I agree it would be a total disgrace not to include Watt in it. Without Watt the Texans are Jacksonville. How is that not MVP?
See ya Mike Smith, Thomas Dimtroff should be packing his bags also. What a pathetic ****ing performance. This Franchise regressed since trading 5 picks for Julio Jones
Draft order: 1. Tampa Bay 2. Tennessee 3. Jacksonville 4. Oakland 5. Washington 6. NY Jets 7. Chicago 8. Atlanta 9. NY Giants 10. St. Louis 11. Minnesota 12. Cleveland 13. New Orleans 14. Miami 15. San Francisco 16. Houston 17. Kansas City/San Diego 18. Kansas City/San Diego 19. Cleveland 20. Philadelphia
Without Rodgers, Green Bay is probably something close to Jacksonville too. Ultimately, if there's a great player having a great season at QB, it's virtually impossible for a player at any other position to have a bigger impact or be more valuable to their team.
The thing with Rodgers is that when you actually look at his numbers he doesn't lead in passing yards, passing TD's, completion percentage, yards per attempt, QB Rating, or QBR. Why is he the MVP again for not leading the league in any of the major QB stats?
Because he's near the top in all of them while playing the most important position in the game. #2 in QB Rating, #3 in TDs, #6 in yards, #1 in TD/INT ratio, #2 in YPA, etc. None of the other top QBs have that kind of resume. Of the QBs, only 5 would really be in contention: Manning, Brady, Romo, Wilson, and Rodgers. Each carried their teams to 12-4 records with gaudy stats. You could make a case for any of them. But Wilson benefits from a dominant defense and Romo benefits from a dominant running game and low-volume work. The other three really had to carry their teams. Manning is probably not a contender because of how he ended the season and how it's a relatively "down" year for his own standards - he'll get compared to his own season last year. Brady has kind of just been forgotten for whatever reason. And Rodgers leads the highest scoring offense in the NFL.
Well Romo is 1st in QB Rating, 1st in YPA, 1st in completion percentage, and 1st in QBR. He's got just as good an argument as Rodgers, probably a better argument. JJ Watt has dominated his position far more than Rodgers has dominated the QB spot.
There hasn't been a defensive player as impactful as Watt has been since Lawrence Taylor... the last defensive player to win MVP. Half the voters are likely unfamiliar with the only point of reference you can make. Meanwhile, there have been countless QB seasons that have matched or exceeded what Rodgers did this year. Its truly a "hype" award (a subset of the "QB-is-everything" hype)... and if Watt is able to duplicate this season in the future (with the team having success)... he'll eventually be able to drum up enough support to get one along the way to being considered one of the greatest singular football players of all time.
A mediocre qb would give them mediocre success, a mediocre performance in Watts position would put the Texans at the bottom. Thats the difference. Even Troy said Rodgers was his choice for MVP, which was disappointing considering Romos performance not to mention Watts.
Because MVP stands for "Most Valuable Player." I'm a Cowboys fan but the MVP of the team is DeMarco Murray. We can live for a few games without Romo. The Packers go as Rodgers go, and when he's at his best, that team is a Super Bowl contender. If he's out, well... who cares.
@Josh_Wood40: Odell Beckham's Historic Rookie Season: 91 Receptions 2nd(t) 1,305 yards 4th 12 TD's 3rd(t)
Romo's having an outstanding season, but he is also 14th in passing yards (18th in yards per game). If you shoot 50% and score 15 pts a game, that's not as impressive as shooting 47% but scoring 20 pts a game. The more you have to do, the less efficient you'll be at it. Romo gets to do less thanks to Murray. That doesn't mean he's a lesser player, but it means he's less important. Agreed, but his position simply isn't as important. If you had a punter that could pin every punt inside the 5, he would easily dominate the punting position more than any other player dominates theirs - but it wouldn't make them the MVP. If this were "Most Outstanding Player", I think you could definitely make a case for any of these guys. But if you're accounting for "Valuable", it's difficult unless there are no great QBs out there because a great QB's average season is going to be more valuable to their team than a greatest-season-of-all-time defensive performance. It's why they have a DPOY year award. If, knowing how their individual seasons would play out, the Texans could have traded Watt for Rodgers for this season, they would have done it in a heartbeat. If the Packers could have done the same in reverse, they wouldn't have considered it for a second. That tells you who's more valuable.
If you replace Rodgers with Tony Romo the Packers probably win the same 12 games. If you replace Watt with whoever you think is the second best defensive lineman in the league they're at least a couple games worse. That's the difference.
Do you think if Watt played for a media sweetheart he would win? I cant help but think playing for Houston he has to be even that much more spectacular.
That's easy to say, but is it really true? Look at what happened to the Colts the year they didn't have Manning. This season, Rodgers was hobbled in the 2nd half of the Saints game and you could see how the entire Packers team just fell apart. The line between success and failure in the NFL is really thin - that Packers team's success is built entirely around the greatness of the QB position, just as Manning's teams are built around him.
Watt gets plenty of run, despite not being in a sexy market. The NFL is big everywhere... from tiny Green Bay to mega-markets. Also, Houston is a top 10 NFL market, and really only trails Dallas in the South... so its not like he's playing in Jacksonville or Nashville. Everybody knows what Watt is doing is absolutely ridiculous. He'll be the first defensive player to get a decent amount of MVP votes in a long-ass time.
And if you replace Watt with Rodgers, the Texans win a lot more games. If you replace Rodgers with Watt, the Packers lose a lot more games. This isn't a comparative-to-other-great-players-at-your-position award. The value of the position matters.