Acme Packing Company
The NFL’s Most Valuable Player award is essentially a quarterback honor in modern days. Generally, the award goes to a quarterback who leads his team to a playoff spot by putting up gaudy numbers and delivering in big moments on national television, with additional weight being placed on the games down the stretch in the regular season. The other thing that a player usually needs is a compelling narrative — Josh Allen’s MVP award last season was at least somewhat driven by his absurd rushing touchdown numbers, which helped to push him over Lamar Jackson for the top spot.
Through seven weeks of the season, Jordan Love’s name has rarely come up in the MVP discussion. That should change immediately after the performance he delivered on Sunday Night Football in Pittsburgh, which delivered both eye-popping statistics (arguably for the first time all season) and more than enough narrative-based momentum to sustain him for the next few weeks.
First, let’s look at why Love hasn’t been in the discussion much to this point. In simple terms, he just hasn’t put up volume stats like some of the other quarterbacks around the NFL had. Through week 7, Love only had one game with 32 or more pass attempts, and only two with more than 30. He had just as many games with fewer than 200 passing yards as he did with more than 200 (three apiece). That’s a function of Matt LaFleur’s offense, which is intended to revolve around the run game and build passing concepts off of it, as well as the Packers’ generally slow pace.
Love’s stat line through six games looked like this:
By comparison, a few of of the perceived leaders in the MVP race after week seven were Allen, Baker Mayfield of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, and Patrick Mahomes of the Kansas City Chiefs. Through the end of week 7, their lines looked as follows:
Of course, keep in mind that these are just passing stats. Allen remains an absurd force running the football, with 46 carries for 254 yards and 3 TDs through week 7; Mahomes has picked up his scrambling game as well, rushing for 250 yards and 4 TDs of his own.
But underlying the big difference in yards and touchdowns through week 7 are these players’ efficiency numbers. Check out Love’s YPA and passer rating — and that does not touch on more advanced numbers like EPA and EPA per play. Love has been among the most efficient quarterbacks in EPA per play all season long, he just has not thrown the ball with nearly the volume of Mayfield or Mahomes early...
