As we march toward the NFL playoffs, the annual talk of who will be the NFL’s Most Valuable Player starts to heat up, and once again, maybe with the exception of Aaron Donald of the Rams, the only players being talked about to win the award all play the same position: quarterback. I can’t be the only one who finds this insufferably stale.
The NFL needs to divide the MVP award into offensive and defensive categories. Make the Defensive Player of the Year the Defensive MVP, because every season, almost without fail, the MVP is given to whatever quarterback is having the best season with a legitimate shot at getting to the Super Bowl. It’s the Quarterback Award. It’s formulaic and boring.
No player-position who isn’t a quarterback usually has any chance of winning MVP unless they have absolutely monstrous seasons that can’t be ignored. Either Drew Brees, Patrick Mahomes, Phillip Rivers, or Jared Goff, all quarterbacks, will probably win MVP this year. Todd Gurley, a running back, probably should’ve won the award last year. Aaron Donald, a defensive lineman, will not only win Defensive Player of the Year this season, he should maybe win MVP as well – but he won’t because the NFL and the sports media love, love, love to romance their favorite quarterbacks.
The last defensive player to win MVP was Lawrence Taylor in 1986. The last non-quarterback to win MVP was Adrian Peterson in 2012. Peterson is the only non-quarterback to win the award since 2006. So just about every year, it’s a quarterback.
The NFL should seriously consider doing what Major League Baseball does and start dividing up their individual awards more. Yes, MLB has their own MVP awards for both leagues, but they also have Cy Young awards and Golden Glove awards. The NFL should start dividing their awards up by position groups a little better. Have a running back award, a receiver award, a special teams award, etc. It would make things more interesting.
For example, Bobby Wagner of the Seahawks has led the league in tackles for seven straight seasons. That’s an amazing accomplishment, but he’s never been officially recognized for it. He’s never been Defensive Player of the Year. He’s never even gotten a Defensive Player of the Week award from the NFL until this season against the 49ers. Aaron Donald of the Rams will undoubtedly win Defensive Player of the Year for the second straight season, and rightfully so. He’s having another fantastic season, but there should be better recognition for different position groups.
This may sound like a ‘participation trophy, everyone gets an award’ approach, but something needs to change. It can’t be denied how completely predictable the NFL’s MVP award process has become.
Football isn’t like basketball, baseball, or hockey. Different positions groups have drastically different jobs. What linebackers and running backs do is drastically different than what a quarterback does. What a kicker or kick specialist does is drastically different than what an offensive lineman does. Having the MVP award relegated to just quarterbacks doesn’t do justice to what a lot of these other position groups do.
Big men in the NBA can win MVP awards. Shaquille O’Neal, Hakeem Olajuwon, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Bill Russell, and Wilt Chamberlain all won MVP in the NBA during their careers. However, you can’t be a big man in the NFL and have any realistic shot of winning. An offensive lineman, defensive lineman, or a linebacker has no shot, no matter how great he is.
It’s surprising more people don’t share this opinion. You never hear any NFL commentator say anything about it. Every year, the media and the talking heads from the different networks swoon over their favorite quarterbacks as we march toward the playoffs.
It seems strange that you can have future Hall of Fame players like Bobby Wagner of the Seahawks, Jalen Ramsey of the Jaguars, Luke Kuechly of the Panthers, Antonio Brown of the Steelers, Todd Gurley of the Rams, or Rob Gronkowski of the Patriots, and others, who dominate at their position year in and year out, and rarely get any recognition from the league outside of a Pro Bowl appearance – and if any of them happen to be playing in the Super Bowl that season, they won’t even show up for the Pro Bowl.
The NFL is very traditional and stuck in its ways, so any change is unlikely to happen any time soon, if ever. The quarterback is the most high-profile position on the field. As we’ve seen with the recent ‘roughing the passer’ rule changes, the NFL does a good job of protecting and marketing their marquee quarterbacks. They know that’s who many fans come to see play. The MVP award is one way they do that, but it leaves a lot of future Hall of Fame talent unrecognized year after year in the process.
Or if all else fails, and no one else stands out, they’ll just give it to Tom Brady again.
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