An Approach to the MVP Award: It’s Not Worth It
Many People Care About the MVP. Saquon Barkley Has Larger Aspirations.
I get it, sort of.
Why not win an MVP trophy if you can for Saquon Barkley, who has eclipsed LeSean McCoy’s single-season record with 1,623 yards and is just 483 away from surpassing Erik Dickerson?
PHOTO: Philadelphia Eagles/Facebook
It would pay tribute to the best running back in the NFL — who has bulldozed over, spun, and reversed-jumped his way to one of the finest seasons in the NFL — ever. As in ever, ever, in everdom. It’s an incredible feat, considering that for almost the first twenty years of its existence — the NFL was a running league.
Let’s begin by remembering that the last running back to break through for the MVP Award was Adrian Pederson in 2012 and that before Patrick Mahomes won both MVP and the Super Bowl in 2022 (Grrr), the last NFL player to win both the NFL MVP and to hoist the Lombardi Trophy was Kurt Warner nearly twenty years earlier in 1999.
And let’s talk for a moment about the third anniversary of an expanded NFL regular season, adding one regular-season game and deleting a meaningless pre-season matchup, allowing not only more yardage but also more exposure. Can the Eagles risk the health of Saquon Barkley to chase a personal award and season statistics? (that is rhetorical, no, they cannot.)
And, of course, perhaps the most important factor. Saquon didn’t move his office (he’s always working on Sundays) down I-95 to win an MVP Award. He did it to win. To mark his career as one of the best NFL running backs in history with a Super Bowl ring in his closet, not a missing asterisk for NFL yardage that didn’t bring the club a championship.
What would a Saquon Barkley Award mean to the Philadelphia Eagles? Nothing compared to a February march down Broad Street.
The media cares about his chances of being MVP.
For Saquon Barkley, he’s focused on a bigger prize.
PHOTO: Philadelphia Eagles/Facebook
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Categorized:Eagles