A thought on MVP

[McBoog]

I was responding to another post when I realized something about why RBs and QBs get more love for MVP than the other positions. I'm too old to have these types of epiphany, especially loving the sport as I do, but anyway.

 

Defensive players, except for the rare few like LT1, are dependent on the scheme and others doing their job. It is very hard to say one guy makes the whole difference in most cases.

 

WR - I know there is a lot of love for Roddy White this year, and I don't argue against it. But when looking at the Andre Johnson thread, it is clear that the concern as to start or sit him is based on the health and if Schaub is going to play. Any position so reliant on another's performance diminishes, in my eyes at least, the value of that position for consideration. Is Roddy even in the discussion if he played in SF? Look at what happened to Marshall when he went to the Phins!

 

QB - No brainer. The leader of the team. If you have a good one, you have a shot every week.

 

RB - A step down from QB, but a lot of their magic, they generate on their own.

 

Thoughts?

[Chavez]

I just figured that RBs and QBs were more statistically quantifiable. Generally the question "is this RB better than that RB?" is answered by "who has more yds/tds?"; same with QBs - "who has more WINS/tds?"

 

A defensive player - well, Charles Woodson won DMVP last year with 9 ints, 3 tds, 2 sacks, 18 passes defensed, 73 tackles.

 

BUT Darrel Revis was generally regarded as the "best" corner - and his 6 ints and 31 PDs show that he had a pretty good year too.

 

Darren Sharper has 9 ints for 3 tds, 71 tackles, and 15 passes defensed - numbers that were comparable to Woodson's - for the SB champs and wasn't even in the conversation, really. I'm sure he got votes but he was the "oh yeah, I'll vote for him for 3rd place but these other guys were clearly better"

 

This year - Clay Matthews is the early frontrunner, and deservedly so, he's playing at a game-changing value - but for a 3-4 game stretch I'd argue that he wasn't even the most "valuable" player on his own defense. He was the BEST, but not key guy. The "key guy" has 25 tackles and 2.5 sacks. That ain't gonna win MVP.

 

And I'm sure that at some point during the awarding of MVP, an OL has had a year that was off-the-charts dominant, but we're just now starting to be able to put numbers to what those guys do. And not very well, either.

Again, it always comes down to how someone defines "value."