Brock Purdy or Christian McCaffrey? Here’s how George Kittle would vote for NFL MVP

The San Francisco 49ers’ hype campaign is building.

The NFC’s top team knows that its case to front the 2023 NFL MVP recognition is strong. So quarterback Brock Purdy cast his vote of support Sunday after the 49ers’ 45-29 win over the Arizona Cardinals. On Monday, four-time Pro Bowl tight end George Kittle doubled down.

Their candidate is not whom you might think.

“I’d vote for Christian,” Kittle told Yahoo Sports over Zoom on Monday. “If you want a best quarterback award, make a best quarterback award. Let's keep the MVP for the most valuable player.”

49ers running back Christian McCaffrey is undoubtedly one of the best players in the NFL. McCaffrey’s 1,801 yards from scrimmage and 20 total rushing and receiving touchdowns each lead the league. No skill player has factored more heavily into a team’s attack than McCaffrey’s league-high 301 touches.

So while Purdy deserves ample credit for posting the best season of any quarterback in the NFL this year (more on that in a minute), Kittle wants you to hear his case for McCaffrey.

The tight end points to how players such as McCaffrey and Dolphins star receiver Tyreek Hill “completely change” defensive plans.

“Everything has to change,” Kittle said. “Your game plan can’t be the same game plan because you have to account for guys who, every time they touch the ball, [it] could be a 70-yard touchdown. And yes, the quarterbacks have to give him the ball. And I get that. But the amount of times that Christian or Tyreek has just carried the team and put them on his back and scored touchdowns and won games … how is that not the most valuable player?”

The argument speaks to a bigger question surrounding an unusually open MVP race.

Do McCaffrey and Purdy strengthen or offset each other’s MVP cases?

A quarterback has won the past 10 NFL MVP awards and 15 of the past 16. Vegas odds expect that again, slotting quarterbacks into eight of the top 10 betting favorites as of Monday, including all of the top five spots.

Kittle wonders if that slant is justified.

“I know that the quarterback position is the most important position in sports because if you don't have your quarterback, it's really hard to win football games, and you can see that all over the league this entire season,” Kittle said, speaking in partnership with Alka-Seltzer. “However, the MVP should not just be the ‘Who's the best quarterback?’ award."

It’s unclear if Purdy's and McCaffrey’s cases offset or augment each other.

On one hand, each of them is impacting the NFL landscape and contributing heavily to the 49ers’ league-best 11-3 start. On the other hand … if they’re both contributing so strongly, along with playmakers such as Kittle, Deebo Samuel and Brandon Aiyuk, how irreplaceably valuable is any one of them to the team’s success?

“I’ve been around a couple of MVPs in my career, and these two are the most obvious to me,” Shahanan said Sunday in Arizona. “All you have to do is look at numbers or look at the film. Whichever one you say is more important to you, I think it’s extremely obvious. And if they’re both important to you, it should make it even that much stronger.”

Purdy cited McCaffrey’s grit to fight for yards after contact, contact balance to bounce off defenders, toughness and explosiveness as arguments for giving the all-purpose weapon the nod.

“Dude, I think Christian should be MVP,” he said after his four-touchdown and McCaffrey’s three-touchdown day vs. Arizona. “I really do believe that. He does everything for us. Runs the ball well, can catch the ball — he does everything. So in my eyes, that’s an MVP.”

Purdy downplayed his own superb season, crediting “a great team around me” for his league-best 119.0 passer rating, 29 passing touchdowns and 7.6% passing touchdown percentage. Only Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa has completed passes more frequently (71.0%) than Purdy (69.8%), with Tagovailoa’s pass plays averaging less depth than Purdy’s.

“I’m trying to do my part and help our team win,” Purdy said. “I’m very honored to hear [MVP consideration], but I think we just have an MVP team.”

That won’t be an option on this year’s ballot.

Kittle on Purdy’s value: ‘Our offense is the best it's ever been in my career’

With 15 NFL weeks in the books, save the Philadelphia Eagles’ Monday night visit to the Seattle Seahawks, Purdy is the odds-on MVP favorite at -200, per BetMGM.

Baltimore Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson slots second at +500, followed by Dallas Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott at +600. McCaffrey’s +1800 ranks sixth, trailing the Buffalo Bills’ Josh Allen and the Eagles’ Jalen Hurts.

Kittle believes Purdy merits that consideration even as he gives his nod to McCaffrey.

“He's doing such a great job of distributing the ball to us but at such a high level,” Kittle said. “You see these plays that he's consistently making off-script [and] not just a three-step drop, hitch, throw. We're not just running slants with an over ball over the top. We're not running a basic offense. Coach [Kyle] Shanahan's offense is very in-depth, and it's very strategic, and it changes week in and week out.

“We're re-learning over 100, 150 plays weekly … and Brock's the one who has to hear it or read it and then get us into that offense.”

Purdy has skyrocketed from the last pick of the 2022 NFL Draft to the quarterback capable of guiding that complex offense. He has rebounded, too, from a UCL tear and surgery to his throwing arm earlier this calendar year.

“You see all the off-schedule stuff of him rolling out, keeping his eyes upfield and just dropping dimes,” Kittle said. “Anyone who’s talking about Brock like, ‘Oh, he’s just managing the game, he just has all these great players, he’s got a great coach, got a great defense?' Look: Our offense is the best it's ever been in my career.

“We have great players. But he's the guy distributing the ball, and he's doing it at such an efficient level that's allowing us to stay on the field.”

Shanahan agreed with that case, saying “thank goodness” he didn’t need to vote and pick between “one of the best players I’ve been around” in McCaffrey and a quarterback in Purdy with a rare ability to “see the whole field.” Shanahan hinted that Purdy’s success goes beyond the system the coach created.

“There’s nothing that he can’t do,” Shanahan said. “He’s had great command of our offense and just running it, but also the amount of plays he makes throughout these two years has been as many plays as any quarterback I’ve been around with how much he does.

“He’s been a stud.”