Every NFL season is weird in its own way, but the 2023 campaign has delivered one of the strangest MVP races in league memory. With five weeks and one game to go, it doesn't feel like there's a clear favorite or even a strong short list of qualified candidates. So many of the league's top quarterbacks are either injured (Aaron Rodgers, Joe Burrow) or declined from what they did a year ago (Patrick Mahomes, Josh Allen). Justin Jefferson, the No. 1 pick in fantasy drafts, has been sidelined for most of the season. There's no dominant pass-rusher blowing away the rest of the competition or a back on pace for record-setting numbers.
Instead, MVP voting that is almost exclusively limited to quarterbacks on successful teams by early December has had to stay open to other options. Even now, with little more than a month to go, it still feels like somebody unexpected could put together a burst of great football to end the season and sneak away with the trophy. There are holes to poke in the résumés of many of the top candidates and reasonable questions about whether those teams are being driven by something outside of their quarterback.
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Today, let's expand the scope and think about the MVP race differently. With no great conventional quarterback, I'm going to discuss the unconventional candidates. I'll break down stars who play positions that don't normally win the award, playmakers on pace to set records, defenders who are changing the game with big plays and quarterbacks whose profiles did not attract serious MVP consideration before the season. While most people would pick a quarterback to win MVP before the season begins, just about nobody was picking these quarterbacks.
I'll begin there in Dallas, where you haven't heard much chatter about the incumbent being benched for Trey Lance recently:
Jump to a candidate:
Jessie Bates III | DaRon Bland
Tyreek Hill | Jason Kelce
Christian McCaffrey | Dak Prescott
C.J. Stroud | T.J. Watt | Trent Williams
Dak Prescott, QB, Dallas Cowboys
Before the season: An above-average quarterback without a superstar ceiling
Now: The hottest quarterback in the game
Very few quarterbacks would qualify as unlikely MVP candidates, given how frequently they win the award. Among veteran passers, though, Prescott was getting virtually no MVP buzz or chatter over the offseason, which was instead dominated by naive concerns over his 2022 interception rate. His interception rate has regressed back to his prior career mean, and while he had been pigeonholed as a solid quarterback who would never compete with the likes of Mahomes and Allen for serious hardware, that's changing fast.
For half a season now, Prescott has been the league's best quarterback by a considerable margin. Since the Week 6 win over the Chargers, he has a 79.8 QBR. The second-placed quarterback is Trevor Lawrence (68.2), who is closer to C.J. Stroud in 12th place over that stretch than he is to Prescott in first. Prescott leads all quarterbacks in passing yards over that run with 2,173, and he has thrown for 22 touchdowns against just two picks, one of which was a drop by his receivers.
Prefer a different stat? Dak probably leads there, too. He has averaging 10 adjusted yards per attempt and 8.9 adjusted net yards per attempt, both of which top the NFL over that stretch. He is No. 1 in a traditional metric such as passer rating (121.5, more than 10 points ahead of anyone else) and expected points added (EPA) per dropback (0.31, which is right where Matt Ryan was during his 2016 MVP season).
Has he played what would generally be considered weaker competition over that stretch? Sure. The Cowboys have faced the Chargers, Rams, Eagles, Giants, Panthers, Commanders and Seahawks. Not exactly the 1985 Bears, but Prescott has been a lot better than against those teams than other passers. The average non-Dak quarterback has a 52.7 QBR against those defenses this season. Prescott is at 81.7.
The Cowboys have gone 6-1 over that stretch. Naturally, their one loss was to the Eagles, who are alongside the 49ers as the two teams Prescott and the Cowboys need to overcome to prove they're worthy of being considered as one of the best teams in football. Could we really argue Prescott was anything but spectacular in that game, though? He threw for 374 yards and three touchdowns on 44 attempts and should have had a fourth, only for Luke Schoonmaker to end up inches short of the end zone. He got the Cowboys inside the 10-yard line with 27 seconds to go, only for a false start and a sack by Josh Sweat around Terence Steele to push Dallas into a hopeless situation. Even then, Prescott still managed to find CeeDee Lamb inside the 4-yard line, only for the play and game to stall there.
That cutoff admittedly starts after the 49ers game, which was Prescott's one truly awful game this season, as he threw three interceptions in a 42-10 defeat. In the MVP race, that loss will linger. At the same time, that cutoff also excludes three blowout victories by the Cowboys, including one against the Jets. While Gang Green isn't a good team, it does have a very good defense. And Prescott had the best game all season against those Jets; his 90.1 QBR was the best against New York by 15 points. Mahomes is the only other quarterback this season to top a QBR of 57 against Robert Saleh's defense.
Overall, even including that 49ers game over the full season, Prescott's 75.6 QBR is tied with Brock Purdy for the league's best mark. He ranks second to Purdy in EPA per dropback and passer rating, but he also shoulders a larger workload. He's throwing 34.3 passes per game to Purdy's 27.7 attempts per contest.
Most impressively, Prescott is leading the league in completion percentage over expected (CPOE) at plus-5.2%, despite enduring the league's highest drop rate at 6.1%. His CPOE on plays that don't end in a drop across the entirety of 2023 is a wildly impressive plus-9.7%, comfortably the best mark in football. His ball placement is otherworldly right now; my favorite throw of his from the Seahawks game was a drop by Lamb on a howitzer that split two defenders and hit the star wideout in the hands:
My favorite Dak throw from last night might have been an incompletion. Splits double coverage and hits Lamb right in the hands! pic.twitter.com/N7RaMePI4S
— Bill Barnwell (@billbarnwell) December 1, 2023
We're also seeing coach Mike McCarthy lean into Prescott and the passing attack to drive Dallas' success. Before its Week 7 bye, McCarthy threw just under 57% of the time on early downs in neutral game scripts, which was the 11th-most pass-heavy lean in the league. Since the bye, McCarthy & Co. have upped that to 65.5%. Only the Bengals have been more pass-heavy. The Cowboys are reaping the benefits.
Does he have a shot at winning the real MVP award? Absolutely. He's still a quarterback, and while popular perception had pegged Prescott as something closer to a game manager than a superstar before the 2023 season, it isn't as if the starting quarterback for the Cowboys is going to fly underneath the radar. He just won back-to-back prime-time games with big performances, and they have prime-time games against the Eagles and Lions in the weeks to come to go along with likely shootouts against the Bills and Dolphins on the road. If Prescott wins those games and continues to produce gaudy numbers, he's going to be the favorite, let alone a candidate.
What could he do to get in serious contention? Win. MVPs almost always win their divisions, with Adrian Peterson's 2012 season as a rare exception. It's difficult to imagine Prescott beating out Jalen Hurts as an MVP candidate if the Cowboys lose to the Eagles next week and finish the season as a wild-card team in the NFC. Dallas could land the top spot in the conference if it beats the Eagles, wins out and gets the 49ers to slip up at least once before the end of the season. A division title and five more games at this level of play probably would be enough for Prescott to win MVP, but if he lands the top seed in the conference for the Cowboys for the first time since 2016? Get the hardware ready.
If Prescott doesn't enter the MVP race, maybe another unexpected Cowboys player could qualify ...
DaRon Bland, CB, Dallas Cowboys
Before the season: Rotational cornerback
Now: The most dangerous cornerback in football
Thursday night's game against the Seahawks was a good encapsulation of both why Bland started the season as Dallas' third cornerback and how he has become must-see weekly television. The Seahawks picked on Bland early in the contest, with Geno Smith clearly comfortable throwing in the direction of the second-year cornerback. Seattle had some success, with DK Metcalf beating him for a pair of touchdowns, but he also got his. He picked off an out to Tyler Lockett, setting up the Cowboys' offense with a short field.
Of course, the ratio between offensive and defensive touchdowns with Bland is usually lopsided in the other direction. Bland has allowed six touchdowns this season, but he has more than made up for that by intercepting a league-high eight passes. He has taken five of those passes to the house, which is a single-season NFL record. Perhaps more spectacularly, it's a career Cowboys record, which is an impressive feat to accomplish with five games still to go in your second season.
Bland intercepted five passes while playing 52% of Dallas' defensive snaps as a rookie, but the trade to acquire Stephon Gilmore from the Colts was expected to push him into a nickel or dime role. Things changed when the Cowboys lost Trevon Diggs, a stylistically similar corner, for the season with a torn ACL. Diggs is also a gambler, but losing a 25-year-old cornerback coming off consecutive Pro Bowl appearances looked like a potential weak spot for this defense.
Instead, Bland has entered the lineup full time and done an even better impression of his interception-happy predecessor. While he does give up the occasional big play, the value of his interceptions more than counters his rougher stretches. As the nearest defender in coverage per NFL Next Gen Stats, Bland has generated 36.3 EPA for the Cowboys. The second-best defender by that measure, Browns cornerback Denzel Ward, is closer to Darious Williams in 14th place than he is to Bland in first.
To put that in context, if we're just considering impact as a passer (without any running or scrambling), C.J. Stroud ranks sixth in the league this season with 41.6 passing EPA. Justin Herbert is seventh at 32.5. Bland would slot in between those two, at least in terms of his core impact as a pass defender.
Does he have a shot at winning the real MVP award? Not really. No cornerback has ever won league MVP, in part because they don't get to control the football. Truly great corners are so terrifying that teams simply won't throw in their direction. Bland is good enough to accomplish everything he has done this season, but he's also not so threatening that teams would rather just throw at Gilmore.
At the same time, though, if there was ever going to be a cornerback who was worthy of winning MVP, wouldn't they be having a season like Bland's? Bland has nearly caught as many passes and taken them to the end zone as the entire Jets team. He already has set a single-season record for pick-sixes. He's probably not the best cornerback in football, but what could a cornerback realistically do to be more productive?
What could he do to get in serious contention? Go on a touchdown spree. The Cowboys would need to win down the stretch and claim the 1-seed in the NFC. Prescott would need to struggle, and Bland would probably need at least two or three pick-sixes against the Eagles, Bills, Dolphins and Lions to make his case.
Tyreek Hill, WR, Miami Dolphins
Before the season: A great wide receiver coming off a career year
Now: A dominant wide receiver in the middle of one of the great seasons in league history
You know you're good when you're lapping the league and taking the fourth quarter off to rest and relax. In the middle of yet another monster game during a blowout victory for the Dolphins on Sunday, Hill racked up four catches for 152 yards and two scores before halftime. After a 5-yard catch in the third quarter, his day was done. He played just one snap in the fourth quarter. He averages 12 offensive snaps per quarter through the first 45 minutes of football and is closer to half that during the final stanza, owing to the games in which he and Tua Tagovailoa have done so much damage by the fourth quarter that things have been turned over to Mike White and Miami's second-string receivers.
Despite those breaks, Hill is on another level from the rest of the league. His 1,481 receiving yards through 12 games are 299 yards ahead of the second-place wideout, Dallas' CeeDee Lamb. Hill leads the league in receiving touchdowns with 12. He has a dozen more first downs as a receiver than anybody else. His 152-yard performance Sunday was his fifth 150-plus yard game of the season, tying him for the NFL record with four other players, most recently Antonio Brown in 2017. He'll have five chances to try to set the record, including a game against the pass-friendly Titans next week in Miami.
What Hill is doing on a snap-by-snap and route-by-route basis is unprecedented in recent history. ESPN has route data going back through 2007, and Hill is blowing away the competition. Over that 17-season sample, just a handful of players have averaged more than 3.0 yards per route run. He averaged 3.33 yards per route run with the Dolphins last season, which was the second-best mark over that 17-year span. The No. 1 mark was a huge outlier: Steve Smith averaged 3.88 yards per route run for the Panthers in 2008, going for 1,421 yards in an offense that threw the ball only 26 times per game.
Hill is averaging 4.45 yards per route run. It's a barely comprehensible number. You know how De'Von Achane is averaging 9.5 yards per carry because he's been hurt for most of the season and spiked a bunch of big runs when was on the field? Well, imagine if he did that all season while ranking among the league's most-used backs. That's what Hill is doing as a wide receiver. Players are not supposed to be able to do that for three months.
Can we say Hill is having the greatest season by a wide receiver in NFL history? Not yet. He has 93 catches for 1,481 yards and 12 scores across his first 12 games. In the strike-impacted 1986 season, Jerry Rice played 12 games and had 65 catches for 1,078 yards and 22 touchdowns, which stood as the league record for receiving touchdowns in a season before Randy Moss topped it in 16 games during the 2007 campaign. We don't have advanced data for that season -- and Hill obviously has more catches and yards through 12 games -- but 22 touchdowns in 12 games is the sort of outlier performance we might never see again.
Then again, Hill is on his way to do some things we've never seen before, too. With the benefit of a 17th game, he's on pace to rack up 2,098 receiving yards, which would both set the single-season receiving record by 134 yards and make him the first wideout in league history to have 2,000 yards in a single season. The extra game helps, but he's on pace for 1,975 yards through 16 games, which would narrowly put him ahead of Calvin Johnson's single-season mark of 1,964 yards. And if Hill really wants to set the record in 16 games, the Dolphins shouldn't have much trouble keeping him in for a few extra plays late in games to get him to the record without any controversy.
Hill has to continue producing at this level, and he needs to stay healthy. The former Chiefs star has already battled ankle and knee injuries this season. While he produced last season when Tagovailoa was injured, you would have to figure his best chance of topping 2,000 yards would require his starting quarterback to stay on the field for the remainder of the year, too.
Does he have a shot at winning the real MVP award? Absolutely. If there was ever a window for a wide receiver to win MVP, it's right now. We love round numbers. The last time a non-quarterback won MVP was 2012, when Adrian Peterson topped 2,000 yards, came within 3 yards of 2,100 and dragged a Vikings team with no business of advancing to the postseason into the playoffs with a dominant three months of football. He had eight 100-yard games in a row and games with 210, 212, and 199 rushing yards in December to get the Vikings in as a wild-card team.
When the league moved to the 17-game schedule, it increased the chances a wide receiver would both set the single-season receiving record and become the first receiver in league history to top 2,000 yards in a campaign. Whoever did that was going to have a unique case as a possible MVP candidate beyond their raw production.
Even with that résumé, it was going to take a unique set of circumstances. Johnson didn't sniff an MVP award when he set the single-season record in 2012 because he was playing for a 4-12 Lions team. (In fact, I had to argue at the time that Johnson wasn't simply racking up useless stats in garbage time.) The Dolphins are in command of the AFC East at 9-3 and currently hold the top seed in the AFC after the Chiefs lost Sunday night, so no issues with competitiveness there.
Most significantly, any wide receiver who got to 2,000 yards was going to have a quarterback throwing him the football to get there, and the league is usually going to give those quarterbacks more credit for racking up those yards than his receivers. Rice won 30 votes in 1987, but when Joe Montana won back-to-back MVP awards in 1988 and 1989, Rice received only one vote to Montana's 88. Rice received 26 votes between 1993 and 1995, but Steve Young received 74 votes to Rice's one when the lefty took home the hardware in 1994. The only wide receiver since the turn of the century to take home a single first-place vote was Cooper Kupp's lone nod in 2019.
While Tagovailoa is playing very good football and has the Dolphins in position to earn a first-round bye, I don't get the sense there's the same sort of appetite to hand him MVP votes ahead of Hill. Tagovailoa's yard efficiency stats, passer rating and QBR are all down from their high-water marks in 2022. Jaylen Waddle is having a solid season, but his numbers are also down from where they were last season. Raheem Mostert has scored a ton of touchdowns and Achane has been devastating when healthy, but it really feels like Hill is the key that unlocks this offense's ceiling. And while he's a better route runner than public perception, his speed is an easy story to sell.
What could he do to get in serious contention? Set records. Hill won't win MVP unless his receiving yardage total starts with a "2." Get the single-season receiving record, become the first receiver in history with 2,000 yards in one season and come up with big names when the Dolphins are trying to hold onto the top seed in the conference down the stretch. Everybody will be watching when Hill plays the Cowboys in Week 16 and Dolphins in Week 17. Would back-to-back 200-yard games make him the favorite?
Christian McCaffrey, RB, San Francisco 49ers
Before the season: A wildly impactful but injury-prone running back coming off a special half-season
Now: A true position-transcending playmaker driving one of the league's best offenses
McCaffrey is the closest I can come to cheating on this list. If you were looking at the running back class before the season and had to pick one player to win MVP, you probably would have chosen him. And while he has been the NFL's best back, he's not on pace to set a single-season record in the way that Hill is at wide receiver.
At the same time, McCaffrey is comfortably ahead of the rest of the competition at his position. He's nearly 200 rushing yards ahead of the second-placed back, Tennessee's Derrick Henry. Fantasy football shouldn't be how we judge running backs, but fantasy production does do a decent job of encapsulating what a back is producing. McCaffrey is averaging 24.6 PPR points per game this season; among backs who haven't missed significant time, he's a full touchdown ahead of the second-place back behind him, Miami's Raheem Mostert, who is averaging 17.9 points per contest. Mostert is closer to Jaylen Warren in 19th than he is to McCaffrey.
In addition to leading the league in rushing and scoring plenty of touchdowns, McCaffrey remains in rarified air as a receiver. More than just about any other back outside of Austin Ekeler, he is a legitimately dangerous playmaker in the passing game as opposed to a piece on screens and checkdowns. He is averaging 1.6 yards per route run this season, which ranks fourth among backs with 150 routes run or more. It was telling in Sunday's win over Philadelphia that the Eagles were focused on doubling McCaffrey at times in the passing game, even if it meant one-on-ones for Deebo Samuel or George Kittle.
At the moment, McCaffrey leads all running backs in both rushing yards and receiving yards. Only four players have done that over a full season since the 1970 merger: Lydell Mitchell with the Colts in 1977, Herschel Walker for the 1987 Cowboys, Arian Foster with the 2010 Texans, and ... McCaffrey, who pulled off the feat for the 2019 Panthers. Those Panthers went 5-11, but the 2023 49ers are 9-3 and just blew out the top-seeded Eagles to gain a measure of revenge for last season's NFC Championship Game.
Does he have a shot at winning the real MVP award? A slim one. McCaffrey is on pace to finish with 1,462 rushing yards and 607 receiving yards, so while those numbers would be impressive and competitive with Hill for the league lead in yardage from scrimmage, I don't believe he would win the MVP based solely on his performance racking up yardage for the 49ers.
MVP awards in contested cases are a product of both statistics and story. His impact in transforming the 49ers' offense after arriving via trade from the Panthers last year was well documented. He turned around an offense that had been inconsistent under Trey Lance and Jimmy Garoppolo and then helped sustain and even further improve that offense once Brock Purdy took over the job.
Purdy has a legitimate MVP case, which could split the vote with McCaffrey, but the quarterback's draft status and the story we saw unfold with McCaffrey last season will matter in the real race. You can't give McCaffrey the award for fixing the offense last season, but voters could be swayed by that idea and believe a great San Francisco offense is much more dependent on McCaffrey being on the field than Purdy or any of the other playmakers in the attack.
What could he do to get in serious contention? Score lots of touchdowns. The backs who have won MVPs over the past 25 years are Peterson, Marshall Faulk, LaDainian Tomlinson and Shaun Alexander, all of whom posted huge outlier numbers in one place or another, but usually in the end zone. Tomlinson scored 31 touchdowns. Alexander nabbed 28. Faulk scored 26. Peterson only scored 13, but he nearly got to 2,100 yards.
McCaffrey gets to play a 17th game, which will help boost his numbers in relation to the competition. He's on pace to score 24 scrimmage touchdowns, which would put him at least in the ballpark of those legendary backs. I'm not sure 24 would get him the hardware, but with 17 touchdowns in 12 games, could he get to 30? Tomlinson scored an NFL-record 16 in a five-game span during his MVP season in 2006. More recently, Todd Gurley had 12 in a five-game span during the 2017 campaign. If McCaffrey gets to 30 -- or makes a run toward that figure over the final five games of the season -- it would represent his best chance at dominating the San Francisco conversation and drawing serious MVP consideration over Purdy.
C.J. Stroud, QB, Houston Texans
Before the season: A rookie quarterback
Now: A franchise-altering superstar
Rookies just don't win the MVP award. While Mahomes and Kurt Warner both won it during their first meaningful seasons of playing time, the last actual rookie to win league MVP was Jim Brown in 1957. Prescott and Ezekiel Elliott both received votes in 2016, but it's rare for rookies to receive more than a token vote or two, and even that comes about once per decade. With Stroud coming off the board after Bryce Young in the draft and entering a situation that didn't appear to have great playmakers, the chances he would take a leap into the MVP race in 2023 seemed remote.
Well, that has changed. Stroud has been a revelation, pushing the ball downfield while continuously making smart, deliberate choices as a passer. While he has been very effective out of the pocket, his ability to improvise has led to some Mahomes-esque trick shots, including a boot play in Sunday's win over Denver that led to a physics-defying completions. He also has overcome the absence of different key players at one point or another, including left tackle Laremy Tunsil and starting running back Dameon Pierce.
Stroud started Sunday's game without tight end Dalton Schultz and finished it without fellow breakout rookie Tank Dell, who fractured his fibula while blocking and will miss the remainder of the season. Dell's rookie season might have been even more shocking than Stroud's, but Stroud continued to excel. He found Nico Collins nine times for 191 yards and a touchdown against Denver, including catches of 39, 52 and 59 yards. Collins had just one play for more than 30 yards across his first two NFL seasons before that game.
Stroud has broken so many of the rules and expectations teams put as prerequisites for young quarterbacks to thrive. He doesn't have a veteran No. 1 receiver or an elite running game. His offensive line is solid, but it's been banged up all season. The Texans don't have him running a limited version of their offense or throwing quick game all day to avoid the pass rush. They don't limit him to screens and draws on third-and-long to avoid mistakes and turnovers. He's a big-game hunter, and the Texans trust him like he's a 10-year pro, perhaps because he looks like one most weeks.
The results have also been exhilarating. Stroud led the Texans back from a four-point deficit with 46 seconds to go to score a game-winning touchdown against the Bucs. The following week, he led a two-minute drill to get in position for a tiebreaking kick against the Bengals. On Sunday, his touchdown pass early in the fourth quarter gave Houston a two-possession lead and eventually served as the winning score.
Stroud's numbers aren't extraordinary, but they're way ahead of even the loftiest expectations for a rookie on the Texans. He ranks 12th in QBR. More impressively, he's averaging 8.5 yards per attempt, which is the third-highest mark in football. He's third in adjusted net yards per attempt and fifth in EPA per dropback. QBR knocks him for a below-average completion percentage (62.2%), in part because he has the fifth-highest off-target throw percentage in the league. Of course, any team would trade a few off-target throws for all the stuff Stroud accomplishes off-schedule.
Does he have a shot at winning the real MVP award? Yes. Stroud is a quarterback, so no special positional justification or record-setting numbers are needed. There are other quarterbacks with better numbers, but I certainly believe there's a perception that he does more with less than the likes of Purdy or Tagovailoa, his fellow quarterbacks under Kyle Shanahan and Shanahan disciples from San Francisco. That could factor into voting if there's no clear candidate.
Also, doing something nobody has done in more than 60 years is cool. Stroud is way ahead of expectations as a rookie, and that breakout hits harder than it would if he had been pretty good for four seasons and then had this sort of year in his fifth. He has been a bona fide star for virtually the entire season. He's going to be a fun candidate to vote for if he can build a competitive résumé with the top candidates.
What could he do to get in serious contention? Reclaim the South. The Texans were in great shape to take first place in the AFC South and lock up the tiebreaker with the rival Jaguars in Week 12, but a late comeback by Stroud and a 58-yard field goal by Matt Ammendola came up about a foot short in a 24-21 defeat. Now the Jaguars have a 1.5-game lead heading into the Monday night matchup with the Bengals and hold most of the tiebreakers if the two teams do line up with identical records when things are said and done.
Since his numbers aren't otherworldly, Stroud would need to win the division to have a strong case at getting significant MVP attention. Picking up another game with five to go isn't impossible, especially given the Texans have the Jets, Browns, and a home-and-home with the Titans before a season-ending tilt with the Colts. In addition to a Ravens victory over the Jaguars in Week 14, the Texans will need at least one other team to upset Trevor Lawrence & Co. to have a shot at retaking the South.
T.J. Watt, OLB, Pittsburgh Steelers
Before the season: A great edge rusher coming off an injury-marred 2022 season
Now: The hidden calculus keeping a hopeless Steelers team afloat
A lot of the players on this list had exciting performances in victories this week. We can't say the same for Watt. While he certainly wasn't holding back the Steelers, he had a quiet day by his lofty standards, racking up a half-sack and tackle for loss amid brutal conditions in a 24-10 loss to Arizona. He left the game with an injury on a pass rush in which he appeared to be held before returning, and afterward, he chalked up the non-call to an NFL agenda. Without getting into the realities of how often both he and other star pass-rushers are held and how that's a leaguewide issue as opposed to a local one, let's just say it wasn't a fun day.
The upset loss dropped the Steelers to 7-5, a record that would only be possible by virtue of what Watt has accomplished for the team. The Steelers have been outscored by 37 points through 12 games and fielded an offense so bad they fired coordinator Matt Canada at midseason. Their defense is good, but it isn't a suffocating unit; it ranks 11th in points allowed per drive and 10th in EPA per dropback. Above-average defense and terrible offense is something like this year's Saints, who are 5-7.
Pittsburgh's defense is second in the NFL in win probability added behind the Ravens, though, which tells you how they've timed their big plays. Watt has been at the heart of several of those big plays. The Steelers probably aren't 7-5 if it's not for Watt's ability to change games for his team:
In Week 2, Watt recovered a bouncing Deshaun Watson fumble and took it 22 yards to the house in the fourth quarter for the game-winning touchdown. The Steelers' D scored two of the team's three touchdowns in a 26-22 victory.
In Week 3, a Watt pressure led to a Jimmy Garoppolo interception that set up the Steelers for a field goal in what ended up as a five-point Steelers win.
In Week 5, with the Ravens driving and 1:44 to go in a four-point game, Watt recovered another fumble and returned it 18 yards, setting up a 42-yard field goal that gave the Steelers a seven-point lead. Watt then sacked Lamar Jackson on the fourth down that ended the game.
In Week 7, with the Steelers trailing 9-3 after halftime, Watt intercepted Matthew Stafford on the first play of the third quarter. He returned it 24 yards to the Los Angeles 7-yard line, setting up a Steelers offense that had 65 net yards on six drives in the first half with a much-needed short field. Najee Harris plunged in for Pittsburgh's first touchdown of the game in what would eventually become a 24-17 victory.
While Watt is not single-handedly winning his team games like Minkah Fitzpatrick did in the opener against the Bengals a year ago, he has played an essential role in some close contests. That's in addition to what he does on a snap-by-snap basis, a résumé which includes 14 sacks, three forced fumbles, 45 initial pressures and five batted passes. Watt ranks second in sacks behind Khalil Mack, who added two in Sunday's shutout win over the Patriots.
Does he have a shot at winning the real MVP award? Yes, but he's a long shot. It's clear that just about everyone realizes the Steelers are winning despite themselves most weeks. Watt is the best player on the team and the most conspicuous argument for this team contending outside of coach Mike Tomlin. The Steelers have lost two of three, but with the Patriots, Colts and a Joe Burrow-less Bengals team to come, Pittsburgh should be able to get back on track and solidify at least a wild-card berth. (Then again, beating the Cardinals in Pittsburgh felt like a pretty easy task, too.)
If the Steelers were going to be the top seed in the AFC and were fielding a legendary defense, Watt would have a viable path toward at least competing for a title. Keep in mind, though, that older brother J.J. put up some of the most incredible seasons we've ever seen from a pass-rusher, pushed Texans teams with Matt Schaub and Brian Hoyer at quarterback into the postseason and still received only 13 first-place votes for MVP, all of which came in 2014. Outside of Bobby Wagner, who received an MVP vote that season despite missing five games, no defensive player has taken home a single first-place nod since. Being a great defender is not enough.
What could he do to get in serious contention? Set the record. J.J. Watt's vote-garnering season included 20.5 sacks, 51 knockdowns, an 80-yard pick six and five fumble recoveries, one of which produced a second score. When T.J. racked up 22.5 sacks and a league-high 21 tackles for loss in 2021, it didn't engender serious MVP consideration, even in a season in which Aaron Rodgers won his second consecutive award almost by default.
For T.J. or any other pass-rusher to win an MVP award, they'll need to directly drive victories for their team, help push them to a division title or successful season as a wild card and set records. Watt tied Michael Strahan's single-season sack record two years ago, but he wasn't able to top it. While it happened in a 17-game season, his 22.5 sacks came over 15 games, as he missed two games and chunks of two more with injuries. A healthy Watt likely sets the record.
Getting to 23 sacks and toppling Strahan probably wouldn't be enough. Twenty-five sacks and a key play or two down the stretch to get Pittsburgh into the playoffs? I don't think that would get him over the hump, but it would get him in the conversation. My guess is that a pass-rusher is probably going to have to make a real run at 30 sacks in a season to win MVP, and even with the extra game, the chances of that happening are slim.
Jessie Bates III, S, Atlanta Falcons
Before the season: A valuable free agent addition, as much for his ability to reset the culture as his on-field talent
Now: Might swing the division to the Falcons and send the rival Saints into exile
With all due respect to Watt and what he has done in Pittsburgh, Bates might have an even stronger case for his big plays in Atlanta. In a season in which the Falcons offense and their curious personnel choices have been the primary topic of discussion, the most important player on their roster has been their big free agent addition from the Bengals.
The 6-6 Falcons aren't blowing anybody away, but in a division in which eight wins might be enough to win, Bates could be the reason they get a home playoff game for the first time since the 2016 NFC title game. With an offense ranked 25th in EPA per play flailing for both consistency and reason, he has been an essential driver of both turnovers and big plays on the defensive side of the ball.
This started in the opener, when the Falcons hosted the Panthers. Bates announced himself to his new city with a pair of interceptions of Bryce Young on virtually identical plays. He threw in a forced fumble for good measure. The three takeaways handed Desmond Ridder and the offense three short fields and directly set up their first 17 points of the game in what would eventually be a 24-10 Falcons victory. Bates deservedly won Defensive Player of the Week.
Fast forward to Week 12. With the Saints driving into the red zone in the first quarter to potentially take a 10-0 lead, Bates flipped the script and didn't even need the offense's help. He jumped a Derek Carr pass and returned it 92 yards for a touchdown, resulting in what could have been as big as a 14-point swing. The Falcons eventually won 24-15 on a day in which the Saints produced a grand total of two net points on five trips to the end zone.
This week, with the Jets around midfield in a game where field position and turnovers were what mattered, Bates made another big play. On a play in which Garrett Wilson separated from his cornerback and appeared to be open for a big gain, Bates came out of the deep middle of the field and beat Wilson to the sideline for a pick. Admittedly, it wasn't a great throw from Tim Boyle, who was benched after the interception for Trevor Siemian, but it was a play that needed to be made. The Jets would have been on the edge of field goal range if Wilson had brought in the pass, and that would have changed the endgame in what would remain a 13-8 Falcons victory.
In addition, even without the big plays, Bates has been a difference-maker. He ranks third among defensive backs with 92 tackles and is third behind Bland and Geno Stone with five picks. Bates and Fred Warner are the only players with at least three interceptions and three forced fumbles this season; when you're in a group with the best middle linebacker in the league, that's good company.
With Bates patrolling in center field, the Falcons rank second in QBR allowed, up all the way from 28th a year ago. The 2022 team was 27th in QBR allowed when opposing quarterbacks weren't pressured and the coverage had to hold up; this season's Falcons defense is fifth in the same category.
It's impossible to pin all of that on Bates, but let's just notice what's happened without him in Cincinnati. The Bengals were a respectable 10th in the league in QBR allowed when they didn't get pressure in 2022. With Bates in Atlanta, Cincinnati has dropped all the way to 31st in QBR without pressure this season. Only the Cardinals are worse.
Does he have a shot at winning the real MVP award? No. Bates is having an extremely impactful season, but if flashy (and brilliant) safeties like Ed Reed and Troy Polamalu weren't winning the award, it's going to be tough for Bates. He should be an All-Pro candidate, though.
What could he do to get in serious contention? Start playing offense. With one touchdown, Bates has as many scores this season as tight end Kyle Pitts. He also has touched the ball eight times through interceptions and forced fumbles, which would be a good month for Pitts given his usage. Playing and catching passes ahead of Pitts and Drake London would infuriate fantasy owners, but it would likely thrill coach Arthur Smith.
Jason Kelce, C, Philadelphia Eagles, and Trent Williams, LT, San Francisco 49ers
Before the season: Future Hall of Fame linemen in their mid-30s
Now: Essential players for two entirely different reasons
Let's finish with two offensive linemen in different situations. I'll begin with Kelce, who has become a TV pitchman and successful podcaster over the past year. Before that, the longtime Eagles stalwart was simply regarded as one of the best centers in league history; he would have been a strong candidate for Canton even before becoming known to many millions around the world as Travis' brother.
In addition to all he does as a blocker in Philadelphia's diverse, often-overwhelming ground game, Kelce already plays an essential role in a successful marriage: the Eagles and their ability to succeed in short yardage. While Jalen Hurts' squat strength is the most oft-discussed statistic around the Tush Push, Kelce must surely also have an impact on making the play work. While his best asset for years has been his speed and quickness as a puller, he has become an essential part of the cheat code that propels the Eagles' offense forward in key situations. Philadelphia even converted a Tush Push with Marcus Mariota on Sunday while Hurts was being evaluated for a concussion, albeit while down 22 points in the fourth quarter.
And while Hurts undoubtedly plays a more essential role in the offense and would get the MVP consideration here, Kelce's ability in the run game has helped revitalize D'Andre Swift's career, too. Despite playing behind a great line in Detroit, Swift is averaging 3.2 yards before first contact this season, up from 2.9 yards per contact.
Williams might have a clearer case for value. With the mammoth left tackle in the fold to start the season, the 49ers won five straight games. He then got hurt during the Browns game, and while he returned to the fold during that tilt, the 49ers missed him in what would be a 19-17 Cleveland victory. Williams then sat out the next two games, where the 49ers often looked disjointed on offense, before returning to the lineup. They've averaged more than 33 points per game over that stretch, winning all four of their games, most notably a blowout victory over the Eagles on Sunday.
While Brandon Aiyuk, George Kittle and Deebo Samuel undoubtedly draw plenty of attention and Christian McCaffrey is a one-of-a-kind back, Williams might be the most valuable player on the San Francisco offense. Since the start of 2022, the 49ers have averaged 0.15 EPA per play and posted a combined QBR of 70.2 with Williams on the field. Without him, that falls to a minus-0.05 EPA per play and 53.4 QBR, respectively. San Francisco's three-game losing streak coincides almost perfectly with the stretch where Williams was injured and not available.
Do they have a shot at winning the real MVP award? No. Individual offensive linemen aren't going to win the MVP when they don't touch the ball. In 2008, there was a short-lived case made to vote for the five-man Giants offensive line given that voters were allowed to consider positional groups as MVP candidates, but it would take some truly impressive highlight reel blocks to get even a single MVP vote. The Eagles' offensive line could be a viable candidate, but again, voters would rightfully just prefer to vote for Hurts or even A.J. Brown ahead of Kelce and the rest of his line brethren.
What could they do to get in serious contention? Talk about it on a podcast every week. I'd love to see an award handed out for the best offensive lineman in football at the end of each season, but I don't expect that to pop up anytime soon.