The NFL MVP race was a solo act at the beginning of the season when Tom Brady and the chip on his shoulder were leading the New England Patriots to their second undefeated season in less than a decade.
But now things have changed.
The Patriots have lost two straight, while the Carolina Panthers continue to remain perfect behind the play of their quarterback, Cam Newton, who appears to be the front-runner for the most valuable player award.
The MVP award has been dominated by quarterbacks lately with passers winning in seven of the last eight years, including Brady in 2007 when the Patriots ended the regular season 16-0. So it makes sense to look under center for candidates late in the season.
Newton has thrown for 2,797 yards, 25 touchdowns and 10 interceptions this year, adding another 476 yards and seven touchdowns on the ground, making him one of the NFL’s true dual-threat quarterbacks. His latest masterpiece was on Sunday against the New Orleans Saints, where he threw for 331 yards and five touchdowns, including a bullet to Jerricho Cotchery late in the fourth quarter for the game winner.
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But there are two barriers to Newton’s MVP bid. The first is he isn’t the best player on his own team nor is he the best quarterback in the league.
Let’s start with his own team. The Panthers are undefeated because of their defense as much as their offense. Heading into Week 13, Carolina’s defense ranked second in Football Outsiders’ Defense-adjusted Value Over Average, which measures a team’s efficiency by comparing success on every play to a league average based on situation and opponent. Their offense ranked 10th. Both linebacker Luke Kuechly and defensive tackle Kawann Short have been a large part of that success, and as linchpins of the defense can be thought of as being at least as valuable as Newton, if not more so.
Luke Kuechly is missing a tackle every 41.5 attempts (2MT all year) second highest is KJ wright who misses a tackle every 30 attempts
— PFF (@PFF) December 7, 2015If you are skeptical of that comparison, there is undisputed fact that Newton is not the best player at his position — nor is he close.
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According to ESPN’s Total Quarterback Rating, a statistical measure that incorporates the contexts and details of a quarterback’s play — including their ability to run the ball — and what they mean for wins, Newton is the 12th best quarterback in the NFL (62.7 QBR) . That is somewhat mitigated by his main competition, Brady, ranking 11th (64.5 QBR).
However, there is one quarterback who is better than both while playing for one of the strongest teams in the league: Carson Palmer of the Arizona Cardinals.
Palmer has completed 63.7 percent of his passes for 3,693 yards with a 29 to 9 touchdown-to-interception ratio, giving him the highest QBR in the NFL at 82.6.
If advanced stats aren’t your thing, the game charters at Pro Football Focus assign a grade to each individual play and have Palmer as the highest rated quarterback both now and throughout the season.
More of a traditionalist? Palmer also passes the smell test: he ranks third in passing yards (3,693), second in passing touchdowns (29), third in passer rating (106.0), fifth in yards per game (307.8), second in yards per pass (8.8) and first in yards per completion (13.8). And he is doing it for a 10-2 team that leads their division. It should also be noted that the Cardinals have the highest margin of victory in the NFC and second highest in the NFL after you adjust for strength of schedule, making them 12 points per game better than the average team.
That means on a neutral field we would expect Palmer’s Cardinals to be favored by 4.5 points over Newton’s Panthers (plus-7.5 SRS) and 2.6 points over Brady’s Patriots (plus-9.4 SRS).
So if you think the MVP award should go to the best player, Palmer is certain worthy of the honor. If you think it should go to the player who has had the best season, Palmer fits there, too. Either way, Palmer needs to be mentioned more in the conversation.
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