Best Non-QB Options for 2022 NFL MVP | Bleacher Report

For better or worse, the NFL‘s Most Valuable Player award might as well be called the MVQ: most valuable quarterback.

Each of the last nine Associated Press MVPs has played QB, including Green Bay’s Aaron Rodgers in both 2020 and 2021. Since 2007, there has been just one non-quarterback who won the honor: Vikings running back Adrian Peterson in 2012. This past season, just one of the 50 votes for the award went to a player who wasn’t a signal-caller.

Super Bowl LVI MVP Cooper Kupp of the Rams received that vote, in case you were wondering.

Odds are, given all the outstanding young quarterbacks in the NFL today, the 2022 MVP will be a QB. In addition to Rodgers, Patrick Mahomes of the Chiefs and Josh Allen of the Bills are perennial contenders. Youngsters Justin Herbert of the Chargers, Joe Burrow of the AFC champion Bengals and Kyler Murray of the Cardinals could all easily insert themselves into the conversation as well.

However, while it’s an uphill battle for a non-quarterback to win MVP, we also know that the preseason favorites aren’t necessarily the guys who wind up winning. Per Doug Kezirian of ESPN, five of the past seven MVPs entered the season with odds of winning of 25-to-1 or higher.

So, what if that penchant for longshots were to lead to a break in the signal-caller stranglehold? Which non-quarterbacks have the combination of talent and opportunity to hear their name called at next year’s NFL Honors in Phoenix?

There are four players who come to mind.

       

Deebo Samuel, WR, San Francisco 49ers

Kupp is not one of those players.

It’s no knock on the 28-year-old, who just became the first wideout since 2005 to lead the league in receptions, receiving yards and touchdowns. But Kupp could be a prisoner of his own success in 2022. Everything he does next season will be compared to last year’s 145 receptions, 1,947 yards and 16 touchdowns.

That’s an awfully high bar to top, even for Kupp.

For a wide receiver to win MVP for the first time in history, that player would have to be the focal point of his team’s passing game and capable of flirting with a 2,000-yard season. Someone who brings something unique to the table.

A player such as Deebo Samuel.

He had a coming-out party in 2021, reeling in 77 passes, averaging a whopping 18.2 yards per catch and scoring six times through the air. But those receiving numbers are only part of Samuel’s story. The third-year pro was also a big part of San Francisco’s ground game, carrying the ball 59 times, averaging over six yards per tote and finding the end zone eight more times on the ground.

That dual-threat ability makes Samuel one of the league’s most exciting young players. Trey Lance will likely feed Samuel a ton of short passes so can rack up yards after the catch.

And it will take that YAC-attack (and a unique skill-set like Samuel possesses) for a receiver to break through and win MVP.

       

T.J. Watt, EDGE, Pittsburgh Steelers

Unlike at wide receiver, there is at least some precedent for a defensive player winning MVP. It has happened twice since 1957, with Vikings defensive tackle Alan Page winning in 1971 and the great Lawrence Taylor of the Giants capturing the award in 1986.

If another defender is going to bring it home, it’s fitting that it would be a player who has drawn a few comparisons to Taylor over his five-year career.

Edge-rusher T.J. Watt earned some recognition of his own in 2021. After tying Michael Strahan’s single-season sack record with 22.5, he was named the league’s Defensive Player of the Year. But as Mark Kaboly reported for The Athletic, Pittsburgh’s longtime franchise quarterback thinks Watt deserved consideration for MVP as well.

“He is a game-changer and a game-wrecker,” Ben Roethlisberger said. “I have played with guys like that, Troy Polamalu, who can change a football game, and that doesn’t happen on defense that often. To be a literal game-changer on defense is something special and should be recognized. He should get MVP votes as well because that’s what kind of player he is.”

It’s hardly a stretch to presume that had Watt not missed a pair of games he would have had the sack record all to himself, and at 27 years old, he has already amassed a whopping 72 career sacks. Watt’s older brother J.J. is the only player in league history to post multiple 20-sack seasons, and no one has ever had two such campaigns in a row.

Accomplishing that could land T.J. Watt on the MVP radar.

      

Jonathan Taylor, RB, Indianapolis Colts

If a non-quarterback is going to win MVP, the smart money should be on a running back. The last seven non-QB MVPs were all running backs if you include the tie between Barry Sanders of the Lions and Brett Favre of the Packers in 1997.

And of the NFL’s top backs, the race for the top spot (and consideration for MVP) probably boils down to two runners in the AFC South.

Jonathan Taylor was last year’s rushing king, racking up a whopping 1,811 rushing yards on 332 carries with 18 rushing scores while adding another 360 yards and two touchdowns on 40 receptions.

For a good portion of the season, Taylor carried the Colts offense, peeling off eight straight games with over 100 scrimmage yards and a touchdown on the ground. His rushing yards and scores were both franchise records.

As Greg Auman wrote for The Athletic, an informal poll at the Pro Bowl showed that Taylor (and not Rodgers) was the players’ pick as offensive MVP in 2021.

“Taylor, who led the NFL with 1,811 rushing yards and 18 touchdowns, took that honor easily, getting eight votes, twice as many as any other player before the final ballot was cast,” he said. “Rodgers took second with five votes, and [Tom] Brady took third with three votes, with Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow next with two votes.”

Topping 2,000 total yards again won’t be an easy feat, and for Taylor to have a real chance of winning MVP, the Colts will need to have more success as a team in 2022. But he has shown the potential to string together some ridiculous seasons, rushing for at least 1,977 yards three straight years in college at Wisconsin.

     

Derrick Henry, RB, Tennessee Titans

And here it is. The favorite (if healthy) among all players who aren’t quarterbacks to bring home MVP.

The King.

In both 2019 and 2020, Derrick Henry led the league in rushing. After racking up 2,027 rushing yards and averaging over 126 yards per game on the ground two years ago, Henry brought home Offensive Player of the Year honors. Before breaking a bone in his foot on Halloween last year, Henry had already piled up over 900 yards on the ground, was leading the league in rushing yards by a wide margin and was on pace to challenge for a second consecutive 2,000-yard season.

He made it back from that injury just in time for the top-seeded Titans to get bounced from the postseason, but as Mark Inabinett wrote for AL.com, Henry said at the Super Bowl that last year’s disappointment is this year’s motivation.

“What really matters is being here and playing in the big one,” Henry said, “which we came up short, so just being fueled from that, continue to work like I’ve always done and have vengeance in my mind of coming into next season hungry, ready to attack and have a great year.”

Provided that his foot is fully healed come September (and there’s no reason to think it won’t be), then a motivated Henry is a 247-pound juggernaut.

And a viable MVP candidate.