MVP discourse should be fun. So why does the current discussion feel so toxic?
Nearly every season, the debate over who should be the NFL MVP becomes an exhausting and endless conversation that seeks only to confirm everyone’s preconceived notions. For some reason, this discussion always begins in October, when a player emerges as the “favorite” after a hot start (hello, Baker Mayfield!). Then the sample size starts to get bigger, some true contenders emerge, and by late December, a handful of players carry the burden of having every single dropback take on outsize importance. Eventually, everyone starts shouting about what the word “valuable” even means.
We should really wait until January before we even think about MVP, but the NFL media machine needs content, and MVP is always a juicy discussion point. So we talk, and talk, and talk—all season long. Until we get to January, when it’s actually time to decide.
This season has followed the script, and as Week 18 has come to a close, we’ve landed on an intense Matthew Stafford vs. Drake Maye debate that is guaranteed to result in a lot of loud TV segments and snarky tweets and ultimately leave everyone upset. In a way, this season’s MVP debate perfectly encapsulates the perennial MVP discourse cycle. Everyone thinks they are right. No one is happy. We’ll argue about it forever.
Here’s the basic overview. In one corner, you have the 37-year-old Stafford, who led the league in passing yards (4,707) and passing touchdowns (46). His Rams have the NFL’s best offense, and if the team hadn’t suffered a devastating and bizarre collapse to the Seahawks in Week 16 (which featured a genuinely confusing two-point conversion that went in Seattle’s favor), they’d be the NFC’s top seed. And Stafford did all of this after missing training camp because of a degenerative back condition. Over the summer the Rams weren’t even sure their QB would be healthy enough to start the season. It’s an incredible story and season for a 17-year NFL veteran.
In the other corner, you have Maye, who, at age 23, led the league in most advanced metrics (including EPA, completion percentage over expectation, adjusted net yards per attempt, and QBR). He led the Patriots to a 14-3 record, the AFC East crown, and the conference’s no. 2 seed. Maye also added 450 rushing yards and four touchdowns on the ground. You’ll find him in the top right of most any chart tweeted out by any NFL spreadsheet cruncher. In just his second season, Maye confirmed that he’s the Patriots’ long-term franchise quarterback and one of the best passers in the sport.
It’s the old-guard veteran QB creating a late-career masterpiece vs. the young upstart who rapidly ascended to become one of the faces of the league. This should be fun, not toxic as hell. Let’s start over, and this time, let’s frame the debate as you have heard it on podcasts (even ones on The Ringer!) or seen it on social media. It goes something like this:
In one corner, you have Stafford, a goal-line touchdown vulture on the verge of turning the MVP into a lifetime achievement award. He led his Rams to only the fifth seed, which is why they have to travel and take on the 8-9 Panthers—a mediocre team L.A. already lost to, by the way—on wild-card weekend. Stafford is also throwing to arguably the best wide receiver corps in the league, featuring Puka Nacua and Davante Adams, and benefits from head coach Sean McVay’s offensive genius and an elite offensive line. But most damning of all, he threw eight touchdowns from the 1-yard line Those are plays where the Rams were likely to score anyway—are we really going to give the MVP to a guy who so blatantly padded his touchdown totals?
Week 18 Recap: The Most Steelers Game Ever, Seattle’s Dominance, MVP Debates, Playoffs Are Set, Myles Garrett’s Record, and Madonna Is Before Our Time
Week 18 Recap: The Most Steelers Game Ever, Seattle’s Dominance, MVP Debates, Playoffs Are Set, Myles Garrett’s Record, and Madonna Is Before Our Time
Week 18: The Most Steelers Game Ever, Seattle’s Dominance, and MVP Debates
NFL Week 18 Recap
Week 18 Recap: The Most Steelers Game Ever, Seattle’s Dominance, MVP Debates, Playoffs Are Set, Myles Garrett’s Record, and Madonna Is Before Our Time
Week 18 Recap: The Most Steelers Game Ever, Seattle’s Dominance, MVP Debates, Playoffs Are Set, Myles Garrett’s Record, and Madonna Is Before Our Time
Week 18: The Most Steelers Game Ever, Seattle’s Dominance, and MVP Debates
NFL Week 18 Recap
Week 18 Recap: The Most Steelers Game Ever, Seattle’s Dominance, MVP Debates, Playoffs Are Set, Myles Garrett’s Record, and Madonna Is Before Our Time
Week 18 Recap: The Most Steelers Game Ever, Seattle’s Dominance, MVP Debates, Playoffs Are Set, Myles Garrett’s Record, and Madonna Is Before Our Time
Week 18: The Most Steelers Game Ever, Seattle’s Dominance, and MVP Debates
NFL Week 18 Recap
In the other corner, you have Maye, who played maybe the cushiest schedule in NFL history. By opponent record, the Patriots played the easiest schedule in the league. The Rams? They had the hardest. The Patriots played just three games against teams that finished with a winning record (one against the Steelers and two against the Bills), and they went 1-2 in those contests. You know who else had one win against over .500 opponents this season? The 3-14, first-pick-holding Las Vegas Raiders. The only winning team the Raiders beat? Maye’s Patriots! And while Stafford may have benefited from some goal-line scores, Maye farmed touchdowns against rock-bottom defenses like the Jets’. The Patriots might have earned the no. 2 seed, but that has just as much to do with the day-care schedule they played against as it does their own team.
This toxicity hit a fever pitch in Week 18. Stafford threw a goal-line touchdown in the final five minutes of a game against the lowly Cardinals to put his team up 16 points, drawing disgust from Patriots fans who felt this was just more stat padding. Meanwhile, Bills backup QB Mitchell Trubisky carved up the Jets for four touchdowns, seemingly proving to Rams fans how fortunate Maye was to play New York twice. Odds for who would win MVP flipped back to Stafford after his four-touchdown day despite the fact that Maye also had a good game against the Dolphins, and more arguing ensued.
With the season over, it’s unclear who will win—but it is clear that a lot of people will be upset no matter the outcome.
But if there’s a more mature discussion to be had here, it goes something like this: Stafford led in counting stats, but Maye led in efficiency stats. It’s true that Maye’s schedule was much easier. By passing EPA allowed, the Rams faced a roughly league-average schedule, while the Patriots had the easiest group of opponents in football. But advanced metrics that factor in strength of schedule—such as QBR—still have Maye ahead. And against common opponents (the Panthers, Saints, Titans, Falcons, Buccaneers, and Ravens), Maye outperformed Stafford. Compare:
Stafford and Maye Against Common Opponents
StatMatthew StaffordDrake Maye
Strength of schedule can’t really be used to lift Stafford over Maye—the Patriots QB’s season was clearly more than just a product of an easy schedule.
One feather in Stafford’s cap, though, is that he leads the league in Pro Football Focus’s grading. Maye, by contrast, is third (behind Joe Burrow, who didn’t play a full season). And Stafford’s “big-time throw” percentage of 7.4 percent is way ahead of the rest of the field—Maye is at 4.9 percent. So some of the biggest “Watch the games!” proponents may have found Stafford’s on-field play more impressive.
And the stat-padding argument? It’s actually hilarious and indicative of the knee-jerk toxicity of MVP discussions that scoring touchdowns can be turned into a negative without much questioning. Stafford’s ability to get the ball to his receivers from the goal line has been a boon for the Rams offense. The team ran 24 plays from the 1-yard line and scored on 14 of them, a touchdown rate of 58.3 percent. The Patriots ran 16 such plays and scored just five times—31.3 percent. Extend the field out to the 4-yard line (to increase the sample size), and the Rams went 28-for-52 (53.8 percent, fourth best in the league). The Pats went 16-for-44 (36.4 percent, 27th best). Scoring is not easy, even from short yardage. Stafford’s ability to score, even from close range, should add to his MVP case, not detract from it.
But Maye’s efficiency is just hard to ignore. Per RBSDM.com, he was expected to complete 64.2 percent of his passes but actually completed 75 percent of them, an overperformance of a whopping 10.8 percentage points that comfortably leads the league. Stafford’s CPOE of 1.6 percent is barely above league average. It’s the same mark as Jacoby Brissett’s. Maye’s EPA is better, and his QBR is better—he was just dramatically more efficient than any other QB in football, including Stafford. Plus, he did it with Stefon Diggs as his best receiver—a much lesser supporting cast than what Stafford benefited from.
You could quibble about their sack numbers. Maye took 47 sacks to Stafford’s 23, and a large part of the blame should go to Maye and his high time to throw. Per PFF, he averaged 3.12 seconds before getting rid of the football, third longest in the league. Stafford, at 2.71 seconds, was the sixth-fastest QB at getting the ball out. But are we really going to decide who wins MVP based on 24 sacks? Especially when Maye added 450 rushing yards while Stafford added just one—yes, one total rushing yard? Maye picked up 38 first downs with his legs; Stafford picked up zero. I’ll take the sacks for that extra rushing ability.
At this point, we are so in the weeds, we’d need to start defining the word “valuable” to continue the discussion. I don’t want to do that—and The Associated Press leaves the word up to interpretation for the voting panel—so let’s zoom back out. Stafford has the counting stats, the legacy narrative, and the tape-watchers’ respect. Maye has the efficiency, that new-quarterback smell, and the team success. The main knock against Stafford is that many of his touchdowns came from close to the goal line—but as noted, those touchdowns still count. The main knock against Maye is that he played a cupcake schedule—but it really wasn’t that easy, and he still leads in advanced stats when adjusting for it. Both are good options for MVP.
As of Monday, the 50 MVP voters have submitted their ballots to the accounting firm that tallies the votes. But we won’t be spared the debate, because the NFL won’t announce the winner until the NFL Honors ceremony on February 5, three days before the Super Bowl. That means the playoffs will also turn into an MVP battleground, even though the award has already been decided. The Patriots play the Chargers on wild-card weekend—if Maye has an off game, watch the Stafford truthers and Patriots haters come out in force to explain how Maye was just the beneficiary of a Charmin-soft schedule and couldn’t win against real opponents. And if Stafford and the Rams come out flat against the Panthers, it’ll be the same in reverse—the Stat Padford memes will be ready.
One more month, and we’ll finally be free of the annual MVP debate. Until next season, that is.
Riley McAtee
Riley McAtee is a senior editor at The Ringer who focuses on America’s two biggest sports: the NFL and ‘Survivor.’
