Kansas City Chiefs: Arguments against Patrick Mahomes for MVP

It seems like a lock that Patrick Mahomes will win the NFL MVP for the 2020 season, but not so fast.

It was a no brainer when Patrick Mahomes won the NFL MVP in 2018, as he threw for over 5,000 yards and 50 touchdowns that year while leading the Kansas City Chiefs to a No. 1 seed in the playoffs and took them to their first AFC Championship game since the 1993 season.

While it appears that he’s the front runner for this year’s award, there are still some cases to be made against him and for the current runner-up in the race, Aaron Rodgers. This isn’t to say that I think Rodgers is more deserving — of course, I want Mahomes to win MVP — but more of an opportunity for us to look at the reasons why Mahomes could lose out on his second MVP title in just three years.

That’s actually where we’ll start on the list of reasons working against Mahomes.

Mahomes won the award more recently

Typically, when it comes to the MVP in the NFL, the league likes to keep it fresh. There hasn’t been a back-to-back MVP winner since Peyton Manning won it in 2008 and 2009 and before that, it hadn’t happened since Brett Favre won it three straight years from 1995-1997.

Simply put — The NFL would prefer that someone different win it when possible. The good news for Mahomes is that he’s not the reigning MVP so the NFL likely wouldn’t mind giving him the award again. The runner-up, however, last won it in 2014 and it’d be quite the storyline if Rodgers could win the prestigious award six years later.

I don’t think this ultimately plays a factor in who wins or not, but it is something to think about for sure.