Josh Allen’s absence on Offensive Player of the Year Award shortlist: foreshadowing or an omen
The NFL Awards finalists were announced on Thursday afternoon and the race for the MVP seems to be coming down to Lamar Jackson and Josh Allen.

The finalists for the NFL Awards were released on Thursday afternoon, and there were no surprises on the MVP short list, but there may have been an indication of who might be named the MVP by the absence of a certain name on the Offensive Player of the Year award.
QB centric MVP award
Let me start this argument by stating this is purely speculation, based on a bit of fact. First off, the five finalists that were named to the MVP shortlist are Lamar Jackson, Josh Allen, Saquon Barkley, Jared Goff and Joe Burrow. All have had tremendous seasons, and all could have a real shot at the award, although Las Vegas seems to think it’s a two horse race with one of those two horses pulling away.
On the other hand, there is one omission from the Offensive Player of the Year Award that has arose some suspicions, when you take a look a recent history. Josh Allen is not on the short list for Offensive Player of the Year. Instead it’s Lamar Jackson, Joe Burrow, Ja’Marr Chase, Saquon Barkley and Derrick Henry that are up for the 2024 award.
While it would make sense that the MVP wins the Offensive Player of the Year award that hasn’t been the case for the last few years. We know that the MVP award is a quarterback dominated award and has been for over a decade. The last non quarterback to win was Adrian Peterson back in 2012. Since then it’s been all quarterbacks. The Offensive Player of the Year award hasn’t been awarded to a quarterback since Patrick Mahomes in 2018. In the name of transparency, I should also mention that 29 of the 48 MVP have also been named Offensive Player of the Year.
Difference between MVP and OPOTY
I suppose the criteria is different for the MVP and the Offensive Player of the Year. The Most Valuable Player award usually goes to the most outstanding player who is generally on a winning, contending team. The Offensive Player of the Year award usually goes to the player with the most jaw dropping, astounding season statistically.
So why would Josh Allen be left off the OPOTY list, but one of the favorites to win the MVP? Is it his numbers that didn’t cut it? Or is it because the NFL has swayed away from giving both awards to the same player? If we take a look at the stats, sure you might build a case that Allen’s numbers weren’t the most spectacular. His 3,731 passing yards were 14th in the league, his 28 passing TDs were tied for seventh. That’s true, but he did throw just six picks and ran for 531 yards and 12 TDs on the ground.
The other horse in the assumed two horse race is Lamar Jackson. Jackson finished sixth in passing yards with 4,172 yards and tied for second with 41 TDs and had more rushing yards than Allen. Those numbers were good enough to not only land him on the Offensive Player of the Year finalist list, but he was also named to the NFL’s All-Pro First Team this season. The last time a QB won the MVP and wasn’t the named to the First Team All Pro was John Elway in 1987 when the Broncos QB won the MVP but Joe Montana was named to the First Team. This is just speculation of course, and I don’t have a dog in this two horse race, but I will finish with this: Josh Allen beat Lamar Jackson in the playoffs last Sunday.