s most valuable player, no matter what the Associated Press says.