In the NFL’s game of the year, Ravens vs. 49ers will set the stage for the 2023 MVP race
For months, the NFL’s MVP odds were a disjointed four-man relay race of quarterbacks: from the Buffalo Bills’ Josh Allen and Kansas City Chiefs’ Patrick Mahomes to the Miami Dolphins’ Tua Tagovailoa and Philadelphia Eagles’ Jalen Hurts. Each took the baton — then each fumbled it back at some juncture. Then came December and the alternating rise of the Dallas Cowboys’ Dak Prescott and San Francisco 49ers’ Brock Purdy, culminating in six different quarterbacks having led BetMGM’s MVP odds through 15 weeks of the regular season.
All the while, Lamar Jackson has stalked from the fringes of the race, his candidacy waiting for its moment. On Christmas, that stage arrives.
In a "Monday Night Football" Christmas matchup that is arguably the league’s biggest blockbuster of the season, the Baltimore Ravens and Jackson face the San Francisco 49ers and their two MVP candidates — Purdy and running back Christian McCaffrey — in a matchup of two potential No. 1 playoff seeds and three of the NFL’s best players. It’s the kind of three-headed, stage-stealing opportunity that we rarely see in a league MVP race, but one that is also emblematic of the 2023 season. In a year when the Super Bowl favorites seemed to turn over on a weekly basis, the MVP race has followed close behind.
Now voters are going to get the rare opportunity to see three candidates in one immensely important game, with the Ravens and 49ers needing wins to lock down a postseason bye as the top seeds in the AFC and NFC.
Heading in, Purdy is holding onto the top rung in BetMGM’s MVP odds, with Jackson second and McCaffrey fifth. The 49ers are also sizable 6-point home favorites in the game, which is being billed as a potential Super Bowl prequel.
“I’m cool, I don’t want them to pick us,” Jackson told reporters Thursday. “I like being the underdog. I don’t know, I believe we play better when we’re doubted and people are not choosing us to win the game. I feel like we play better all the time [in those circumstances]. Just do it all the way to February.”
When it comes to doubters, he could have been talking about his MVP candidacy this season as well. After signing a monster contract extension this offseason, Jackson has arguably been the most impressive of all the quarterbacks to land new deals, taking advantage of a revamped set of skill position players and a scheme that has allowed him to play more in the pocket while selectively designing runs or off-script opportunities that come outside the pocket. While Purdy leads the league in touchdown passes and yards per attempt, and is near the top of the league in a handful of advanced metrics inside the pocket, Jackson’s bread and butter this season has been his ability to creatively warp defenses by extending plays or completing passes outside the pocket. While part of that is function of healthy and improved skill position pieces added in the offseason, it’s also a testament to Jackson making better and more consistent passing choices.
“Everyone knows how elite of a runner he is,” 49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan told reporters this week. “But he’s always been such a good thrower. … He’s got a good way of finding holes in the defense, whether he’s scrambling off-schedule or it’s in the pocket and rhythm. He’s just got to decide all the time whether he wants to kill you with his arm or his legs — both are a very good option for him. That’s why he is such a challenge.”
That competency this season has been a slow build when it comes to longtime critics catching on, too. Despite clear improvement this season, Jackson is still viewed through the prism of the past few seasons, when challenges to win from the pocket often resulted in turnovers or offensive inconsistency. Not that he’s been alone in respect to doubters. In reality, all three players on the field Monday have had an uphill battle when it comes to the league’s top honors. From McCaffrey, whose running back position has systematically put him at a deficit in a league — and many top offenses — dominated by star quarterbacks. To Purdy, whose ability to thrive in the 49ers' scheme is often criticized as having the “booster seat” of Shanahan’s quarterback-friendly offense. And then to Jackson, who cuts a slightly different figure in 2023 as a candidate than he did as a unanimous MVP winner in the 2019 season, when he was a much more run-first player.
Of course, McCaffrey is the player with the most ground to make up in that trio, but an explosion on a Monday night Christmas stage could make a significant impact on his candidacy. Not only does he have 20 total touchdowns and leads the league with 1,801 yards from scrimmage, he’s picked up some interesting supporters in his bid to become the first running back to win MVP since Adrian Peterson in 2012. Among them? The other contender on his team, Purdy, has thrown his support behind the running back, as well as tight end George Kittle in an interview with Yahoo Sports. But neither of those voices raised eyebrows more than Tom Brady, who named McCaffrey as his MVP favorite this week on his “Let's Go!” Podcast.
“[H]e is definitely in my mind the MVP favorite and according to his quarterback too, Brock Purdy, who says some amazing things about him,” Brady said during a podcast segment with McCaffrey.
For his part, McCaffrey told Brady to vote for Purdy, who has survived this season under the ambiguous “game manager” criticisms despite an immense amount of film and player testimonials that have professed how well Purdy has colored both inside and outside the lines of Shanahan’s scheme. But McCaffrey’s endorsement of Purdy and Purdy’s endorsement of McCaffrey also showcases what could be a looming issue for both. Specifically, ballots that could split some of their top votes between the two players — giving Jackson and potentially others the edge of being considered the primary breadwinner of his team.
The one benefit both have is this year’s ballot being changed to a Heisman Trophy-style format in which submissions include a first to fifth MVP ranking rather than a single choice. While in past years the single-vote format made it difficult to determine how an MVP field truly broke down, the change will result in a much more detailed look at where a wider swath of candidates stood. It will also result in a more significant number of players drawing at least some element of MVP consideration, helping to end misleading narratives of past years, such as Russell Wilson never getting MVP votes … when in fact he was drawing heavy second, third or fourth-place MVP consideration that didn’t show up in the final single-vote tally.
With this format, it’s all but certain that Purdy, McCaffrey, Jackson, Hurts, Prescott and others — like Miami Dolphins wideout Tyreek Hill — will have carved out a portion of the MVP rankings in the final tally. (In full disclosure, both myself and Yahoo Sports NFL reporter Jori Epstein hold votes on the AP’s 50-member awards panel.)
What that will mean in the final vote remains to be seen. But with a group of players so close heading into the final three games of the regular season, there’s little doubt that Monday’s Christmas matchup will weigh heavily in the process. Particularly if Jackson, Purdy or McCaffrey can be an overwhelming — and overshadowing — factor in what will be a significant win for either franchise.
While the league’s MVP voting is often shaped by an ambiguous mix of wins, statistics, analytics data and even an element of gravitas, a close race can be altered by a significant head-to-head showing. Monday night will be exactly that on arguably the biggest stage of the season.
