Over the last few National Football League years, a trend has emerged. Around the eighth week of the season, the MVP conversation often turns into a predictable story, highlighting names like Patrick Mahomes, Josh Allen, and Lamar Jackson.
Between 2015 and 2019, the NFL saw several first-time MVP recipients – Cam Newton, Matt Ryan, Mahomes, and Jackson. However in the past five years, only Allen has joined that group as a new winner.
Allen is the frontrunner to claim back-to-back this season, which would mark the fifth time in six years a previous winner has secured the award. But voter exhaustion is real; voters craves a new star. This year’s crop of first-time candidates feels remarkably strong and entertaining. Maybe they might not win this very year, but let’s look at the players who could disrupt the Mahomes-Allen-Jackson triopoly in the coming seasons.
A few notes: the ratings below reflect each player’s odds of earning the award in the next few years, not specifically this season. We’ve also excluded perennial contenders like Joe Burrow, Matthew Stafford, and Dak Prescott to shine a light on some longer shots.
Darnold, Seattle Seahawks
It’s no more a laughing matter: Darnold is currently among the best quarterbacks in the NFL. During his time in Minnesota, it was easy to dismiss his ascent. Critics could point to the scheme and his strong supporting cast. That’s not the case in Seattle.
The Seahawks’ ground attack has not yet gel. The O-line is improved but still lags behind the NFL’s best. Jaxon Smith-Njigba has been among the top five receivers this season, but he’s been elevated by Darnold’s decision-making and accuracy.
Seattle has retooled their attack around Darnold, who is only 28 years old. They hunt big plays, banking on Darnold’s ability to throw the ball deep. In that role, he looks more like Stafford than the player we saw during his Jets tenure. Early in his career, Darnold had trouble under pressure, frequently forcing expensive turnovers. He’s largely eliminated those mistakes from his game. Where before he seemed to see ghosts, now he makes plays when protection breaks down or the play structure collapses.
Look through any quarterback metric 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 player who ends up first in that metric usually finishes in the final three for MVP voting.
After five weeks, Darnold has shown that last season’s performance in Minnesota was not a accident. This is currently who he is, and it’s been an improvement for Seattle over Geno Smith. If he can guide the Seahawks to a division crown, the redemption story could propel him into the conversation with Allen and Mahomes.
MVP Probability: 7/10. This year may be his strongest opportunity to win it.
Baker Mayfield, Tampa Bay
Speaking of redemption stories. There was a time when the Panthers employed both Darnold. Yikes. Mayfield has gone from a scout team pass-rusher in Carolina to a starting quarterback in Tampa Bay.
The MVP is, to some extent, a narrative award, and few have a cooler story than Mayfield. Burrow, Stafford, and Prescott are more skilled quarterbacks. But there is something about his story that should garner extra credit from voters. Several franchises moved on on him before he arrived in Tampa. He’s had three different offensive coordinators in the past three seasons, yet has kept to run the Bucs offense at a elite level.
Mayfield hasn’t been as sharp this year as he was in 2024. Down to down, he’s been a little inconsistent. But he’s working in a difficult environment: Tampa’s ground game has stalled, and the offensive line has been hurt by injuries. Still despite those problems, 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 doing more with less, even marching into Seattle with a beat-up line and scoring 38 points on one of the best defenses in football.
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 value that quality, but not exactly to the same degree they did in the 1990s and early 2000s.
MVP Probability: 4/10. His gambler style will cause him to throw away a couple games.
Jayden Daniels, Washington
Daniels returned from injury against the Chargers on Sunday and showed everyone why, last year, he was the standout rookie to join the league in a generation. Daniels shredded the Chargers in the second half on the road, carrying the Commanders to a comfortable win in LA.
It hasn’t been the smoothest start to his sophomore season. The Commanders’ roster-building approach around Daniels has been peculiar. They’ve tried to fast-track success, knowing they have a gem 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 shows, particularly on defense.
Over the medium term, Washington’s roster construction 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 dynamic with the ball in his hands as a runner. If he can lead the Commanders past the Eagles at the summit of the NFC East in the coming few years, he will be a sure thing for the award.
Most Valuable Player Probability: 8/10. The surest player from his vaunted rookie class to win in the next three years.
Herbert, Los Angeles Chargers
It was all going very well for Herbert and the Chargers. Two weeks into the season, it felt like this was the year. Finally, the pieces around him were in place. And the Chargers had transitioned to a Herbert-centric offense, changing 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 just as much as he was looking to overthrow the Chiefs in the AFC West.
That’s different now. The Chargers have lost too many pieces along their offensive line. They lost a winnable game against the Giants and were hammered along both sides of the line of scrimmage by the Commanders. The degree of difficulty for Herbert at this point, this season, is too high. Even to keep the chains going, he has to put on his superhero cape. That’s fun in small samples – and helpful for the MVP award when it comes under a national spotlight – but not sustainable over the grind of a regular season.
Herbert has MVP ability. When the Chargers are at full strength, he is the favorite for the award among the players on this list. He matches the description: the appeal of new, the playmaking, the winning. He meets the eye test and holds a monopoly over some of the most advanced metrics. But it won’t be this year.
Most Valuable Player Probability: 9/10. In time, the Chargers will remain healthy, and Herbert will break through.
Hunter, Jacksonville
The MVP is a quarterback award – the most recent non-QB to win it was Adrian Peterson in the 2012 season. Nevertheless, playing on both sides of the ball is a major help for anyone trying to upset the quarterback dominance.
It’s been an inauspicious start for Hunter as a two-way phenom. The Jags have bounced back and forth between mainly using him on offense and defense. Last week, they settled on a 40-snap rotation on each side of the ball. And that feels like the right figure for a rookie trying to adjust to the speed of the professional game while learning a complex offense and the league’s most disguise-laden defense.
Hunter has been fine as a rookie, but he hasn’t been an immediate 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 choose using him on one side while only bringing him on the field for select packages the opposite way. But that’s not the strategy at the moment.
That may make Hunter’s development curve steeper, but it also ups his MVP potential. Who else could realistically have 10+ touchdowns as a receiver while also grabbing five or more takeaways? If Hunter realizes his two-way potential on both sides of the ball, voters will overlook the quarterbacks.
Most Valuable Player Probability: 5/10. The only “defensive” player who has a chance.
Maye, New England
Maye exploded into the national spotlight with his {performance
