Image: AP
Patrick Mahomes. Joe Burrow. Jalen hurts. Josh Allen. One of those four quarterbacks has a chance to do something that hasn’t been done in 23 years – win the MVP and the Super Bowl in the same year.
Many people in the sports world still believe that the MVP should go to the best player on the best team. I have no idea how the award got such an accolade, but for some reason a lot of fans still cling to it as if it wasn’t the dumbest saying in all of esports. That may be the award for individual football games, and that’s why we have the Super Bowl MVP award. However, this does not apply to a seasonal MVP title.
Not since Kurt Warner
History also confirms my argument. As I mentioned earlier, NFL honorees have a very difficult time in the Super Bowl, especially MVP winners. Since Kurt Warner won both the Super Bowl and the MVP award in 1999/2000, zero players have accomplished this feat. none! Many have tried and even come very close. MVPs have reached the Super Bowl nine times since Warner pulled off the feat. However, they are a miserable 0-9. Funnily enough, some of these MVPs won the Super Bowl the following season. Mahomes won the award in 2018 and won the 2019 Super Bowl. Tom Brady won the 2017 MVP, lost to Nick Foles in the Super Bowl, and then won the big game the following year against Jared Goff and the Los Angeles Rams. The closest thing to breaking the streak was 2016 NFL MVP Matt Ryan, who led 28-3 in the Super Bowl but blew the lead and lost to Brady’s Patriots in overtime.
Who’s next?
So could the streak be broken in 2023? There’s a pretty good chance. The MVP leader is none other than Patrick Mahomes. He’s the top seed in the AFC and, while unsure of home field advantage in the playoffs, has proven once before that he can lead his team to a Super Bowl victory. Even without Tyreek Hill, the Chiefs’ offense is fiendish and rivals any other team in the league, although opposing defense is also among the best in the NFL. However, there’s still a chance that Cincinnati’s Joe Burrow, Buffalo’s Josh Allen, or Philadelphia’s Jalen Hurts will take home the honors. They each have the second, third and fourth best odds.
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Of course there can only be one
That’s half of all teams that still have a chance to win it all and let their quarterback win the Super Bowl. That looks like a pretty good chance, don’t you think? In reality, however, the odds are not as great as you might think. Since only one of those names is a quarterback in the NFC (and he has the worst MVP ratings of the bunch), there’s only a 25 percent chance we’ll see an MVP candidate coming out of the NFC. While the AFC is loaded with these MVP quarterbacks, only one can show up to represent their conference. The best scenario for breaking this curse would be if Mahomes and the Chiefs faced Hurts and the Eagles. However, assuming that neither Allen nor Burrow take the hardware home. Still, the right quarterback would have to win.
It would be a miracle if everything came together so perfectly this year, but this could be our best chance to break the winning streak. I can’t remember the last time we got all legitimate MVP candidates through to the Divisional Round. That should be celebrated in and of itself. However, even now, seeing the MVP win the Super Bowl seems an astronomically unlikely event.
