The MVP race

[DontTazeMeBro]

I want Lamar to win it but is this really what MVP is now? Everyone who isn’t a QB is eliminated from the start and you don’t win it, you lose it. Like Tua had a bad game, Hurts has the belt now. Dak wins it off Hurts. Dak had a bad game. Purdy has the belt now. And Jackson wins the belt off Purdy. It’s dumb

Edited December 29, 2023 by DontTazeMeBro

[RaidersAreOne]

Lamar baby. 

[TXsteeler]

1 hour ago, DontTazeMeBro said:

I want Lamar to win it but is this really what MVP is now? Everyone who isn’t a QB is eliminated from the start and you don’t win it, you lose it. Like Tua had a bad game, Hurts has the belt now. Dak wins it off Hurts. Dak had a bad game. Purdy has the belt now. And Jackson wins the belt off Purdy. It’s dumb

So If Mason Rudolph leads the Steelers to the playoffs and Lamar has a bad game against the Steelers in week 18, what happens? Does Rudolph take it or does only 3 games mean it reverts to Mahomes?

[DontTazeMeBro]

49 minutes ago, TXsteeler said:

So If Mason Rudolph leads the Steelers to the playoffs and Lamar has a bad game against the Steelers in week 18, what happens? Does Rudolph take it or does only 3 games mean it reverts to Mahomes?

Wrestlemania Tua vs. Allen 

[BetterCallSaul]

1 hour ago, TXsteeler said:

So If Mason Rudolph leads the Steelers to the playoffs and Lamar has a bad game against the Steelers in week 18, what happens? Does Rudolph take it or does only 3 games mean it reverts to Mahomes?

I would say yes. Rudolph MVP until Myles Garrett murders him. Then it goes to MG. 

[Scottish_Viking]

16 hours ago, Thomas5737 said:

It certainly takes a team to win an MVP award. You don't win unless you are in the playoffs. No one carries a team to the playoffs.

I personally never argued that the Browns defense was historic, I just said "think of what the team could have done if they fired Joe Woods sooner". That said, they are #1 in yards against. The Ravens defense has been great too but they haven't had to deal with 32 turnovers by their offense. That's neither here nor there, both have been great.

2012 AD.

[SalvadorsDeli]

Josh Allen has undoubtedly been outstanding but it's interesting how this narrative has coalesced around him that he's some one-man team compared to Lamar because he's paired with the 4th ranked scoring defense rather than the top scoring defense. 

Say what you will about Lamar but we haven't had a single win this season where he was as in-essential to the cause as Allen was in Buffalo's marquee win over Dallas. 

Edited December 29, 2023 by SalvadorsDeli

[The BILLievers]

14 minutes ago, SalvadorsDeli said:

Josh Allen has undoubtedly been outstanding but it's interesting how this narrative has coalesced around him that he's some one-man team compared to Lamar because he's paired with the 4th ranked scoring defense rather than the top scoring defense. 

Say what you will about Lamar but we haven't had a single win this season where he was as in-essential to the cause as Allen was in Buffalo's marquee win over Dallas. 

I see your point and agree to an extent. But Allen has 40 total touchdowns on the season and the Bills as a whole have 48 offensive touchdowns. So he's accounted for 84% of the offensive TDs.

He's also the only QB this season to lose TWO games while having a QBR between 80-100. The defense has been inconsistent all year and blew a bunch of games this season (Eagles, Patriots, Broncos). If the defense doesn't blow those last second 4th Q leads, the Bills could be 12-3/11-4 and Allen would most likely be the odds on favorite. So the 4th best scoring D is great but also a little misleading to how inconsistent they have been all year.

Edited December 29, 2023 by The BILLievers

[skywindO2]

F it. Give it to Flacco. 

[AngusMcFife]

17 minutes ago, The BILLievers said:

I see your point and agree to an extent. But Allen has 40 total touchdowns on the season and the Bills as a whole have 48 offensive touchdowns. So he's accounted for 84% of the offensive TDs.

He's also the only QB this season to lose TWO games while having a QBR between 80-100. The defense has been inconsistent all year and blew a bunch of games this season (Eagles, Patriots, Broncos). If the defense doesn't blow those last second 4th Q leads, the Bills could be 12-3/11-4 and Allen would most likely be the odds on favorite. So the 4th best scoring D is great but also a little misleading to how inconsistent they have been all year.

OK but the Ravens D blew 3 games in which they had 90%+ win probability in the 4th quarter. Ravens should be 15-0 according to your logic and Lamar would be clear cut MVP. 

[The BILLievers]

54 minutes ago, AngusMcFife said:

OK but the Ravens D blew 3 games in which they had 90%+ win probability in the 4th quarter. Ravens should be 15-0 according to your logic and Lamar would be clear cut MVP. 

Generally curious, which games were those so I can review them? did Lamar put the Ravens up late in the 4th then the last drive of the game the defense blew it?

my point still standing, in two of Allen’s loses this season he had an EPA between 80-100 and still lost. That’s an indictment on the defense. 
If the ravens D was the sole cause then I’ll give those props to Lamar as well I didn’t realize it and that’s my bad. 
edit: I still don’t think you can be the clear cut MVP with his TD numbers but not gonna debate that 

Edited December 29, 2023 by The BILLievers

[AFlaccoSeagulls]

1 hour ago, The BILLievers said:

I see your point and agree to an extent. But Allen has 40 total touchdowns on the season and the Bills as a whole have 48 offensive touchdowns. So he's accounted for 84% of the offensive TDs.

To the touchdowns point, it's largely just because for whatever reason the Ravens choose to hand the ball to Gus Edwards inside the 10 yard line. Here is an exhaustive list of his 12 touchdown distances this year (SPOILER: all 12 are from within 7 yards):

Quote

Rk	Year	Date	G#	Week	Tm		Opp	Result	Quarter	Type	Dist	Quarterback	Score Before	Score After
14	2023	2023-09-17	2	2	BAL	@	CIN	W 27-24	1	Rushing	1		Tied 0-0	Lead 7-0*
15	2023	2023-10-22	7	7	BAL		DET	W 38-6	2	Rushing	2		Lead 21-0	Lead 28-0
16	2023	2023-10-29	8	8	BAL	@	ARI	W 31-24	2	Rushing	1		Tied 7-7	Lead 14-7*
17	2023	2023-10-29	8	8	BAL	@	ARI	W 31-24	3	Rushing	7		Lead 14-7	Lead 21-7
18	2023	2023-10-29	8	8	BAL	@	ARI	W 31-24	4	Rushing	1		Lead 24-15	Lead 31-15
19	2023	2023-11-05	9	9	BAL		SEA	W 37-3	2	Rushing	4		Tied 0-0	Lead 7-0*
20	2023	2023-11-05	9	9	BAL		SEA	W 37-3	2	Rushing	3		Lead 7-0	Lead 14-0
21	2023	2023-11-12	10	10	BAL		CLE	L 31-33	4	Rushing	1		Lead 24-17	Lead 31-17
22	2023	2023-11-16	11	11	BAL		CIN	W 34-20	1	Rushing	3		Tied 0-0	Lead 7-0*
23	2023	2023-11-16	11	11	BAL		CIN	W 34-20	4	Rushing	3		Lead 27-13	Lead 34-13
24	2023	2023-12-17	14	15	BAL	@	JAX	W 23-7	4	Rushing	1		Lead 10-7	Lead 17-7
25	2023	2023-12-25	15	16	BAL	@	SFO	W 33-19	2	Rushing	1		Trail 3-5	Lead 10-5*

So yeah, other QB's have more touchdowns than Lamar. So what? We're going to punish Lamar for Gus Edwards existing and the Ravens handing the ball off instead of either running Lamar or throwing it now?

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He's also the only QB this season to lose TWO games while having a QBR between 80-100. The defense has been inconsistent all year and blew a bunch of games this season (Eagles, Patriots, Broncos). If the defense doesn't blow those last second 4th Q leads, the Bills could be 12-3/11-4 and Allen would most likely be the odds on favorite. So the 4th best scoring D is great but also a little misleading to how inconsistent they have been all year.

Oh we're talking about your team losing while you have a great performance? Did we forget about the numerous 4th quarter leads the Ravens have blown not only this year but in previous years? Did we all forget about the Pittsburgh game where Lamar's WR's literally left about 21 points on the field and Lamar's passer rating was a 66 or some garbage because of this? Over the last X amount of years, nobody's WR's have let them down more than Lamar's. If not for KC's collection of college WR's this year we'd still be talking about it.

But that's the thing this year with Lamar - he's such an outlier that nobody knows how to quantify how good he's been. Baltimore's offense ranks 6th in EPA/play, 4th in success rate, and they are by far 1st in Rushing EPA/Play, and also 1st in Rushing Success Rate.

What we're seeing with these stats is that they're a balanced team. They're not quite as run-heavy as they were under Greg Roman, but Lamar is still the system and there's no other way to look at these EPA/Play and Success Rate statistics that clearly tell us their offense is elite without acknowledging that Lamar is the reason for that. He doesn't have an elite RB. He doesn't have an elite OL. He doesn't have an elite TE. He doesn't have any elite WR's. Hell, he still doesn't have a WR1 - yet Lamar continues to conduct a top 5 offense. How could that be if he's not playing at an MVP level? It's not because of Gus Edwards, who is having his worst YPC of his career but has the 12 rushing touchdowns to offset that. 

This year is definitely an anomaly of a year. You have a few QB's who are all different in terms of the statistical cases they have for MVP - and then you have Lamar - who you actually have to watch the games in order to see the case for MVP and it seems like people aren't willing to do that. But the crazier thing is that even when he does have a clear MVP game, like he did against the Niners, people still go out of their way to discredit it! I've never seen anything like it, tbh.

Edited December 29, 2023 by AFlaccoSeagulls

[AngusMcFife]

30 minutes ago, The BILLievers said:

Generally curious, which games were those so I can review them? did Lamar put the Ravens up late in the 4th then the last drive of the game the defense blew it? 

That's not really what happened. I think the losses came from poor defense play in the 4th but also the offense turtling up too early with predictable run calls on 1st and 2nd down. Versus the Steelers Lamar could have blown it open but Lamar threw a late INT in the Steelers red zone, then the D gave up a 41 yard TD to Pickens. I think that one is on Lamar, however this was the game where the Ravens WRs dropped multiple easy TD catches and should have been a blowout by halftime.

33-31 loss vs. Cleveland: Ravens go up 31-17 in 4th quarter
17-10 loss vs Pit: 
22-19 loss vs Ind: Ravens got a safety to go up 19-16 with 2:03 to play, offense run-run-run-punt, Ind FG to go to OT. 

Quote

my point still standing, in two of Allen’s loses this season he had an EPA between 80-100 and still lost. That’s an indictment on the defense. 
If the ravens D was the sole cause then I’ll give those props to Lamar as well I didn’t realize it and that’s my bad. 
edit: I still don’t think you can be the clear cut MVP with his TD numbers but not gonna debate that

I agree that Allen has been awesome and I think he's the better QB, I was just quibbling with one minor point. 
 

[Soko]

5 minutes ago, AFlaccoSeagulls said:

So yeah, other QB's have more touchdowns than Lamar. So what? We're going to punish Lamar for Gus Edwards existing and the Ravens handing the ball off instead of either running Lamar or throwing it now?

It’s an MVP thread. TDs matter, they always have. Not the end-all, but they certainly matter. 

Talking about “punishing” players like this is never not a weird victim mentality that some people take, FFS. No one’s being “punished”, and while we can all debate how heavily things like bulk stats or wins are weighed, I find it pretty undeniable that touchdowns matter quite a bit in the MVP discussion. 

[AngusMcFife]

15 minutes ago, Soko said:

It’s an MVP thread. TDs matter, they always have. Not the end-all, but they certainly matter. 

Talking about “punishing” players like this is never not a weird victim mentality that some people take, FFS. No one’s being “punished”, and while we can all debate how heavily things like bulk stats or wins are weighed, I find it pretty undeniable that touchdowns matter quite a bit in the MVP discussion. 

TDs can be a bit flukey from year to year, however. 

In one of the greatest WR seasons of all time, Calvin Johnson had 1964 yards and a mere 5 TDs. He was tackled at the 1 or 2 yard line 7 times. 

If a player does the bulk of the work to get the ball down to the 1 or 2 yard line and the goal line back punches it in, the player should get "credit" for causing the score even if they don't get the TD. They are most responsible for the score. 

So it takes a bit more nuance than just looking at TD totals to understand the actual impact on the field.