Josh Allen New NFL MVP Favorite Over Tua
The MVP market is ever so fickle, eh?
Through three weeks of the NFL season, national media types — you know the types I'm thinking of — were all but anointing Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa as the standard bearer for the MVP trophy, barring injury.
In most ways, the sentiment wasn't out of malice. The Dolphins had put up the most offensive production out of any team in NFL history through the first three weeks of the season, according to defensive adjusted value over average (DVOA). They led the league — by a substantial margin — in expected points added per play (EPA/play). Miami still leads both those categories through four weeks!
On a softer, less analytically minded note — more toward the thought process of how an AP NFL MVP voter would think — the Dolphins put up 70 points against the Broncos and could've set a record had they kicked a field goal in garbage time instead of kneeling the clock out.
But the MVP market — ever so contingent on team performance and momentum — has thrown out those factors after just one loss. And the market has tilted toward the quarterback that helped do the drubbing.
Bills quarterback Josh Allen is now the prohibitive favorite to win NFL MVP across the marketplace. How quickly does the national consciousness forget about bad performances, so long as you play well.
Allen overcame a four turnover night on primetime against a nerfed Jets team to lead this market. He had fallen to as bad as +1100 after the dud of a Week 1 performance.
The 6-foot-5 gunslinger out of Wyoming is actually tied for second with Tagovailoa at the most important single metric in the MVP race: expected points added per play + completion percentage over expected (EPA/play + CPOE). Curiously, 49ers quarterback Brock Purdy leads the NFL in this category, but he doesn't make the wow plays nor does he have the gaudy stats needed to win this award — at least in his current iteration.
The keys to winning MVP are straightforward: You need to be a quarterback, you need to put up gaudy numbers, your team needs to post 13 or 14 wins and the markets typically love repeat winners.
What do gaudy numbers mean? Over the last 15 seasons, MVP winners have averaged about 285 yards and 2.5 touchdowns per game. Those numbers are even more buoyed if you take out Lamar Jackson and Cam Newton, who racked up numbers on the ground.
And couple that with a win rate of about 14.1 games over a 17-game season. That's, on average, how the last 15 quarterback MVPs (201-41, 83.1 win %) have fared in the regular season. These MVPs have finished as the No. 1 seed 12 of the 15 times, with two times as a No. 2 seed. The only winner outside of these metrics is Peyton Manning in 2008, which may have been a historically bad win.
And unless there's an absolutely standout candidate, this market favors repeat winners. It's not like the NBA, where being the new guy in town helps.
So far, these factors jibe with Allen as the favorite. His most feared repeat winner adversary, Patrick Mahomes, has had a lackluster year, ranking below Russell Wilson and Baker Mayfield in EPA/play + CPOE at seventh overall. Allen has averaged 262 yards with 2.75 TDs per game — to go along with his contributions through the ground — and he hasn't played in the fourth quarter the last three games.
The Bills also have a softer schedule for the next month, hosting the Jaguars in London next week, the Giants at home, at the Patriots and a Thursday night tilt at home vs. the Buccaneers.
The back half of the schedule opens up more difficult opponents, but so long as Allen coasts to victories for the next four weeks, he'll solidify himself as the man to beat heading into November.
