Josh Allen? Lamar Jackson? Joe Burrow? Saquon Barkley? The NFL’s MVP race reaches thrilling conclusion | NFL News happymamay

Josh Allen? Lamar Jackson? Saquon Barkley? Joe Burrow? NFL fans, how do you vote?

The MVP race has taken on the feel of a political campaign (minus the bad spray tans, daddy dancing and red baseball caps…most of the time), with social media playing on stage to impassioned eulogies betting on their candidates’ issues.

With it comes a fascinating look at how football is perceived among fans, how the quarterback position is viewed, how wins are viewed, and how the MVP award itself is viewed.

With the qualifiers approaching, the various campaign tracks have reached their final stages. But is it a race between two horses? Three horse race? Or a fatal quadruple?

Josh Allen made what was likely his final argument Sunday as he threw for two touchdowns while rushing for another as the Buffalo Bills torched the New York Jets 40-14 to clinch the No. 2 seed in the AFC, a star quarterback now unlikely to appear on final day. From the regular season.

It capped off an incredible December in which Allen scored 18 touchdowns against just one turnover, making him the first player in NFL history to post five consecutive 40-touchdown campaigns in the process.

“At the end of the day, Josh Allen is the best player,” Bills coach Sean McDermott said. “I’ve been in this league long enough to know that I’m going to get an MVP award every year for many, many years. And what he’s done on this team and this organization in this community, no offense to anyone else, but I have a tough problem.” Time to believe that someone has done more than that, I really believe that.”

Allen has yet to win an MVP award in his glittering NFL career, as he continues to lead Buffalo’s quest for a long-awaited Super Bowl title. It remains the Bills’ offense, which the entire team runs on and the entire team relies on, with the most disruptive arm in the league and the cheat code’s ability to beat defenders like linebackers.

With Sunday’s showing, Allen is set to finish the regular season 307-of-483 for 3,731 yards, 28 touchdowns and six interceptions, while rushing for 531 yards and 12 scores as a final lift to a young offense, despite James Cook’s talent and production. , uses its running back much less than its Super Bowl competitors.

“I don’t know what more he can do,” right tackle Spencer Brown said. “That’s the consistency, he does it to anyone he gets his hands on. I mean, it’s pretty obvious to me. And now people say, ‘Oh, that’s Charles Barkley the MVP.’ Oh, he’s the only player who’s ever done that. It’s not “It comes back to me, but No. 17 is definitely the best player.”

For most, his fierce competition comes in the form of two-time MVP Lamar Jackson, who just put on another display of other-worldly shooting and scrambling clinics while throwing for two touchdowns and rushing for another score to make the Houston Texans look more than ordinary in a 31-2 victory on Christmas Day. .

Jackson has now thrown for 3,955 yards and 39 touchdowns to just four interceptions with a league-high quarterback rating of 77.9 and a league-high EPA+ CPOE, as well as rushing for 852 yards and four touchdowns having just broken Michael Vick’s NFL record for most yards Rush by the quarterback.

With the help of Derrick Henry, he led an offense that ranked No. 1 in yards, No. 5 in passing, No. 2 in rushing, No. 3 in scoring, and No. 2 in EPA/play, offsetting a defense that ranked second against the pass. and 14th in EPA/Toys.

“I think Josh Allen might get the edge just because Lamar had two,” CBS’ Tony Romo said. “If Josh has two, you’re going to side with the guy who doesn’t have one. That’s just human nature.”

“I think now I’ll go with the record. One has two fewer losses. The other has two seeds. So, if this guy is that close, a win and a loss barely gives you the advantage. The problem is, Lamar beat him head-to-head, and now I think Lamar’s presence is having an impact.” “On the match, but you can’t take anything away from either of these guys. I’m fine with either one of them.”

Elsewhere in Week 17, Saquon Barkley rushed for 167 yards to help the Philadelphia Eagles clinch the NFC East division title with a 41-7 win over the Dallas Cowboys. In doing so, he became the ninth player in NFL history to rush for 2,000 yards in a season, while leaving himself needing just 101 yards in the final game of the season to break Eric Dickerson’s long-standing single-season rushing record of 2,105 yards.

Barkley rushed for a league-high 2,005 yards and 13 touchdowns on 345 carries along with 33 catches for 278 yards and two scores, accounting for 38 percent of the Eagles’ total yards from scrimmage in his first season since transferring from the New York Giants.

No quarterback has been named MVP since Adrian Peterson won the award in 2012, with only 13 players taking home the award in the Super Bowl era. So chances are slim against competition from dominant quarterbacks, Christian McCaffrey is proof of that after falling out of the conversation despite leading the league with 2,023 yards and 21 touchdowns from scrimmage last year.

However, the fact that Barkley remains in that conversation heading into the final week is a testament to his influence. If he’s not the MVP, Barkley still has a chance to make history by breaking Dickerson’s record against his former team, even if his priorities lie in postseason success.

“Whatever he decides, I fully support it,” Barkley said. “If his mentality is, ‘Go out and try it,’ we’ll go out and try it. If his mentality is, ‘Let’s relax and get ready for this tour,’ I’m all for that as well.”

“I’m not overly trying to get it. I’m not afraid of it. I would love to do it. But at the end of the day, we have bigger things to focus on.”

And on Saturday, Joe Burrow confirmed why he deserves to be in the discussion as he went 39 of 49 for 412 yards and three touchdowns while rushing for a score to help the Cincinnati Bengals keep their season alive with a 30-24 overtime win over the Denver Broncos.

Burrow now leads the league in completions (424) and passing yards (4,641) for 42 touchdowns to just eight interceptions, guiding the Bengals to a four-game winning streak that has brought them back from 4-8 to somehow still with a chance to reach the playoffs before the end of the season. Last week.

His heroics salvaged what looked like a losing campaign on the other side of a slumping Bengals defense that ranks sixth-worst in yards allowed, ninth-worst in passing yards, and fourth-worst in scoring. At his best this season, he was the best in all areas.

Remove him from the equation and Bengals will be dead and buried long before December. Should he defy the odds and lead Cincinnati to the playoffs, isn’t that the definition of “Most Valuable Player”?

“I don’t know that anyone can stand on the field and watch Joe Burrow and not say he’s the best player in the world,” Bengals coach Zac Taylor said. “I wouldn’t trade Joe Burrow for any player in the universe, and for me? This is the best player for me.”

Allen is the face of the Bills’ entire operation without Derrick Henry or a focal point in the form of Ja’Marr Chase to wreak havoc with, instead relying on an “everybody eats” offense and weekly auditions for marquee involvement.

Jackson continues to push the boundaries of an NFL quarterback as the greatest two-way threat the league has ever seen, as Baltimore’s touchdown machine erases concerns about a leaky defense that would be far more pressing if there was a different face under center.

Burrow is playing the best football of any quarterback in the NFL after digging the Bengals out of a hole as the most proven and most feared threat to Patrick Mahomes and the Kansas City Chiefs.

And Barkley is about to make history after transforming the Eagles’ offense with one of the greatest seasons in football.

Good luck, voters.

Watch every NFL playoff game throughout January, followed by Super Bowl LIX in New Orleans on Sunday, February 9, live on Sky Sports NFL.