It has been almost written law that the AP NFL MVP goes to a quarterback. Quarterbacks have won the last 11 and 16 of the last 17 MVP awards. Enter Saquon Barkley.
The Eagles running back had a monstrous showing on Sunday Night Football. Barkley had 255 yards and two touchdowns on 26 carries. He added another 47 receiving yards on four catches in a 37-20 road win over the LA Rams.
Barkley had touchdown runs of 70 and 72 yards, set a career-high for rushing yards in a game, broke the Eagles record for rushing yards in a game and finished with the ninth-most rushing yards in a game in NFL history. In doing so, he took the league lead for rushing yards from Derrick Henry. Barkley is now at 1,392 yards, and Henry is at 1,325. The next highest rusher, Josh Jacobs, is a ways back at 944.
The former Penn State star leads the league in total yards at 1,649, more than 200 yards ahead of anyone else. The Eagles are also 9-2. Can all of this add up to Barkley winning MVP?
His odds spiked like a meme stock after Sunday’s dominant outing. Barkley went from +5000 at the start of Sunday and is currently +400 on BetMGM to win the award. Can a running back really do it?
Josh Allen, whose Bills were on bye this week, is still the favorite at +150. Lamar Jackson is next at +250. Jackson had an efficient and victorious showing on Monday Night Football. He had three total touchdowns (two passing, one rushing), but he finished with only 177 passing yards and 15 rushing yards. Games like that probably crack the door open for Barkley.
NFL MVP odds
Quarterbacks have always been a major factor in the MVP race, but there was a time when it wasn’t so rare for running backs to win. From 1991-2006, nearly half of the MVPs were running backs. There were seven winners, including Barry Sanders, who was the co-winner with Brett Favre in 1997.
The last time a running back won MVP was in 2012 when Adrian Peterson claimed the award. Peterson ran for 2,097 yards and averaged 6.0 yards per carry. If that’s the bar for a modern RB to win MVP, Barkley still has some work to do.
RBs to win MVP since 1991
| Player | Year | Rush. yards | Rec. yards | Total TDs |
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Thurman Thomas |
1991 |
1,407 |
631 |
12 |
|
Emmitt Smith |
1993 |
1,486 |
86 |
10 |
|
Barry Sanders |
1997 |
2,053 |
305 |
14 |
|
Terrell Davis |
1998 |
2,008 |
217 |
23 |
|
Marshall Faulk |
2000 |
1,359 |
830 |
26 |
|
Shaun Alexander |
2005 |
1,880 |
78 |
28 |
|
LaDainian Tomlinson |
2006 |
1,815 |
508 |
31 |
|
Adrian Peterson |
2012 |
2,097 |
217 |
13 |
It goes without saying that you have to put up some absurd numbers to win MVP, but that’s especially true for running backs (alternatively, you could be a Dallas Cowboy in the early 1990s). Six of the last eight running backs to win MVP led the league in rushing. The two that didn’t, Marshall Faulk and Thurman Thomas, racked up a bunch of receiving yards and crossed 2,000 total yards of offense. Six of the eight surpassed 2,000 total yards. Shaun Alexander was 42 yards shy of that mark but had a staggering 28 touchdowns. Emmitt Smith is the statistical outlier with the fewest total yards and fewest total touchdowns of the RBs on that list.
Barkley already has his career-high rushing mark and is just 11 games into the season. He needs a touch more than 100 rushing yards per game the rest of the way to reach 2,000 rushing yards. That’s asking a lot, but he’s been doing more than that so far this season. If he stays healthy, he is likely to reach 2,000 total yards.
Barkley has a good chance to put up full-season numbers that have won running backs MVP awards in the past. Will enough voters get on board, or will it still go to a quarterback?
The playing field is not level when Barkley is putting up a generational type of running back season, and the current betting favorite, Allen, is only 14th in the league in passing yards. The argument for Allen is that he doesn’t have a lot of help around him, and Buffalo is 9-2. Which argument will voters go with?
(Photo of Saquon Barkley: Ronald Martinez / Getty Images)
