Let's Get Something Straight - Brian

An interesting discussion arose today among some of my peers. They were arguing about whether Chris Johnson of the Titans or Peyton Manning of the Colts deserved the NFL MVP award. You know I love stats, so let's compare theirs:

Peyton Manning - 4,500 yards passing, 33TD/16 INT's, 68.8% comp.
Chris Johnson - 2,006 yards rushing, 14 TD, 503 receiving yards, 2 TD

You could make an incredible argument for either one of these players based on these stats, but you would be missing one key component - the Colts went 14-2 and the Titans went 8-8. And even those are slightly deceiving. The Colts were 14-0 when Manning played the whole game, 0-2 when he only played half the game (the last two games of the season). You could actually make the argument that Vince Young had more of an impact on the Titans than did Johnson. The Titans were 0-6 when Vince Young sat the bench (and with Johnson still putting up Pro-Bowl type numbers), and 8-2 when Young started.

Why does that matter? Because the MVP is not only about the player who puts up the best stats, but also about who is more important to their team. And it is an easier argument to make that Peyton is more important to the Colts than Johnson is to the Titans. If the Colts lost Manning they drop to probably 6-10 (that's an 8 game swing). If the Titans lose Johnson they probably drop to 5-11 (only a 3 game swing).

It would seem that with the stats being so close that both could argue for that component of the MVP, the importance to their respective teams would be the tie breaker. And Manning easily wins that one in my eyes.

It doesn't hurt that Peyton is the greatest quarterback in the history of the game. But that argument is for another day...