The 2018 NFL regular season is now in its final stretch, which means the MVP race is becoming intense. Entering Week 16, here’s a look at the remaining three candidates in the race for the most illustrious individual award in professional football.
1. Kansas City Chiefs QB Patrick Mahomes (last week: 1)
Helping his case: He’s on pace to throw a league-high 51 touchdown passes, he leads the AFC in yards per attempt and passer rating and he does things like this…
Patrick Mahomes' no-look pass. He's just different pic.twitter.com/oZxehCHXbg
— NFL Update (@MySportsUpdate) December 9, 2018
Oh, plus there’s this…
Top three MVP candidates in the fourth quarter of one-score games:
Mahomes: 72.2%, 6 TD, 2 INT, 119.8 rating
Brees: 70.0%, 4 TD, 1 INT, 112.6 rating
Rivers: 75.0%, 1 TD, 0 INT, 106.1 rating
— Brad Gagnon (@Brad_Gagnon) December 18, 2018
Hurting his case: While Brees and Rivers have a combined 15 turnovers, Mahomes has 13 on his own.
2. Los Angeles Chargers QB Philip Rivers (last week: 3)
Helping his case: He just came up huge in a season-changing victory over Mahomes and the Chiefs, and his numbers are right there with Mahomes and Brees for an 11-3 team that is surging.
Hurting his case: Check this out…
Top three MVP candidates on third down:
Brees: 67.9%, 110.3 rating
Mahomes: 62.4%, 106.5 rating
Rivers: 58.1%, 86.1 rating
— Brad Gagnon (@Brad_Gagnon) December 18, 2018
3. New Orleans Saints QB Drew Brees (last week: 2)
Helping his case: He’s the league’s highest-rated passer, he’s on pace to shatter his own single-season record for completion percentage, he’s leading the only two-loss team in football, and he almost never makes mistakes…
Top three MVP candidates, total turnovers:
Mahomes: 13
Rivers: 9
Brees: 6
— Brad Gagnon (@Brad_Gagnon) December 18, 2018
Hurting his case: He’s arguably got more support than the other two guys, and he hasn’t been great down the stretch.
Top three MVP candidates, since Week 13:
Mahomes: 8 TD, 1 INT, 105.2 rating
Rivers: 5 TD, 2 INT, 101.3 rating
Brees: 2 TD, 3 INT, 77.0 rating
— Brad Gagnon (@Brad_Gagnon) December 18, 2018
Brees is the MVP. Mahomes has been a Great success, he has a Great team behind him. He has not proven himself on and off the field as Brees and Rivers have. Mahomes has not been through the years of sacks, loses and hard work/long hours watching films. That being said…Mahomes deserves Rookie of the Year! MVP of his team. I key to his City. MVP of the NFL should be given to a player who has “AFixed his Digits” in the grind of the NFL!