Do playoff games count when voting for NFL MVP

The MVP won’t be announced until the NFL Honors ceremony the week before Super Bowl Sunday but the MVP has looked like a two horse race for most of the second half of the season.

Stafford vs. Maye

Matt Stafford and Drake Maye have separated themselves from the pack in the second half of the season and it would appear that they will be only ones in the running. If you look at the current odds according to MGM’s Sportbook Stafford is currently the favorite at (-145) while Maye is a slight underdog at (+125). The closest candidate behind them is Trevor Lawrence who has his odds set at (+30000).

Those numbers could change over the next few days with the NFL’s Divisional Round of the playoffs coming up even though they technically shouldn’t. The NFL MVP is a regular season award, so what the two quarterbacks did last week in the Wild Card round, and what they will do this weekend shouldn’t come into play but since the award won’t be handed out until a few weeks from now, we could see those odds change.

There is a panel of 50 sportswriters who vote for the NFL’s MVP, and the votes are cast at the end of the regular season. Now that the votes have been cast, it’s a waiting game for Maye and Stafford, although they have a few more pressing things to worry about over the next few days to weeks.

Divisional Round around the corner

Matthew Stafford is in the MVP running for the first time in his 17 year career. He has won a Super Bowl, and been widely considered one of the best pocket passers in the game, but the 37 year old was named to his first All-Pro team, and was the NFL’s passing yards and passing TD leader with 4,707 yards and 46 TDs with just 8 INTs thrown. Last week he went for 304 yards, 3 TDs and one interception against the Panthers, but again those stats won’t count towards his MVP case as the votes have already been cast.

Drake Maye is in just his second year, and led the New England Patriots to a two seed in the AFC while passing for 4,394 yards and 31 TDs with just 8 interceptions. He was fourth in passing yards, just over 300 yards from Stafford, and his 113.5 passer rating was the best in the NFL this season. Last week he thew for 268 yards, with 1 TD and 1 interceptions, but again, those numbers won’t help his MVP campaign.

Josh Allen is the reigning MVP, but he is well out of the race for a back to back bid at the league’s Most Valuable Player award. Lamar Jackson is a two time winner, but he had a rough season full of injuries as did Patrick Mahomes who has also won the award twice. Maye and the Pats will play the Houston Texans on Sunday afternoon from Foxborough while Stafford and the Rams will head to Chicago for a Sunday night match up against the Bears.

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