DCOrange

Lamar was better than Mahomes the two years he won MVP and was better than Mahomes this year. Mahomes won a couple MVPs when he was better and lost a couple to Rodgers (who also correctly has more MVPs than Mahomes). Montana played like 40 years ago so he and Lamar were not competing with each other for MVPs.

Might be a different EPA model (which is an annoying aspect of EPA lol). The one used for the betrayal index has Lamar 1, Josh 3, and Burrow 5 in EPA.

I'm with you for the most part and Josh would have gotten my vote, but the defense part isn't as simple as you think. Baltimore's defense locked in down the stretch and I think pretty much everyone would take theirs over ours now, but for the season overall, their defense got off to a horrendous start while ours was admittedly leaky but also generated a lot of turnovers, giving Josh the best starting field position in the entire league. As a result, Lamar ranks higher in the "QB Betrayal Index" which is basically comparing the QB's EPA to his defense's and special teams' EPA. Lamar ultimately ranked ahead of Josh in EPA while also having the worse defense and special teams. The only QB that was "betrayed" more than Lamar this season was unsurprisingly Burrow. Baltimore ultimately finished one game behind us and it's mostly because Lamar kept them afloat while the defense and special teams was hot garbage for most of the season. The average MVP this century has posted 0.27 EPA per game; in games where Lamar managed that feat this season, Baltimore is 11-0 and 0-5 when he failed to reach that level. Buffalo was 7-1 when Josh hit the MVP threshold and 6-2 when he did not. At the end of the day, we're really splitting hairs this year. Both QBs were amazing and you can make a very strong argument for both of them, both from a stats and a value perspective. Last year, I don't think either of them should have won it. Neither of them played at an MVP level IMO, but somebody has to win it every year and I guess the voters opted for the best player on the best team since nobody had a particularly special season.

Honestly given Baltimore's penchant for choking leads away in the most unimaginable ways, feel like it makes sense that they may leave the starters in one extra drive lol.

In those last 8 minutes against Denver, Lamar had one run for 1 yard and 0 pass attempts. In those last 4 minutes against Cleveland, Lamar had 0 runs and 0 pass attempts. In the last 11 minutes against Buffalo, Lamar had 0 runs and 1 pass attempt. I don't think that 1 yard is what made the difference in the MVP race. Does it really matter if he's benched vs. just catching a shotgun snap and handing the ball to someone else? He probably does care about individual awards, just like every other athlete does. Most just lie to the media because it isn't cool to say they care.

There's of course also a chance that some Allen All Pro voters give Lamar the MVP vote too (I think your hypothetical is more likely than mine, but still possible).

Kirby can correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm guessing his point is that Lamar and Allen are both deserving this year. That's objectively true.

Yeah, last year was just such a bad year. Like if Dak Prescott had won last year (runner up, and maybe the deserving winner), people would still look back on that like "Really guys? Dak freaking Prescott the MVP of the entire league?" but I suppose that would be better than looking at Lamar as a now 3-time MVP? There's a legitimate chance Lamar ends up with the most MVPs all time.

Assuming he stays healthy, Josh will probably get there even if he doesn't win any Super Bowls or MVPs. He'll need some more All Pro teams in that case though probably but provided he stays healthy, he'll probably be like top 5 all time in several statistical categories when he retires.

John Elway won it in 1987 when Joe Montana was the All Pro QB. That's the only time aside from the Co-MVP situation.

One game = a little less than 6% of snaps if every game was the same number of snaps (and I'd guess we ran fewer plays in Week 17 than usual) so Josh basically sat out around 2 games worth of snaps and Lamar sat out roughly 1 game.

That's mostly just due to Lamar missing games in his non-MVP seasons. If you normalize the stats for a 17 game projection, they're basically equal on wins and yards with Josh averaging a handful more TDs and a few more turnovers. More importantly, it doesn't really matter how they played in totality over the last 6 seasons for the MVP. Lamar was the pretty clear choice for MVP the first time around. Last year was a really wonky year where there were zero deserving candidates but somebody had to win it. The fact that all but one guy opted for Lamar is a little weird IMO but Josh didn't have a spectacular year last season either; may have been more deserving than Lamar though. And this year there are two very strong candidates and it looks like he's ultimately going to win out. Just because it's 3 MVPs to 0 doesn't mean it's an example of bias.

Lamar played 97% of their offensive snaps vs. Josh playing 89%. It's really closer to 1 game. At any rate, both extremely worthy candidates this year. Voters made a good choice even if we think Josh may have been a slightly better choice. If you can get those odds anywhere, you probably want to bet on Lamar. I haven't seen anywhere that is still allowing bets on MVP but I'm not degenerate enough to seek it out aside from the one app I use and the other site I used to use.

Yeah, think we can pretty much lock Lamar in now.

The Ravens definitely have more stars/borderline stars than we do. Having said that, our defense has outperformed theirs overall this season (but Baltimore has come on insanely strong down the stretch while we have faltered) and I think pretty much everyone would agree we have a better OLine. Baltimore definitely better receiving weapons though and Henry will be an All Pro (though Cook has been excellent this season too). Ultimately I don't think this line of argument matters very much. Both teams would likely be pretty dreadful if they lost their QB. Both offenses are totally built around their skillsets and they're both so unique that they're essentially impossible to replace.

I think Josh will win, but at least this season, there are multiple options that are objectively very deserving. It's a shame one of the QBs will not win the MVP given the season that they've had but you can't argue in good faith that one of Lamar or Allen are not deserving. They've both been remarkable this season (as has Burrow but he's a distant 3rd in all likelihood).

I personally do not hear a whistle until around the time KC recovers the ball but the one ref runs in signaling false start almost immediately so I have to assume he also blew his whistle. It does seem like illegal shift is probably the correct call but if the play was truly blown dead it shouldn't count anyways.

Could be arguing it was a presnap penalty or could have been upset with his teammate for telling him to snap the ball when the QB wasn't ready.

They likely weren't running a real play. They were most likely just throwing the ball away to take a few more seconds off the clock. Pretty standard in those situations. Nearly 0 risk involved...

He's obviously getting fired. It's just a question of it being tomorrow or at the end of the year.

I think once it got down to like 20-25 seconds left, you kinda have to just run a play and save the timeout, but they should have taken the timeout the second Caleb got sacked. 30 seconds left to run a play anywhere on the field you want and send the field goal unit out to kick it before the clock expires. They should have been able to just save the timeout and get a play off with enough time to take the timeout after too given how close everyone was to the line of scrimmage but the team seemed to have zero situational awareness.

Almost certainly.

I always like looking at both ESPN's QBR and PFF's ratings to see how similar they are and how they differ. QBR had Josh as below average this week, and I believe his first week this season where's contributed negative points to the team relative to an average QB. They also had Geno rated as the worst QB in the league this week though lol. This week's performance dropped Josh from being #1 on the year to #4 behind Joe Burrow, Lamar Jackson, and Kyler Murray. Top 10: Burrow Lamar Kyler Josh Jayden Daniels Jalen Hurts Patrick Mahomes Trevor Lawrence Brock Purdy Kirk Cousins

Correct, reportedly something he's considering (and some sources have heard he for sure is doing).

That would be fine with me. I'm just so over taking 5 minute breaks to still get calls wrong half the time. Or taking 5 minute breaks to get this call right but there's a million other plays you either don't or can't review so it's not like you're really doing it to make sure the "right" team wins. All these replay reviews do IMO is waste our time.