The NFL MVP race has to remain about 2018 to be fair

If it is to remain a fair competition, the NFL’s MVP award cannot be an opportunity to make up for previous misses for Drew Brees.

I was naive to think the conversation was relegated to Twitter trolls and New Orleans Saints fans.

The NFL MVP debate is a very real thing these days with the most fervent arguments to be made for either Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes or Saints signal-caller Drew Brees. Mahomes is the young, impressive phenom likely to be in this sort of conversation for years to come. Brees is nearing the twilight of his career, a future Hall of Famer who somehow lacks a Most Valuable Player award in his trophy case despite ranking among the best to ever play the position.

During the holiday, my own father-in-law brought up the topic, knowing I am a Chiefs fan, and said, “You know Drew Brees is going to win MVP, right?” I was a bit shocked so I didn’t say anything at first, so he continued. “The guy has never won one and Mahomes will have other chances.” He kept talking to bolster his points, but he could have stopped there. We weren’t arguing about the same things.

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Here’s the reality: my father-in-law wanted to argue that Drew Brees deserves some sort of honor from NFL for the incredible season he’s had. He also wants to couple it with the fact that Brees has somehow been ignored in the past. He has Pro Bowls, All-Pro votes, a Super Bowl win, and passing records, but Brees also lacks the hardware that says, “This man was the best above all competition.”

But what he is arguing for—and what every person claiming the honor belongs to Brees is as well—isn’t the league’s MVP award. They’re creating a special Brees Is Great award that doesn’t currently exist. They want some award that is somehow supposed to honor a superb yearly performance wrapped in career appreciation all while he is still playing. Unfortunately for Brees and his tribe of supporters, such an award doesn’t exist.

Brees deserves to add another Pro Bowl to his resume this year, and there’s no doubt he will be an All-Pro as well. When his Canton candidacy is mentioned, his performance in 2018 will provide significant evidence toward enshrinement in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. That said, he was not the Most Valuable Player in 2018.

That’s because MVP is all about a single season and nothing more. Who performed the best for 16 regular season games? Who was the player who meant the most to his team for four months of football? That’s it. There are no long-term ideals here to celebrate. There is no emotional favoritism that creeps in. There’s simply the straightforward question: Who played the best from September to December.

When that comes into view, Brees fades away. To vote for Brees, you have to include your heart and the MVP race is colder than that. In a year where a quarterback other than Brees flirts with (and earns) 50 and 5K (touchdowns and yards, respectively) and that same QB sits atop the AFC with Super Bowl hopes of his own all while dealing with horrible injuries to his supporting cast and a league-worst defense, there’s just no competition at all.

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Patrick Mahomes is the game’s MVP in 2018 and that doesn’t take anything away from Brees. The reality is that MVP wasn’t his in the first place. It was the contrivance of an emotional core of fans who want to lessen the impact of a first-year starter in favor of paying some long-term dues to a veteran player. If someone wants to invent another award out of the blue for such situations, feel free, but it’s not named MVP.

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