If you don't agree with the favorite to win the NFL's Most Valuable Player award this season, just wait a week.
It has been a wildly topsy-turvy season across the board, and just as there hasn't really been a transcendent team separating from the pack, I'm not sure there has really been a player who fits that bill, either. There's a clear top two for MVP in the betting market with quarterbacks Drake Maye and Matthew Stafford, but there's still enough time left in the season for that to shift if another candidate gets hot and leads his team to a division title or a top seed in the conference down the stretch.
I don't typically write about player awards between my midseason look in Week 9 and my end-of-season honors after the regular season concludes, but this is a unique enough MVP race to justify an early peek. I'm beginning this column with no strong feelings about the options. I think we could make a reasonable MVP case for any of the five candidates at the very top. In fact, I'm going to do just that.
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Consider this your comprehensive look at the MVP race with four games to go. I'll run through 10 candidates who (for now) come up short, take a look at three more who should be earning serious consideration and then break down the two favorites. And while this is about who should win as opposed to who will win, I'll also give my prediction for who will ultimately claim the league's top individual prize in a couple of months.
Jump to:
10 second-tier candidates
Five top-tier candidates
Barnwell's pick for MVP right now
Just missing out
There are a lot of plausible candidates who aren't part of the discussion this year. Lamar Jackson and Joe Burrow figure in the race just about every year, but they've missed time because of injuries and haven't been successful enough when they've been on the field. A flood of late-season turnovers -- including five on national television in Monday night's loss to the Chargers -- keeps Jalen Hurts out of the conversation. And with Daniel Jones tearing an Achilles last week, his fading MVP hopes obviously fall by the wayside.
Baker Mayfield's candidacy early in the season was built on a series of late comeback victories, but he hasn't had the production to keep those hopes up. Caleb Williams has continued to pull out late victories before last week's loss against the Packers, but he's also last in the NFL in completion percentage over expectation (CPOE), per NFL Next Gen Stats, and some of those late-game comeback wins haven't had much to do with the second-year pro. (Williams threw a total of one pass for 6 yards across his two comeback drives against the Commanders and Vikings this season.)
The bar for non-quarterbacks is incredibly high and requires something close to a perfect season, which hurts players such as receiver Puka Nacua, who missed one game and parts of others because of injuries. Running back Bijan Robinson has been a big-play machine, but he has struggled with fumbles and pass protection and isn't playing on a winning team. And edge rusher Micah Parsons has been destructive but hasn't necessarily produced massive counting numbers. If anyone's going to win as an edge rusher, they'd need both components.
I have 15 candidates who require further analysis. In my opinion, there are five Tier 1 candidates -- players who have a very conceivable case as the most valuable player in football without needing to dramatically raise their game in the final month of the season. And then there are 10 in Tier 2 just below them -- guys who deserve meaningful consideration but would need a serious breakout and a successful end to the season from their team to have a serious shot at landing the award.
I'll run through those second-tier candidates first. These are in no particular order, but I want to start with the guy I had as the MVP through the first half of the season.
Patrick Mahomes, QB, Kansas City Chiefs
Mahomes was a controversial pick at the midway point of the season, owing mostly to the fact that his Chiefs had a 5-4 record. He wasn't the clear favorite in any specific category, but Mahomes consistently ranked among the league leaders in most metrics, was essentially tied with Maye for the league lead in cumulative EPA and had generated a surprising amount of value with his legs on scrambles. He had also been driving the offense to a greater extent than other candidates with better rate stats. I wouldn't have faulted anyone who preferred Maye or Stafford, but I ended up very slightly leaning Mahomes.
With the Chiefs at 6-7, though, Mahomes would have to clearly be the best quarterback in the league this season to make up for his team's record. That hasn't been the case. The future Hall of Famer has pieced together excellent games, including a four-touchdown performance in the narrow loss to the Cowboys, but Sunday night's loss to the Texans was the third-worst start of Mahomes' career by Total QBR (19.6).
Rich Eisen outlines what the Kansas City Chiefs have to do to make the postseason.
Mahomes is still fourth in the league in Total QBR, which doesn't punish him for one of the league's worst drop rates and rewards his impact as a scrambler, but he can't seriously compete with the top tier of MVP candidates. It would take four near-perfect games and a miraculous run to the wild card from the Chiefs to get Mahomes back in the MVP discussion. And while that's always possible, it's far more likely that the Chiefs stunningly miss the playoffs for the first time in Mahomes' career.
Josh Allen, QB, Buffalo Bills
Let's get another future Hall of Famer and the reigning league MVP out of the way, too. Allen is obviously still capable of driving the entire Bills offense in games in which they need something special, such as Sunday's comeback win over the Bengals. I'm not sure any QB bears more of the workload to make his offense work than Allen, who has one of the most underwhelming receiver rooms in the league and gets called on as a running threat in so many short-yardage and third-/fourth-down situations.
If you asked me to pick the best player in football if we were drafting a team to win one game, I'd probably take Allen given his cumulative work over the past few seasons. This season, though, his incredible run of avoiding negative plays has come to an end. Allen's interception rate has nearly doubled, jumping from 1.2% a year ago to 2.6% this season. Allen ran a 2.8% sack rate in 2024, an impossibly low figure for a quarterback who extends plays as often as he does. This season, that has nearly tripled to 7.6%.
Those negative plays have mattered. Allen has two turnovers in each of Buffalo's four losses, including the 23-20 defeat against the Patriots that helped push New England into first place in the AFC East. The Bills have won only one multi-turnover game from Allen this season, the 44-32 victory over the Buccaneers in which Allen scored six touchdowns between the air and ground.
Allen has been slightly more explosive, averaging what would be a career-best 8.2 yards per pass through the air, and he has played key roles in memorable comeback wins over the Bengals and Ravens (plus he outdueled Mahomes in yet another regular-season victory over the Chiefs). But in 2024, Allen was plenty explosive and avoided negative plays as well as any QB in any season in NFL history. It's tougher to make that case this season. However, if the Bills launch a late comeback to win the division through Allen, we can never rule the 29-year-old out of the race.
Jahmyr Gibbs, RB, Detroit Lions
There might not be any player more fun to watch in football than Gibbs. Like Allen, he puts together games with moments when it seems impossible that anybody has ever tackled or slowed him down, including his 264-yard, three-touchdown performance against the Giants earlier this season. Gibbs is averaging 5.7 yards per carry and 1.9 yards per route run, both of which rank among the top three for qualifying backs. And he's doing that with a less-imposing O-line than the Lions have typically fielded in past years, putting more on Gibbs to make magic happen.
It's going to take something spectacular for a running back to win MVP, though, and while Gibbs has been that sort of player at his best, he has racked up only three 100-yard games on the ground this season. The Lions consciously manage their star back's touches to keep him fresh, which caps the sort of cumulative impact Gibbs can have without breaking off a long touchdown run and naturally impacts his MVP case.
Gibbs' team is also currently looking at the playoffs from the outside at 8-5, and while he isn't one of the first people to blame for those five losses, he has conspicuously struggled in pass protection at times. Most notably, he had issues in the Week 9 loss to the Vikings, when Minnesota defensive coordinator Brian Flores repeatedly targeted the third-year back with his blitz packages. Gibbs would have to clearly be the best back in football to earn MVP consideration, and there are other running backs who might have similarly strong or even stronger cases.
Christian McCaffrey, RB, San Francisco 49ers
The 49ers are 9-4, and with so many of their star players injured for some or most of the season, there's a natural urge to reward the few household names who have actually made it through the season for them. (I would be inclined to pay respect to the coaching staff, most notably Kyle Shanahan and Robert Saleh, who have kept the Niners afloat despite all those injuries.)
McCaffrey has been one of those players, and as the focal point of the offense, he has accrued significant counting stats. CMC leads the league with 322 touches and is on pace for a whopping 421 touches, which would be the most for any player in a single season since 2014.
He is also on pace to become the first player in NFL history to rack up two 1,000-1,000 seasons; McCaffrey is projected to finish with 1,110 rushing yards and 1,054 receiving yards. It wouldn't be far off from his 2023 totals, when a healthy McCaffrey finished with 2,023 yards from scrimmage and 21 touchdowns while winning the league's Offensive Player of the Year award.
The difference is the denominator. McCaffrey needed only 339 touches to get over 2,000 yards from scrimmage in 2023, a figure he'll probably hit this weekend with three more games to go. He's averaging 3.6 yards per carry on the ground. While we've seen backs with significant volume and middling yards per carry figures earn MVP consideration, the last time that really happened was with Eddie George in 2000, when there just wasn't as much attention paid to rate stats or efficiency.
I'm not blaming McCaffrey for the low figure, but it's tough to make a case that he's spectacularly valuable as a runner when he's averaging about 2 yards per carry less than Gibbs or the next player up for discussion ...
Jonathan Taylor, RB, Indianapolis Colts
Taylor would be a much more realistic MVP selection than either of the backs I mentioned above. He has been way more efficient as a runner than McCaffrey and been the focal point of a better offense than the one Gibbs plays on in Detroit. Taylor has also scored 18 touchdowns, putting him on pace for a whopping 24 scores. I'm not inclined to overvalue touchdowns if they're just plunging in from 1 yard out, but Taylor has 23-, 46-, 80- and 83-yard scampers for scores.
As we've seen with McCaffrey and even Saquon Barkley in the past, though, it's going to take something record-setting for a running back to sniff MVP honors. The last back to do it was Adrian Peterson in 2012, and while he didn't set the single-season record, he topped 2,000 rushing yards while carrying an underwhelming Minnesota team to an unexpected postseason berth. And Peterson was at his best late in the season, producing four games of 150 rushing yards or more over the final five contests to seal up the hardware.
Taylor has slowed a bit alongside the Colts' offense in recent weeks, but I think he has a viable chance of garnering MVP consideration if he finishes the season on fire. Four 150-yard games would get him within striking distance of 2,000 rushing yards, and those performances would likely come with plenty of touchdowns as well. Succeeding without starting quarterback Daniel Jones would only help Taylor's case. If the game against the Texans in Week 18 is for the division title, and Taylor goes off against one of the league's best defenses to lead Indy to a home playoff game, he'd have a shot.
Jared Goff, QB, Detroit Lions
I mentioned Gibbs as an option, but Goff could also figure into the discussion if he finishes the season on a hot stretch. Just for fun, let's compare the numbers for two players as we enter Week 15:
QB1 is Goff. QB2 is Stafford, who went to the Rams to replace Goff when they were traded for each other before the 2021 season. Stafford has a better touchdown-to-interception ratio, of course, but Goff is completing a higher percentage of his passes, averaging more yards per attempt and even generating slightly more EPA per dropback. And while Goff has very good playmakers, he's doing this with some coaching turnover on offense, as Ben Johnson has given way to Johnnie Morton and now to Dan Campbell as offensive playcaller in Detroit.
By QBR, though, Stafford's 68.6 mark is fifth in the league, while Goff's 56.5 is 16th. The disparity owes to a few factors. Goff has taken sacks on 6.2% of his dropbacks, while Stafford has been sacked only 3.8% of the time, saving about six sacks compared to Goff in the process. And the Lions average 6.6 yards after the catch per reception, the second-highest rate in the league, while the Rams generate 4.6 (26th among starting quarterbacks).
As you can probably infer, if Stafford has roughly similar stats to Goff and the Lions are generating more YAC, that means Stafford's throws are further downfield and have a higher degree of difficulty. In fact, 12% of Stafford's passes are 20 or more yards downfield, nearly double Goff's rate of 6.8%. Goff is a very good quarterback, but while his stats might look similar enough, there are clear reasons to believe Stafford has been the more valuable player this season -- even before considering the gap in their respective teams' win totals.
Dak Prescott, QB, Dallas Cowboys
Goff's QBR hints that he hasn't been as impressive as his raw numbers would suggest in 2025, but what about the guy who leads the NFL by ESPN's favorite quarterback metric? Prescott's 73.4 Total QBR tops even Maye's and Stafford's, and his plus-6.0% CPOE is the second-best mark in the NFL. Prescott has been able to throw to George Pickens all season, but the veteran QB was without usual top target CeeDee Lamb for a chunk of games and still managed to thrive. He has also had massive performances to win shootouts with the Giants, Commanders and Chiefs, and his 319-yard, three-touchdown performance earned the Cowboys a tie with the Packers.
Prescott was getting more consideration as the Cowboys went on a three-game winning streak after the trade for defensive tackle Quinnen Williams, which included a pair of nationally televised victories over the Raiders and Chiefs. (The game time doesn't matter to me and shouldn't matter in terms of performance, but remember how the Ravens' blowout victory over the 49ers on Christmas in 2023 knocked Brock Purdy out of the MVP race and cleared a path for Lamar Jackson to win his second MVP? Doing it in prime time on a national stage does matter to voters.)
Stephen A. Smith breaks down the implications of the Cowboys' loss to the Lions on "Thursday Night Football."
Losing to the Lions (again in prime time) brought Dallas' winning streak to a halt, though, and its playoff odds are at 10%, per ESPN's Football Power Index, with four games to go. It's impossible to imagine Prescott winning this award if the Cowboys miss the playoffs, and even if they get there, it would take something spectacular along the way for him to leap Stafford and Maye to claim MVP honors. It seems unlikely to me, but then again, who would have thought the Cowboys would even still be in playoff consideration after starting 3-5-1?
Justin Herbert, QB, Los Angeles Chargers
The perennial sleeper pick to level up and earn MVP before any given season, Herbert seemed like he was off to that kind of season in September. Beating the Chiefs in Brazil in the opener (when winning against Kansas City was a novelty) with a near-perfect game seemed like it announced Herbert as a viable candidate in 2025. It hasn't always been smooth sailing since, but Herbert has led the 9-4 Chargers to what will likely be another playoff berth despite missing both of his starting offensive tackles and his two starting running backs. He's even winning games with a broken hand for fun in December.
A highlight reel of Herbert passes is always going to make him look like he could be the best quarterback in football, but the negative plays have hurt him in 2025. While the 27-year-old has leaned in to scrambling and added way more value with his legs this season, Herbert's sack rate has jumped from 7.5% to just under 10%, a product both of the offensive line issues and Herbert's propensity to extend plays. And after posting a league-best 0.6% interception rate in 2024, he followed that three-pick campaign by throwing 11 interceptions so far in 2025, an issue that's harder to pin on the offensive line.
Bo Nix, QB, Denver Broncos
Of course, the quarterback atop the AFC West isn't Herbert or Mahomes. It's Nix, whose Broncos have won 10 straight games and are No. 1 in the conference with four games left. I think even Broncos fans would admit that their defense has been driving Sean Payton's team to the top of the AFC leaderboard, but Nix has come up big when the Broncos needed him. His 80.5 QBR in the fourth quarter while games are tied or his team is trailing by one score ranks fifth in the NFL, and Nix has played a significant role in fourth-quarter comeback wins over the Eagles, Jets, Giants and Texans this season.
One of the reasons Nix has needed to lead so many fourth-quarter comebacks, though, is how he played through the first three quarters. Nix is 17th in the NFL in QBR through the first 45 minutes of games. He's generally a low-risk, low-reward quarterback. Nix takes sacks at the lowest rate in the league -- a huge plus. But even including the fourth quarter, he averages only 6.3 yards per pass attempt, which ranks 28th out of 34 qualifying passers this season.
On throws traveling 10 or more yards downfield, Nix's 35.7% off-target rate ranks 32nd in the NFL, ahead of only Caleb Williams and Michael Penix Jr., his fellow 2024 classmates. He has also been less productive as a runner in 2025 than he was in 2024. Nix is 17th in the NFL in Total QBR, which is reasonable enough. I'd just argue that Denver's strength is its play in totality at the line of scrimmage, where it has multiple Pro Bowl-caliber performances on offense (Quinn Meinerz, Garett Bolles) and defense (Nik Bonitto, Zach Allen).
Jaxon Smith-Njigba, WR, Seattle Seahawks
With Nacua missing time because of injuries, Smith-Njigba has separated from the pack as the most productive wide receiver. With four games remaining, Smith-Njigba is averaging a staggering 4.2 yards per route run, which would be the best mark going back through 2007, when ESPN's route data begins. The only other wideout season that hit 4 yards per route run was Tyreek Hill's 2023 campaign (4.0). Smith-Njigba is also second to Nacua in ESPN's receiver scores.
JSN is combining spectacular efficiency with significant volume. He's averaging 109.8 receiving yards, which would be the eighth-highest mark for any wideout since 2007 and just ahead of Justin Jefferson's top pro seasons. The Seahawks have added Rashid Shaheed and have Cooper Kupp in the lineup, but there's nobody else on the field drawing attention away from Smith-Njigba. He's the guy teams come out to stop each week -- and just about every week, they fail.
If there's a reason to discount his production, it might be leaning on where it comes: play-action, when defenses are loading up to stop the run and leaving huge holes behind in coverage. Smith-Njigba is averaging -- and this is not a typo -- 7 yards per route run off play-action. We've seen Andre Johnson, Steve Smith Sr. and Jordy Nelson top that figure in the past, but Smith-Njigba's Seahawks run play-action more often than their offenses did.
On straight dropbacks, Smith-Njigba is averaging 3.3 yards per route run. That's still an excellent figure, but it's comfortably second behind Nacua, whose 4.0 yards per route run on dropback passes is the best for any receiver since 2007, too. The yards count for just as much on play-action as they do without, of course, but it's fair to suggest that the Seahawks' style of offense might lend a helping hand to Smith-Njigba's jaw-dropping efficiency.
Smith-Njigba is having a special season, but there's a number that any wide receiver is going to need to hit if they want to win MVP. I'm just not sure it's possible for a wideout to win this award unless they break the league's receiving record and top 2,000 yards. Smith-Njigba is on pace for 1,867 yards, which means he would need to average 143 receiving yards per game over the final month of the season to get to 2K.
Even that might not be enough for the voters, given that Smith-Njigba has only nine touchdowns, and the non-QB offensive players who have won typically have gaudy touchdown totals. Smith-Njigba finishes just outside the top five for me so far.
The top five
5. Sam Darnold, QB, Seattle Seahawks
I put Smith-Njigba's quarterback just ahead of him. Darnold's numbers are excellent. He leads the NFL in yards per attempt at 8.9 and ranks second in CPOE at plus-5.9%, and he is averaging 13.1 yards per completion. The average Darnold dropback generates 8.3 yards, and the only quarterback within a yard of him is Maye (7.5 yards). And unlike Maye, Darnold is doing all of this against a relatively tough schedule of opponents; Maye's team-adjusted QBR is 2.3 points below his raw figure, while Darnold's adjusted figure is one point higher than the raw mark.
There are two issues holding him back. As was the case with Smith-Njigba, Darnold has been an entirely different player on play-action than in straight dropback situations. He is averaging 12.7 yards per attempt with a play-fake this season, unsurprisingly the best mark in football. His 7.6 yards per attempt without a play-fake is fourth in the league, which is still very good but reinforces that Darnold isn't quite as effective of a dropback passer as he is within the play-action game.
The other issue is that Darnold's negative plays tend to be disasters. We'll talk about Maye and his sack rate later, but not all sacks are created equal. Darnold has thrown 11 interceptions, leaving him with the fifth-worst interception rate in the league. While his sack rate (4.5%) is above average, six of the 17 sacks Darnold has taken have resulted in strip-sacks, including the lost fumble that cost the Seahawks the game against the 49ers and a fumble in the end zone for a touchdown against the Texans.
Damien Woody and Rex Ryan question whether Sam Darnold can deliver in big games for the Seahawks.
The average negative play for Darnold by EPA costs the Seahawks minus-0.9 points per snap. That's the third-worst mark among regular starters. The average sack costs them minus-2.0 EPA. While Maye has taken 40 sacks to Darnold's 17, the cumulative impact of those sacks isn't really much different; Maye's sacks have cost the Patriots 45.2 points of EPA to Darnold's 32.5 points in Seattle.
And then there's the game against the Rams. I don't want to reduce the MVP ballot to a quarterback's performance in one game, but it's difficult to see Darnold throw four picks in the most important matchup of the season for his team and still believe he's a viable MVP candidate. I'm not sure whether Darnold has really recovered from that loss, either; he's 24th in Total QBR over the past three games. The 28-year-old is fading out of this race, but if he can put together a massive game in the coming rematch with the Rams and lead the Seahawks to the 1-seed in the NFC, he might be able to squeeze his way back into contention.
4. Myles Garrett, Edge, Cleveland Browns
I've mentioned several non-quarterbacks here and repeatedly referred to the idea that they need to set records if they want to compete for MVP honors. And while it's possible that Taylor or Smith-Njigba catches on fire over the last month of the season and gets there, nobody is currently on pace to set those respective rushing and receiving records right now.
But Garrett, who is having one of the great defensive seasons in NFL history, is on pace for a record. He has 20 sacks in 13 games, seven more than anybody else. That puts the Browns star on pace for 26 sacks, which would blow away the NFL's single-season sack record of 22.5, set by Michael Strahan in 2001 and then tied by T.J. Watt in 2021. Watt and Garrett both have the 17th game, which obviously helps, but Garrett is actually on pace to break that record with weeks to spare.
No player in NFL history had racked up 20 sacks through the first 13 games of their team's season before Garrett, with Aldon Smith's 19.5 sacks in 2012 and Bruce Smith's 19 in 1990 as the top seasons through 13 games before now. Strahan had 21.5 sacks in a 13-game span during his record-setting season, but we're talking about the absolute rarest of air for pass rushers.
Garrett is also doing this without as many opportunities as the other players who have topped the sack charts. Because the Browns have a great defense and a horrific offense and spend most of their games playing from behind, they have faced an average of only 31.2 dropbacks (not including scrambles) per game. Strahan's Giants faced 35.4 of those dropbacks in their games, while Watt's Steelers were up at 36.3 dropbacks per game. That's the equivalent of more than two full games of extra opportunities for Watt over the course of a 17-game season versus Garrett.
Just for fun, Garrett has also been one of the most impactful run defenders in the league. He's second in the NFL behind Maxx Crosby with 12 tackles for loss against the run. Garrett is nearly doubling up the vast majority of the league with 31 tackles for loss; the only other player in the league with more than 18 so far this season is Crosby, who comes in at 25.
The Browns are third in the league in EPA per play, and while there's plenty to be excited about for Jim Schwartz & Co., it seems telling that so many other Browns defenders are having breakout seasons. Journeyman defensive tackle Maliek Collins was having a career year, with 6.5 sacks and 13 knockdowns, before suffering a season-ending quad injury. Defensive end Alex Wright, a backup during his first three years in Cleveland, has played well enough to earn a three-year, $33 million extension. Second-round pick Carson Schwesinger, who is third in the league in tackles for loss against the run, has been my pick for Defensive Rookie of the Year. Linebacker Devin Bush is having his best season. All of these guys benefit from the gravity and attention afforded Garrett.
The "Get Up" crew laments Myles Garrett's greatness being wasted on a bad Browns team.
There's only one problem, of course: The Browns stink. They're 3-10. Their point differential suggests that they're really more like a 4.3-win team, and nobody's blaming Garrett for Cleveland's issues, but if you want to win the MVP award as a non-quarterback, you have to be on a winning team. Quarterbacks on bad teams don't even compete for MVP awards, let alone players who have to overcome the positional spectrum problem.
But because this is my award rankings, I can do whatever I want. Garrett has been the best player in football this season, and, alongside kicker Brandon Aubrey, has outplayed the rest of the talent at his position by a significant margin. He's not a quarterback, but edge rusher is the second-most valuable position in football. The Browns aren't good with Garrett, but they would be truly awful without him, which might be why Cleveland handed the 2027 first overall pick a record contract in lieu of trading him this offseason.
In terms of winning the actual MVP award? It would take a stunning, almost impossible confluence of events. The quarterbacks who have separated from the pack, notably Maye and Stafford, would need to fall off over the remainder of the season. We would need to see a muddled pack of potential options under center, with a handful of quarterbacks in line to receive votes and none landing a consensus.
And then we would need something truly unprecedented from Garrett. Setting the sack record on a bad team won't be enough. Garrett has to obliterate that record. With four games to go, 30 sacks isn't out of the realm of possibility. Could he get over 30 and top the prior sack record by 10? Even so, 32.5 sacks probably isn't getting it done. If Garrett can land 15 more sacks over the final four games of the season and get to 35, it would be such an astronomical number that I'm not sure even the team's dreadful record could be held against him.
Is that impossible? Well, nobody has ever racked up 15 sacks over a four-game span in NFL history. The only player to top 11 sacks over a four-game span? Well, it's Garrett, who had 13 between Week 8 and Week 12 earlier this season. More realistically, Garrett will just have to settle for the most productive pass-rushing season in league history.
3. Jordan Love, QB, Green Bay Packers
One of the most popular and surprising stats going around football nerd social media over the past few weeks has involved the Packers' quarterback. Do you know who leads the league in EPA per dropback? It isn't Stafford (fifth) or Maye (third). It's Love, whose 0.36 EPA per dropback blows away the rest of the league. Nobody else is over 0.22. Second-placed Goff is about as close to C.J. Stroud in 13th place as he is to Love in first. Nobody has led a more productive offense on a dropback-to-dropback basis than Love.
We'll poke some holes in that number in a minute, but it's hardly like Love is being dragged along as part of a great team offense. The Packers very famously don't have a No. 1 receiver, and the guy Love was relying on to be that player early in the season -- tight end Tucker Kraft -- is out for the season because of a torn ACL. Their Josh Jacobs-led running game has fallen off in 2025, with the Packers 14th in the league in EPA per play on designed runs. The offensive line has battled injuries and inconsistent play across the board; their preferred starting five up front heading into the season has played a grand total of 64 snaps together all season.
Love's the one driving the passing attack. How could he rate so high? When he drops back, bad things don't happen very often. Love has thrown four interceptions and fumbled twice through 13 games, leaving him with the fewest giveaways by any quarterback who has started every one of his team's games this season. His 4.5% sack rate is sixth best. And Love generates EPA at an above-average rate on his scrambles, which have generated 163 yards and 11 first downs for the Packers.
When Love throws the ball, he's very good, if not quite as spectacular as the passers ahead of him on this list. He's seventh in yards per attempt and 10th in success rate. ESPN has a metric called adjusted completion percentage, which removes drops and throwaways and weighs accuracy for air yards. Love's 74.9% adjusted completion percentage is second in the league. Again, he's doing this without a receiver like Nacua or Smith-Njigba who snatches balls out of the air and dominates opposing defensive backs.
So, why is there a disconnect between Love's numbers and his public perception? Well, the interceptions he has thrown have been ugly. Love was fooled for a pick at the worst possible time in the early-season loss to the Browns. A throw into triple coverage in the loss to the Panthers wasn't close to being completed. C.J. Gardner-Johnson could have called for a fair catch when he picked off Love in the first quarter of last week's win over the Bears. The misses aren't pretty.
And Love still might not be the focal point of the offense. The Packers have softened their stance some, but they were the league's most run-happy team on early downs in neutral game scripts last season after Love returned from his knee injury. This year, the Packers are throwing at the 10th-lowest rate in those same situations. Stafford and Maye are operating two of the most pass-happy offenses, with the Rams and Patriots ranking second and sixth, respectively, by that metric.
Stephen A. Smith explains why he's not ready to trust Jordan Love in big games and calls out Dan Orlovsky for his level of trust in Love.
Love has thrown exactly as many passes as Maye, but Maye has been slightly more productive across the board. That has come against an easier schedule, but like Love, Maye hasn't had a No. 1 receiver to work with on a consistent basis. If the Packers do stick the landing, get some help from the West and finish as the top seed in the NFC, Love would be a deserving MVP pick. He's just outside the top two for me.
2. Matthew Stafford, QB, Los Angeles Rams
1. Drake Maye, QB, New England Patriots
Let's consider the top two together. Stafford was the favorite after dominating the Bucs in prime time three weeks ago, but a two-pick performance against the Panthers in a shocking loss ended his record-setting run of touchdowns without an interception and opened the door for Maye. Stafford got back on track with a 281-yard, three-touchdown performance against the Cardinals while Maye was on bye, pushing Stafford back into the lead, but this is realistically going to come down to the last four weeks.
Let's start with the things everyone can agree on. Maye has played an easier schedule. By QBR's adjustments, Stafford has basically played a league-average set of opponents. The only quarterback with a more substantial adjustment for the quality of his opposition by QBR than Maye is Spencer Rattler, while Goff and Nix are just behind Maye. Opponent adjustments aren't everything -- Stafford had arguably his worst game of the season against the Panthers, who aren't a spectacular pass defense by any means -- but you would obviously rather play the Jets and Bengals than the Seahawks and Eagles.
Stafford, on the other hand, has better receivers. I've written about Stefon Diggs and his wildly productive season on a per-route basis in 2025, but the Patriots are using him on only 55% of the offensive snaps. Davante Adams has been on the field for 72% of Los Angeles' snaps, and injuries and rest have limited Nacua to 64% of the Rams' offensive snaps.
Stephen A. Smith looks at Stefon Diggs' role in his decision to not take the Bills over the Patriots this weekend.
Sean McVay is not stupid, of course; Stafford has taken just 32 dropbacks this season without either of his star wideouts on the field. He has posted an 83.0 Total QBR on those plays, going 21-of-31 for 280 yards and three touchdowns, so if you're a Patriots fan wanting to use that as evidence that Stafford is being elevated to new heights by his wideouts, I hate to be the bearer of bad small-sample news. On the whole, though, I think most people would agree that Stafford has the two best receivers across both rosters.
Stafford's case revolves around three factors. One is completely qualitative: It's probably his last chance to win this thing. The idea of giving Stafford a lifetime achievement MVP award doesn't seem fair to me. He has never earned a single MVP vote throughout his career and has been a Pro Bowler only twice. And while his lack of hardware before joining the Rams has often been chalked up to playing on horrible Lions teams, the idea that he was stuck with dismal defenses is mostly a myth. We have a lifetime achievement award for players; it's the Hall of Fame, and Stafford is almost assuredly going to end up there one day.
Leaving that one aside, Stafford's big number has been his touchdown-to-interception ratio. Even after the uneven performance against the Panthers, Stafford has thrown 35 touchdown passes against just four picks. That's one of the best ratios we've seen in NFL history. Seven quarterbacks have finished a season with a better touchdown-to-interception ratio, and three of them (Tom Brady in 2010 and Aaron Rodgers in 2020 and 2021) have won MVP. With all due respect to Nick Foles, who threw 27 touchdown passes against two picks in a fever dream of a stretch for Chip Kelly in Philadelphia, Stafford's season is more like those guys than the ones who missed out.
Is touchdown-to-interception ratio really a great measure of quarterback performance? It's not awful, but all touchdowns aren't created equal. And while the goal of every drive is to get into the end zone, a disproportionate number of Stafford's scores are short throws to Adams, who has proven uncoverable near the goal line. Stafford already has 14 touchdowns on throws from the 5-yard line and in, which comfortably leads the league.
Then again, this hasn't been a disqualifying factor for quarterbacks who have won MVP in years past. Rodgers threw 20 touchdown passes within the 5-yard line in 2020. Peyton Manning threw 18 of them in 2013. Mahomes had 17 of these short-yardage passing scores in 2022. I'd argue that these sorts of touchdown totals are more a product of a coach choosing to throw the ball in short-yardage situations (or teams using RPOs or tagged plays to throw the ball when there's a favorable opportunity), and I'm keeping that in mind as I make my own decision, but I'm not sure that should be disqualifying in the real vote.
Stafford has also run a much better sack rate than his counterpart in New England. Stafford's 3.8% sack rate is one of the best marks in the NFL, while Maye's 9.4% mark is one of the worst. They've each fumbled six times, but two of Stafford's fumbles have come on bad exchanges or handoffs, while all six of Maye's have come on runs or strip-sacks. Maye has six interceptions, but they haven't come at opportune times; he has two interceptions at the goal line, including one that helped cost the Patriots in a September loss to the Steelers.
As I mentioned earlier, though, Maye has done an excellent job of minimizing the negative impact of his sacks. Maye's average sack comes with a loss of just 4.5 yards, while Stafford's sacks have cost the Rams 6.8 yards, just over league average. You would still rather see your quarterback get sacked less often, of course, but the shorter losses help make up some of the gap between their respective sack rates.
And the problem for Stafford is that Maye has really been more productive just about everywhere else. Maye leads in the vast majority of the other categories I can find:
Maye averages 8.8 yards per attempt, the second-best rate in the league. Stafford's 7.8 yards per throw is good for eighth. The sack yardage makes up some of the difference between those two, but Maye still averages more yards per dropback (7.5) than Stafford (7.2).
Maye is greatly outperforming what an average quarterback would do in the same spots. His plus-8.2% CPOE is comfortably the best mark in the NFL. Again, Stafford is no slouch here, but his plus-2.6% CPOE is 11th. Maye leads the league in completion percentage despite throwing the fifth-deepest average ball of anybody. Stafford's just behind him in air yards per attempt but 12th in completion percentage.
I mentioned adjusted completion percentage earlier. After taking drops and throwaways out of the mix and adjusting for air yards, Maye's adjusted completion percentage of 78.5% blows away the league. (Stafford's 70.7% mark is 11th.) Going back through 2007, the only quarterback with a better adjusted completion percentage in a single season than Maye's 2025 mark is Drew Brees, who posted a 79.1% adjusted completion percentage in 2019.
The play-action arguments I made earlier would hurt Stafford's case, as he runs play-fakes a league-high 35.3% of the time. Again, there's nothing wrong with using play-action, but if we're going to use the great offensive architecture argument to discount Darnold's production off play-action, it should also apply to the guy who's enjoying play-action more than anybody else. Maye's 26.1% play-action rate is just over league average. Strip out play-action, and Maye's 8.4 yards per attempt comfortably lead the league, with no other quarterback over 8 yards per play. Stafford's 7.5 yards per attempt ranks sixth.
Stafford is a great pocket passer, but outside of the one zone read McVay calls a year to mess with opposing defensive coordinators, Stafford is not contributing anything with his legs. Strip out kneel-downs, and Stafford's eight carries have produced 11 yards. Maye has made a meaningful impact with his legs, as his 64 rush attempts have produced 340 yards, 2 touchdowns and 26 first downs. Other quarterbacks have been more efficient, so Maye's 9.2 cumulative rushing EPA is good for only 17th in the league, but that's another way he's separating from Stafford.
Cumulatively, Maye has generated 101.3 EPA to Stafford's 75.6 this season while requiring only 23 more dropbacks to get there. EPA isn't everything, but Maye is better by just about every rate statistic, including Total QBR (where he's third behind Prescott and Love, while Stafford's in fifth). And while EPA doesn't adjust for quality of opposition, Total QBR accounts for the teams Maye has (and hasn't) played this season.
Again, I wouldn't be horrified if the voters chose Stafford. Love is a completely viable and reasonable candidate. They won't choose Garrett, and Darnold's meltdown against the Rams probably disqualified him from contention, but they would be reasonable picks, too. This isn't a season in which one player or team has clearly separated from the pack.
At the same time, though, the more I looked into the arguments for Stafford and Maye, the stronger I leaned toward the second-year quarterback in New England. I know Stafford is the favorite to win the real award at the end of the season, but Maye has been the better quarterback -- more comfortably than I realized in some places. I'll revisit this in four weeks, but for now, Maye is my pick as league MVP through Week 14.