FanPost

(Updated) Why Carson Wentz Isn't a Legit MVP Candidate

Note: A lot of this was in a comment I posted, but I wanted to add some to it and throw it in a fanpost because I spent a good bit of time on it. All stats from NFL.com, specifically here.

Edit: Title originally "Why I want Nick Foles and the Eagles to Win the Super Bowl" but I really just wanted to point out that Carson Wentz isn't an MVP. Saying that it's "why I want the Eagles to win the Super Bowl" was intended as satire, but as noted in the comments, it distracted from the real point of the article. Lesson learned, I'll pick a better title on my second fanpost! :)

If the Eagles win the Super Bowl, it means that Carson Wentz was never a legitimate MVP candidate.

Why do I care if Carson Wentz is an MVP candidate? Honestly, probably so I can have something to talk trash about to my Philly friend Gary. Either way, they have a leg to stand on, (since they made it farther than we have in 20 years) so they're going to talk trash, but if the Eagles win their first Super Bowl without their "MVP caliber" quarterback of the future, who's better than Dak because of his stats this year, it would give me the tiniest inkling of satisfaction. It would imply that Carson was only good this year because his team was so good, and that makes me happy in the pettiest of ways. Plus, I've always felt that competition is most fun when it's actually close, I would much rather beat a former college athlete in 1-1 basketball than my 12 year-old little sister. Last year, the Eagles were your 12 year-old little sister, now they're a team that's worth actually winning against.

From a philosophical standpoint, I think that MVP should really be based on their value to the team, and while realistically that isn't the end-all be-all in voting (or Russell Wilson would always win, don't @ me), it's still gotta be factored in.

So let's take a look at the MVP candidates from this year, and break down arguments for and against their nomination:

1. Tom Brady — 25 points
2. Todd Gurley — 20 points
3. Aaron Donald — 7 points
T-4. Le'Veon Bell — 5 points
T-4. Drew Brees — 5 points
T-6. Rob Gronkowski — 4 points
T-6. Carson Wentz — 4 points
7. Alvin Kamara — 3 points
T-8. Calais Campbell — 1 point
T-8. Antonio Brown — 1 point

My thoughts on each:

Brady:

The Pats (regular season) had 276.1 passing yards per game, second in the league only to the Chargers. They're in the super bowl again, and Brady is still an elite QB at 40 years old. That said, I actually don't think Brady is the MVP, a lot of the Pats success for me is on the coaches. Belichick and Shanahan are the MVP's for the Pats offense because they create tons of mismatches. The Pats win games in the second half because they out-coach the other team.

Gurley:

1300 rush yards and 13 TD's, 788 Receiving yards and 6 TD's in the Rams offense who scored the most points per game this season at 29.9. He scored 37% of his teams' 51 TD's. He scored 114 points this year, which is actually 16th of all players. That sounds lame until you realize the 15 guys before him are all kickers, and the next position player on the list is 23rd, Alvin Kamara with 86. That stat excludes passing touchdowns, I'm not totally sure why, but it's probably because you can't differentiate which ones were all on the receiver. Like when Brady does one of those funky reverses to James White that counts as a "pass." Point here is that he was a key cog in their extremely potent offense. The only argument against him is it's difficult to measure his value when there were so many changes to that team this year with McVay. If I'm counting Brady out because Belichick was their real MVP, you could argue similarly against Gurley if you were a total jerk so inclined.

Donald:

One of the best DT's in the league on the team with the 4th most sacks (48), though they did allow the 5th most rushing yards, as an interior lineman some of that blame is on him, especially with how good their offense was. (Teams shouldn't have been running the ball as much if they were playing from behind.) He was 24th in solo tackles by D Lineman and tied for 9th in sacks at 11. Good numbers, and he's a great player, but not MVP for me.

Bell:

One of the best RB's in the league, consistently puts up strong numbers and balances the Steelers offense. He makes decent plays out of bad situations and good plays out of average situations. 321 rushing attempts this year (2nd is McCoy at 287) and 85 receptions on the Steeler's O which had the 3rd most yards per game this year at 377.9. He had just under a third of that. But really, the dude touched the ball 406 times this year. Drew Brees had the most pass completions in the regular season at 386 to give a bit more perspective on how utilized Bell was. Keep in mind the Steelers have tons of weapons on offense, so they don't have to give him the ball that much. They do it because he's just that good.

Brees:

Lots of passing yards, great QB. Though his RB's really did all the work this year. Ingram and Kamara were the key to the Saints offense. Not saying he's not talented and not valuable, but the Saints were trash when Kamara was out. (More on that in a sec) Brees is still above average and has unbelievable accuracy, but he's not the most crucial part of that team.

Gronk:

I didn't get stats for Gronk, but there's no denying he's a beast. Huge target, competitor, he's funny as heck, but he's completely taken out of consideration for me this year because of that weak hit in the Bills game. Character is important for an MVP, and that was pathetic. Maybe next year.

Kamara:

Just a freaking stud man, won me my fantasy football league too! He ended up with 1,500 scrimmage yards and 13 TD's, and they didn't even use him in the first few weeks, his touches went up drastically in week 4 and then they went on a 7-game win streak. (He had 188 yards and 2 TD's in that game by the way when they lost to the Rams 20-26). He had a 106 yd kick return for a TD too if you're doubting his explosiveness. When he got hurt (concussion) in week 14 against Atlanta they looked terrible. His versatility and the level of impact the rookie 3rd round draft pick had this year make him my number one choice. Plus... he made me $240

Campbell:

Top D lineman on the best defense in the league this year, the case against would be his super talented secondary. I can't comment much on Campbell since I didn't follow the Jags much and unfortunately was on a plane during the AFC Championship so didn't even watch him then. That said, if he doesn't play, I imagine the rest of the defense looks a whole lot worse.

Brown:

Best WR in the league, Julio is the only one who holds a candle to him but Brown wins based off of his football intelligence and chemistry with Ben. 101 receptions and a league leading 1,533 receiving yards... in 14 games. Their offense functioned well when he was out though and put up 34 and 28 points against Houston and Cleveland, respectively. Those aren't great teams, but it still hurts his case how well they played with him unavailable.

And finally to Eagles QB of the future, Mr. Carson Wentz:

He threw for 33 TD's, second only to the real MVP Seahawks Quarterback Russel Wilson. He also did that in only 13 games and one of them came on a torn ACL. That's badass, Cowboys fan or not. (Dak had 28 total by the way including his 6 rushing.) From the eye test, he escaped a number of sacks this year so I'll applaud the fact that he was sacked the 18th most times (28), especially because the Eagles had the 7th most QB hits (107) this year. (Note: his sacks is obviously just in 13 games, QB hits were the whole regular season so comparing these stats has a slight skew.)

Surprisingly though, he was only 14th in pass yards/game at 253.5, although he did have another 23 rush yards/game. (Yes, I know my man Russ was 15th in pass yards but Russ also had like 86% of his teams' total yards.)

What it actually comes down to for me with Carson is his value to the team. He's got great TD's, ha ha and the 11-2 regular season record the Eagles had with him is fantastic, but his team was way too good for him to be considered an MVP, as evident by the fact that a backup QB who almost retired is about to face off against the Patriots in the super bowl. And to get there, the Eagles beat Matt Ryan and the Falcons and one of the top defenses in the NFL (and coach Zim) in the Vikings. Oh yeah, and they put up 38 points against that vaunted Vikings defense.


The Eagles had the 3rd most rushing yards (13th in passing yards) and their defense gave up the 4th fewest yards (and points) per game. They were tied for the 4th most interceptions at 19 and 6th most fumble recoveries at 11. They also had 5 defensive touchdowns this year, Jags had 7 and Cowboys had 1 for reference on that stat. They have a ton of talent overall on that team, as evident by them being in the super bowl against the Patriots without their "MVP caliber" quarterback.

Case Keenum and Blake Bortles aren't MVP's, their teams are just really freaking good. I'm saying the same for Carson Wentz.


P.S. This year Dak accounted for 69% of the Cowboys total offensive yards, which was 26th in passing (196.3 yards/game) and second in rushing (135.6 yards/game). That sounds pretty bad, but we were 23rd in passing last year (226.9) and second in rushing (149.8) and Dak accounted for 65% of the offensive yards and we went 13-3 in a ROTY performance. I don't have a conclusion off of that, just thought it was interesting. Maybe I'll dig into it and write another fanpost about it.

Another user-created commentary provided by a BTB reader.