This formula predicted every NFL MVP

Year after year, the NFL MVP award is highly contested and debated by fans and pundits alike. Criteria may change from season to season, whether it be to reward the player who was the most accurate, more talented or had the most unique skills. Over the years, the award has become increasingly biased towards quarterbacks, and a QB has won every MVP since 2012. However, would it be shocking to believe that there was a formula that could accurately predict which quarterback won the league’s most prestigious honor with extremely high accuracy? I present to you, the NFL MVP Score, which has perfectly predicted the winner every year, from 1987 to 2023 (only in years when QBs won). However, in a shocking turn of events, the formula failed for the first time in decades this year, as it predicted Lamar Jackson to capture the award. Instead, Josh Allen was named MVP. So, what is the formula, and why has it been so accurate? And why did it make a mistake this year?

The formula of [0.7*RTG + 0.015*pass yards + 0.035*rush yards + 1.25*pass tds + 1.5*rush tds - 1.5*turnovers + 10*games won] perfectly produces the league’s MVP nearly every single year. 

But why does this work? I looked through years and years of historical results before coming to this conclusion, and here is why I think every part of the formula is important. Yards are obviously a huge factor in how quarterbacks are evaluated, but my research allowed me to understand exactly how to weigh them. You may notice that rushing yards are more than twice as valuable as passing yards. While this seems not to make sense at first (gaining a yard is the same no matter what), it is true both in terms of MVP voting and reality that dual-threat quarterbacks are more valuable. Getting 5000 passing yards is less impressive than 4000 passing yards and 1000 rushing yards, simply because of the dimensions and depth the player has in their skill. The same goes for passing and rushing touchdowns, although there is a much smaller disparity between the weightage of the two. This is mainly because of the large increase we have seen in recent years of quarterbacks scoring short rushing touchdowns (Jalen Hurts and Josh Allen, mostly). Accuracy has long been a highly regarded aspect of a quarterback’s skill, and thus a very heavy emphasis is placed on it in this MVP formula, as a turnover even outweighs a passing touchdown. The great debate of recent years is whether or not wins should qualify as a “QB stat.” Many will argue that a quarterback controls more than anyone what happens to a team, while others believe that wins should not be considered for or against how we rate them. Over the years, MVP voters have considered this of great importance for how a player is evaluated, and the issue has particularly been a bone of contention in recent races, when a seemingly worse player is awarded the league’s highest honor simply due to the team’s superior record. My formula takes this into account, and a QB’s wins are a significant part of their MVP candidacy. Oftentimes (2009 Manning, 2017 Brady, 2023 Jackson), the player’s record is what gets them over the edge and gets them the win. However, after I thought I had it all worked out, something was off. I kept flipping back and forth between years to fix my formula, but nothing was helping. If I made wins too important, Mahomes would beat out Rodgers in 2020. But if I didn’t Brady would get beaten by Smith and Wilson in 2017. What was I to do? Then, as I scoured the database for more information, I found exactly what I needed. Passer rating. I have personally never been a fan of this stat and how it is used, but it turns out it actually has a very high correlation with MVP winners.