Seahawks' Wilson, Ravens' Jackson, Texans' Watson lead midseason NFL MVP picture

Yardbarker NFL writers Michael Tunison and Chris Mueller address some of the hottest issues in the league. This week's topic: the top NFL MVP candidates at the midpoint of the regular season.

Mueller: Most pundits and analysts who want to seem particularly intelligent hold back from drawing definitive conclusions about the NFL season at the halfway point. “It’s too early,” they intone gravely, “Too much can happen; heck, who knows what will happen this week?” 

In spite of that sort of outlook being needlessly self-serious, it often ends up being true. Through eight games last year, the Steelers were 5-2-1, had just beaten the Ravens and looked like a lock to win the AFC North. Baltimore, by contrast, was dead in the water, floundering at 4-5 after that loss and needing to turn to rookie Lamar Jackson. 

We all know how things turned out. 

So yes, trying to predict an inherently unpredictable enterprise is a fool’s errand. The MVP race, however, has usually come into focus halfway through the year. Last season it was obvious that Patrick Mahomes and Drew Brees were the front-runners. This season has a clear trio that has broken away from the pack as well. Russell Wilson, Deshaun Watson and Lamar Jackson have separated themselves from the rest. 

If the season ended today, Wilson would get my vote, and it wouldn’t be particularly close. Here’s a dirty secret: Seattle has lots of warts. The Seahawks can’t rush the passer at all, they’ve struggled with fumbles at times, their receivers not named Tyler Lockett are still finding their way and, overall, they aren’t a fearsome team from top to bottom, like the ones that made it to consecutive Super Bowls in 2013 and 2014. 

Wilson masks most of those deficiencies and makes the process look easy. He leads the league with 22 touchdown passes, his 118.2 passer rating is best in the league, and his QBR of 79.6 is third behind Dak Prescott and Patrick Mahomes. Wilson is the only passer since the 1970 merger to have at least 22 touchdown passes and one, or fewer, interception through nine games. 

He also has three rushing touchdowns and is Seattle’s second-leading rusher on the year. It isn’t just the numbers, though. He’s picked up his team when it's needed him most. When Jason Myers missed a potential game-winning, 40-yard kick against Tampa Bay, Wilson averted a catastrophic loss by calmly taking the Seahawks 75 yards for the winning score in overtime. 

(It bears mentioning that Wilson also drove Seattle 50 yards in barely 40 seconds to set up Myers’ doomed attempt at the end of regulation.) 

There are all sorts of arguments about whether the MVP Award should go to the player whose value to his team is greatest or to the most outstanding player in the league. If Wilson keeps up the pace he’s set through nine games and takes home the hardware, it will have gone to the man who checks both boxes. 

Tunison: NFL discourse is usually driven by quarterbacks for good reason. They're the most heavily marketed players, and given how rules have changed in the last 15 years, their already central place in the game has only become more important. Roster building isn't always focused on QBs, but more often than not, a team is focused on how it's going to land its next franchise passer, if it doesn't have one already. So the MVP race becomes a bit of a downer because it essentially is framed as a discussion of which quarterback did the best job of leading a top team. 

Only one non-quarterback has won MVP since 2007, Adrian Peterson in 2012, when the then-Vikings running back ran for 2,097 yards and 12 touchdowns on a team he carried to a playoff berth, weighed down by having Christian Ponder as its starting QB. Not that the possibilities were that diverse before. Following Lawrence Taylor's absolute freak of a season in 1986 that made him one of only two defensive players to ever win the award, joining 1971 winner Alan Page, the next two decades saw 12 quarterbacks and eight running backs win MVP. 

With that in mind, I'm throwing likelihood to the wind and proposing a non-quarterback, whether I think he's a legit possibility or not in the eyes of voters — maybe because I'm still sour that J.J. Watt didn't win in 2014. 

So I'm going to go with Patriots cornerback Stephon Gilmore, who has become a centerpiece of one league's top defense. Yes, it was a unit that got shredded somewhat on Sunday night in the team's first loss, but that was hardly his fault. Gilmore suffers somewhat from his ascendance coming as a member of the Bills, where he toiled in obscurity and mediocrity for five seasons. When the Patriots snagged him in free agency in 2017, it didn't receive as much hoopla as when they got a past-his-prime-but-still-good Darrelle Revis, but those in the know recognized immediately the Pats made a critical move.