Photo: thesportsbank.net
- Adam Parker
There you have it folks. Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers is your new NFL MVP. Rodgers dominated Saints quarterback Drew Brees by winning 48 of the 50 Associated Press votes. Despite losing the MVP race, he still took home the NFL's Offensive Player of the Year honors.
But to be honest, I feel like these two awards should swap owners. Brees, not Rodgers, should be the gunslinger putting that MVP slab in his trophy case while Rodgers should be the Offensive POTY.
Why?
Rodgers had one of the most productive and more importantly, efficient seasons in league history. Sure, his statistics took a slight hit in the final month of the season, but considering his play throughout the rest of the year was something that will go down in the history books, Rodgers was still the no-brainer choice for the NFL's Most Valuable Player for 2011, right?
Wrong.
But before I delve into that, let's summarize A-Rod's season:
- Rodgers set an NFL record with a 122.5 passer rating, the traditional measure of a quarterback's efficiency.
- His six interceptions were the fewest in history for a quarterback who also threw for over 4,000 yards.
- He is the only quarterback to have completed at least 68 percent of his passes while averaging more than nine yards per attempt. That's an incredible feat to say the least. It shows Rodgers was pushing the ball downfield, with greater success, than any other single season a quarterback has ever had.
After looking at those stats, you must think I'm crazy to disagree with Rodgers being selected as this year's MVP.
Maybe I am, maybe I'm not.
But even with all of A-Rod's impressive numbers, Brees put up similar numbers, and in fact threw for a record 5,476 yards in 16 games - shattering Dan Marino's single season passing yards record.
Sure, you could argue that Brees had it easier because he plays in a dome for half of the season, but Brees has no control over that and therefore can't have that counted against him.
My main reason for thinking Brees is the MVP over Rodgers? Well, it actually has to do with the effectiveness of the offense called by Packers head coach Mike McCarthy. Yes, Rodgers has looked like the MVP of the league for most of the season, but you also have to look back at what Packers backup quarterback Matt Flynn did when the Packers sat Rodgers out for a week so he could rest up for the playoffs.
Flynn's stat line for the game? Record setting.
31 of 44 passes completed for a 70.5% completion rating; a quarterback rating of 136.4; and a single-game Packers franchise record of 480 yards and 6 passing touchdowns.
Whoa.
Talk about jaw-dropping stats.
And more importantly, it proves that Rodger's numbers are a direct correlation of Green Bay's skill players and their offensive scheme.
After all, if Flynn, a 7th round draft choice in 2008, can post those numbers in one game, it's clearly the system that's really effective, not the player. Not to say that Rodgers isn't a great quarterback, because he would have to be to run McCarthy's system as effectively as he does.
All things considered though, Brees is the only player who could run the Saints offense effectively. Brees is the most important player on the entire Saints roster. If Saints head coach Sean Payton didn't have Brees as his quarterback, there's no way New Orleans would be as good as they are.
Flynn's record-setting performance against the Lions in the regular season proved that any number of decent quarterbacks could be successful in Green Bay's offense.
Rodgers and Brees are both elite quarterbacks. No one is questioning that.
But only one of them could be considered expendable.
MVP stands for Most Valuable Player, and while Rodgers certainly has been great for Green Bay, Brees has been even better for the Saints - he's MVP worthy.
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