Tom Brady is About to Get Snubbed in the MVP Debate

Can we talk about how ridiculous it is that Tom Brady doesn’t seem to be in the conversation for this award? Leaving my Patriots bias aside, the logic does not add up.  Arrogant Aaron Rodgers, or more likely Matt Ryan, will walk away with the award with the latter having the same amount of regular season wins as Brady and the former with less. Every single year, with the exception of the 2012 season when Adrian Peterson tore defenses to shreds for a historically great season, this award in the NFL goes to the best player on the best team. Period.  This year, in the 2016 season, on the team with the best record, the most valuable player is Tom Brady. To give the award to anyone else goes against a strong NFL precedent in recent years and the more distant past.

Some detraction on Brady for missing the first 4 games is understandable, but on the next best team, the 13-3 Cowboys, voters can’t parcel the award among 5 offensive linemen or give it to two rookies who benefited largely from those linemen up front. Then it just becomes a search to give the award to a player on an 11-5 or 10-6 type of team. Those are good seasons, but they are certainly not exemplary or award winning. To put this into perspective, among MVP QBs, the average loss number is 2.7 and never before has a quarterback won with 6 losses on his resume. Among players on 5 or 6 loss teams, Matt Ryan stands out.  Finishing with 38 TD’s and 7 interceptions, Ryan had a great season, one in which he finished with the fifth highest quarterback rating in NFL history.  He has beaten Brady in every statistical category, even passing yards per game played. Yet the 5 losses seem to go unnoticed by voters as Ryan remains the favorite.  The Kansas City game sticks in my mind.  Locked at 13 against the Chiefs, Matt Ryan inexplicably missed Eric Berry playing as a “Robber” strong safety, meaning he had no assignment.  Berry baited the throw and took it to the house, which was a huge momentum swing Ryan and the Falcons could not come back from at home.

The stats do not lie, Matt Ryan had a terrific year, but who was he playing with that helped him achieve this? While Ryan’s defense was among the league’s worst, his star wideout Julio Jones was rated by Pro Football Focus as the second best receiver in the league this year.  A lot of this success must also be accorded to Devonta Freeman, the solid Atlanta offensive line, and the coordinator Kyle Shanahan, who is widely considered one of the smartest offensive minds in the game. Since Matt Ryan’s campaign is largely built around his statistical advantage, the question becomes did Matt Ryan have a strong enough of statistical year to become the 4th Quarterback to win with an 11-5 record?

Aaron Rodgers’s scorching performances in the last 6 games thrust him firmly into the MVP conversation.  His 40 touchdowns to 7 interceptions compounded with clutch play down the stretch make a compelling argument. Not only did Rodgers have a bad defense, the Packers struggled to build a run game all year.  What makes Rodgers a tricky argument, however, are his 7 interceptions coupled with 4 lost fumbles, totaling 11 turnovers for the year.  Ten of them came in the first 10 games, a stretch where Rodgers performed at the lowest levels of his career. The Pack rebounded to win their final 6, but no QB has ever won the MVP with 6 losses.

With a record of 11-1, Tom Brady has looked as masterful as ever.  As a vivacious 39 year old, Brady threw 28 touchdowns and 2 interceptions.  The rate of 0.46 percent of his passes intercepted broke his old NFL record for efficiency, and he did all of this with a usual cast of no names. Rob Gronkowski played 5 games of Brady’s 12, leaving Brady to turn Malcolm Mitchell and Chris Hogan into very good Patriot receivers, as he did with Julian Edelman. At the end of the year Brady earned an incredible 99.3 final grade from Pro Football Focus, compared to Ryan’s 93.1 and Rodgers’ 92.6. In the time that Brady played he clearly outplayed both quarterbacks, but the major issue he will run into in voting will be the deficit he faces in statistics. My vote is for the best player on the best team, as the MVP voting has traditionally gone, who has had an efficient, beautifully successful year, and that player, without a doubt, is Tom Brady.

Written by Will McGuinness