Over the last few National Football League seasons, a trend has emerged. By the eighth week of the season, the Most Valuable Player conversation often turns into a familiar script, highlighting stars such as Patrick Mahomes, Josh Allen, and Lamar Jackson.
Between 2015 and 2019, the league saw several debut MVP winners – Cam Newton, Matt Ryan, Mahomes, and Jackson. But in the past five years, only Allen has entered that list as a first-time winner.
Allen is the frontrunner to win again this year, which would mark the fifth in six years a previous winner has secured the award. But voter exhaustion is real; everyone wants a fresh star. This year’s crop of first-time candidates feels remarkably strong and entertaining. Perhaps they might not win this year, but let’s look at the players who could challenge the Mahomes-Allen-Jackson triumvirate in the coming seasons.
A few notes: the ratings below reflect each player’s odds of winning the award in the coming years, not specifically this season. We’ve also excluded perennial candidates like Joe Burrow, Matthew Stafford, and Dak Prescott to shine a light on some longer shots.
It’s no longer a laughing matter: Darnold is now among the best quarterbacks in the league. During his time in Minnesota, it was tempting to underestimate his rise. Critics could cite the scheme and his excellent supporting cast. That’s no longer the case in Seattle.
The Seahawks’ running game has not yet gel. The O-line is better but still lags behind the league’s best. Jaxon Smith-Njigba has been among the five best receivers this season, but he’s been elevated by Darnold’s decision-making and precision.
Seattle has redesigned their offense around Darnold, who is only 28 years old. They aim for big plays, banking on Darnold’s arm to throw the ball downfield. In that role, he looks more like Stafford than the player we saw during his Jets tenure. Early in his career, Darnold struggled under pressure, frequently forcing costly turnovers. He’s mostly removed those errors from his game. Where once he saw ghosts, now he makes plays when blocking breaks down or the play design collapses.
Browse any QB statistic you like, and Darnold is among the best. He tops the league in the RBSDM composite, which measures the value of every offensive play and attributes credit to the quarterback. The QB who finishes on top in that stat usually finishes in the top three for MVP voting.
Through five weeks, Darnold has proved that last year’s performance in Minnesota was no accident. This is now who he is, and it’s been an upgrade for Seattle over Geno Smith. If he can guide the Seahawks to a division crown, the comeback story could propel him into the conversation with Allen and Mahomes.
MVP Probability: 7/10. This year could be his strongest opportunity to claim it.
Speaking of turnaround arcs. There was a period when the Panthers had both Darnold. Yikes. Mayfield has transformed from a scout team pass-rusher in Carolina to a starting quarterback in Tampa Bay.
The MVP is, partly, a narrative award, and few have a more compelling story than Mayfield. Burrow, Stafford, and Prescott are better quarterbacks. But there is something about his path that could earn additional credit from voters. Multiple franchises gave up on him before he landed in Tampa. He’s had three offensive coordinators in the past three seasons, yet has kept to pilot the Bucs offense at a high level.
Mayfield hasn’t been as clean this year as he was in 2024. Down to down, he’s been a bit scattershot. But he’s working in a tricky situation: Tampa’s ground game has struggled, and the offensive line has been hurt by injuries. Still in spite of those issues, Mayfield is playing the best football of his career. He’s already guided the Bucs to four game-winning drives this season and leads the league in Big Time Throw Rate. He is achieving more with limited resources, even waltzing into Seattle with a injured line and scoring 38 points on one of the top defenses in the league.
In an era before modern analytics, Mayfield would be leading this year’s race. He has carried his team on his back more than any other quarterback in critical time. Voters still appreciate that trait, but not quite to the identical extent they did in the 1990s and early 2000s.
Most Valuable Player Probability: 4/10. His risk-taking approach will lead him to throw away a couple games.
Daniels returned from injury against the Chargers on Sunday and showed everyone why, last year, he was the most impressive rookie to enter the league in a generation. Daniels shredded the Chargers in the second half on the road, carrying the Commanders to a decisive win in LA.
It hasn’t been the smoothest start to his sophomore season. The Commanders’ team-building strategy around Daniels has been peculiar. They’ve tried to fast-track success, knowing they have something unique with a quarterback on a cheap rookie contract. But they’re left with the oldest roster in the league by a wide margin. And it is evident, especially on defense.
Over the near term, Washington’s roster makeup could hurt Daniels. But he remains a single-handed force at the game’s most valuable position. He is the most similar quarterback in the league to Jackson: a precision passer who is also electric with the ball in his hands as a runner. If he can lead the Commanders past the Eagles at the top of the NFC East in the next couple years, he will be a lock for the award.
Most Valuable Player Likelihood: 8/10. The surest player from his highly-touted rookie class to win in the next three years.
It was all going very well for Herbert and the Chargers. Two weeks into the season, it felt like this was his year. Finally, the parts around him were set. And the Chargers had transitioned to a Herbert-centric offense, turning from a run-focused unit into a passing one. It was as if Jim Harbaugh set out with the goal of winning Herbert the MVP award as much as he was looking to overthrow the Chiefs in the AFC West.
That’s changed now. The Chargers have lost several pieces along their offensive line. They dropped a winnable game against the Giants and were hammered along both sides of the line of scrimmage by the Commanders. The challenge level for Herbert at this stage, this season, is too high. Even to keep the chains moving, he has to strap on his hero cape. That’s fun in short samples – and valuable for the MVP award when it is under a national spotlight – but unsustainable over the slog of a regular season.
Herbert has MVP talent. When the Chargers are healthy, he is the top candidate for the award among the players on this list. He fits the description: the rule of freshness, the playmaking, the winning. He passes the eye test and holds a monopoly over some of the most advanced metrics. But it will not be this year.
MVP Probability: 9/10. In time, the Chargers will stay healthy, and Herbert will break through.
The MVP is a quarterback award – the most recent non-QB to win it was Adrian Peterson in the 2012 season. Still, playing on both sides of the ball is a big advantage for anyone trying to upset the quarterback dominance.
It’s been an inauspicious start for Hunter as a two-way phenom. The Jags have switched back and forth between mainly using him on offense and defense. Last week, they decided on a 40-snap rotation on each side of the ball. And that feels like the appropriate number for a rookie trying to get up to the pace of the professional game while learning a complex offense and the league’s most tricky defense.
Hunter has been adequate as a rookie, but he hasn’t been an instant gamechanger. There have been flashes of the talent that made him the Heisman winner, but he has not yet take over a game while playing on both sides. At some point, the Jags may settle on using him on one side while only using him on the field for specific packages the other way. But that’s not the plan at the moment.
That may make Hunter’s development curve more difficult, but it also increases his MVP potential. Who else could realistically have double-digit touchdowns as a receiver while also grabbing five or more takeaways? If Hunter fulfills his two-way potential on both sides of the ball, voters will look past the quarterbacks.
Most Valuable Player Probability: 5/10. The only “defensive” player who has a chance.
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Elara is a financial strategist with over a decade of experience in wealth management and entrepreneurship.
