TeamFB7’s NFL MVP ladder is back again ahead of Week 11 with another new leader and some more drastic reshuffling. From a 37-year-old veteran and Super Bowl champion in Matthew Stafford, who has everything but an MVP in his trophy case, to the 23-year-old second-year wunderkind Drake Maye in New England, who has taken the conversation by storm.
RELATED: Week 10 MVP Ladder
Matthew Stafford (Los Angeles Rams quarterback)
The media is finally accepting that Stafford is among the foremost MVP candidates. Still, the consensus heading into Week 11 of this oh-so-entertaining NFL season is that Maye is the MVP frontrunner. When you look at the numbers and what each of those quarterbacks has done in recent weeks, it’s clear the edge belongs to Stafford.
In his last six games, Stafford has led the Rams to a 5-1 record with a remarkable 20 touchdowns and 0 interceptions thrown. The Rams’ lone loss during that stretch was a 26-23 overtime setback to the San Francisco 49ers in Week 6, and they’ve now won four straight games to push themselves to a 7-2 start through nine games.
Stafford leads the NFL with 25 touchdowns and has thrown just two interceptions, and his 269.7 yards per game through nine starts this season leads all statistically eligible quarterbacks. With a slightly better passer rating than Maye, more touchdowns, and more yards per game, he’s the objective leader to this point. You could also argue that he has had just as impressive a highlight reel as the kid Maye, despite being 14 years older.
Drake Maye (New England Patriots quarterback)
Maye certainly didn’t have his best statistical performance Sunday, but the Patriots’ 28-23 win over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers solidified the 23 year old in MVP discussions more than any other outing this season. At least according to one typically foretelling metric.
Maye completed 16-of-31 passes for 271 yards and two touchdowns (plus an interception), his most pedestrian game in weeks, but he was listed as the consensus odds-on MVP favorite when most sportsbooks across the country listed their odds for the award Monday morning. Despite being the talk of the NFL season, it’s Maye’s first time being the true betting favorite.
Maye ranks third in the NFL with both 2,255 passing yards and 19 touchdowns, and his five interceptions are the fewest among quarterbacks who have started 10 games so far this season. He has the second-best EPA in the NFL behind Patrick Mahomes, with a significantly better passer rating than the Kansas City quarterback and a win over Buffalo, which Mahomes couldn’t get.
Oh, and he’s still having the best most efficient deep passing season in the history of professional football to this point, so there’s that.
Jonathan Taylor (Indianapolis Colts running back)
In a world full of quarterbacks, Jonathan Taylor registered a performance against the Atlanta Falcons in London on Sunday that forcefully reaffirmed his position in the MVP race after a 32-yard outing the week before threatened to make him an afterthought.
Taylor ran for an astounding 244 yards and three touchdowns on 32 carries to lead the Colts to their eighth win in 10 games to start the season. The 26 year old leads the NFL with both 1,159 rushing yards and 15 (!!) touchdowns so far this season. That puts him at a season-long pace of 2,086 yards and 27 touchdowns, which would be 20 yards shy of beating the single-season rushing yardage record and one touchdown shy of tying the rushing touchdowns record.
When you count the fact that Taylor has also caught 32 passes for 278 yards and two touchdowns, it becomes even clearer that his 2025 season will join the annals of 2003 Priest Holmes, 2006 LaDanian Tomlinson and 2012 Adrian Peterson in terms of the greatest running back campaigns of the millennium.
Sam Darnold (Seattle Seahawks quarterback)
The Seahawks have made a legitimate case over the last handful of weeks that they are the best team in all of the NFL, and a huge reason for it has been the consistency they’ve received from Sam Darnold at the quarterback position.
Darnold has led Seattle to four straight wins, throwing for a 12/4 TD/INT ratio in his last five games while completing at least 80 percent of his passes during that stretch. The Seahawks’ last two wins have come by a combined 46 points, and they were so dominant in the first half against Arizona on Sunday that Darnold was put on cruise control for the second half.
Darnold’s stats are quite similar to Mahomes on their surface, but he gets the edge for the No. 4 spot on this week’s ladder thanks to his team’s recent dominance while Mahomes’ Chiefs have struggled to stay afloat.
Patrick Mahomes (Kansas City Chiefs quarterback)
The Chiefs were stagnant last week, so the entry on Mahomes will be short, but the 30-year-old future first ballot Hall of Famer still leads the NFL with an 86.26 EPA and his 17 touchdowns to five interception ratio still compares favorably to those in the MVP conversation behind him. It also helps that Josh Allen and the Bills suffered a horrific loss to the lowly Miami Dolphins, putting a significant damper on the reigning MVP’s chances for a second-straight award.