It is almost a given that Aaron Rodgers, Drew Brees, or Tom Brady will be named the NFL’s Most Valuable Player this season. However, to be honest, I’m still not sure which of the three will receive the coveted award. Any one of them deserves it. As a result, I decided to look at each man’s performance this year so that you can decide for yourselves.
1.) Aaron Rodgers, Green Bay Packers
For most of the season, I was on the Rodgers bandwagon. I felt that he was the unanimous choice as the league’s best player and for good reason. He has led the defending Super Bowl champion Packers to an NFL-best 15-1 record. And while his supporting cast is very good, his defense is very suspect. Green Bay often has to simply outscore its opponents, but without Rodgers, it likely would have lost at least a few more games. Having completed 68.3% of his passes for 4,643 yards and 45 touchdowns with just six interceptions while also holding a league-high 122.5 quarterback rating, Rodgers has likely had some Packers fans asking, “Brett who?” The biggest thing working against him, though, may be his own backup, Matt Flynn. In just his second career start against the Detroit Lions, Flynn led the Packers to a 45-41 win, completing 31 of his 44 passes for 480 yards and six touchdowns, both franchise records. To me, this showed that perhaps Rodgers is not quite as important to his team’s success as I previously thought. That could be just a bit of a stretch, though.
2.) Drew Brees, New Orleans Saints
I’m going to go ahead and say that despite all three of the quarterbacks I’m discussing in this article being worthy of the MVP award, if I were forced to choose one of them, Brees would be my pick. He has led the Saints to a 13-3 record and both he and his team have broken numerous records. In a 45-16 victory over the Atlanta Falcons last week on Monday Night Football, Brees broke Dan Marino’s all-time record for most passing yards in a single season (Marino’s record had been 5,084 yards, but Brees easily surpassed that number this year, finishing with 5,476 yards). With 46 touchdowns compared to 14 interceptions as well as a 71.2% completion percentage and a 110.6 quarterback rating, Brees has had a historic season. A few weeks ago I said that with their number one ranked offense, the Saints have a great chance to knock off Green Bay and be the NFC’s representative in the Super Bowl. As with Rodgers, Brees also has a talented supporting cast, but he is the engine that makes his team go. I honestly feel that the Packers would be better without Rodgers than the Saints would be without Brees, which is obviously impossible to determine, but it is my opinion.
3.) Tom Brady, New England Patriots
As a two-time recipient of the MVP award (having won it in 2007 and 2010), Brady is certainly no stranger to being in the upper echelon of quarterbacks, not only in the modern-day NFL, but in terms of the all-time greatest passers to ever play the game. This year has not been Brady’s best and I would even venture to say that he has lost a step or two, which is extremely scary if you really think about it. If you still find yourself in the top tier of NFL signal callers at the age of 34 – a fairly advanced age when it comes to the game of football – you are clearly a special type of athlete. The fact that New England’s defense is the worst in football, combined with the fact that his supporting cast can’t even begin to compare to either Rodgers’ or Brees’, makes Brady’s accomplishments this season all the more impressive. With 5,000-plus passing yards, 39 touchdowns, and 12 interceptions to go along with a 65.6% completion percentage and the league’s third-best quarterback rating (105.6) behind Rodgers and Brees, respectively, Brady has probably meant more to his team than any other single player in the NFL. I would put him in the second slot, just behind Brees, if I was given the opportunity to vote, but I would not be at all shocked if Brady won the award.
If you think that someone else deserves to win the NFL MVP award, I apologize for leaving them off this list. In my eyes, though, these are the three frontrunners, and if anyone besides one of them receives the honor, I will be extremely surprised. Then again, stranger things have happened in sports.
Sources: ESPN.com and NFL.com