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If Christian McCaffrey fails to win the NFL’s Most Valuable Player award this season, there will never be a running back to win the league’s most prestigious individual honor again.
Though the award is supposed to recognize the league’s best player, or the most impactful playmaker, the voters have made the MVP a quarterback-only honor that routinely goes to the most prolific passer or the QB of the NFL’s top team.
In the 21st century, there have been just four non-quarterback MVP winners, with top runners Marshall Faulk (2000), Shaun Alexander (2005), LaDainian Tomlinson (2006) and Adrian Peterson (2012) claiming the award.
As the centerpieces of their respective offenses, all of them carried the hopes and dreams of the franchise on their backs. The heavy workloads and jaw-dropping production made it easy to hand them the hardware in a league that continued to skew toward a three-yards-and-a-cloud-of-dust approach.
The NFL’s recent shift toward a pass-centric focus has made the game strictly about passers, pass-catchers and pass-rushers. The heralded playmakers outside of those groups must impact the passing game, or the football world dismisses their contributions.
For instance, Derrick Henry has a pair of NFL rushing crowns and a 2,000-yard season on his résumé despite playing with middling quarterbacks, but he has never finished higher than ninth in the MVP race. Though his gold jacket-level production should have warranted more consideration for the league’s top honor, particularly with the Titans capturing the division crown in 2020 due to his efforts as a one-man show, Henry’s performance barely registered a blip on the radar.
As the league leader in rushing yards and touchdowns, McCaffrey certainly has a case for the award, particularly in a season without a prolific passer. Brock Purdy, Lamar Jackson and Dak Prescott are enjoying solid campaigns, but it is unlikely they will surpass the 5,000-yard mark or the 40-touchdown threshold associated with…
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Publish date : 2023-12-21 22:02:44
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