2018 NFL midseason awards

[Msmith]

Interesting take in comparing Brees and Mahomes;

"Let's work through these two together, since they stand apart for me. The most obvious difference is the touchdown total. Mahomes has 29 touchdown passes. Twenty-nine! Brees has 18. Andrew Luck has 23, and nobody else in the league tops 20. The second-year sensation Mahomes is throwing for touchdowns on 9.1 percent of his passes, the second-highest mark in the league behind Ryan Fitzpatrick. The only passer to hit 9 percent in a 500-attempt season is Aaron Rodgers in 2011. Tom Brady didn't do it in 2007. Dan Marino didn't do it in 1984. This is a big advantage for Mahomes.

And then, when you start working through the rest of the categories, Brees picks up advantages, some significant. The veteran has thrown one interception on 279 pass attempts. Mahomes has thrown seven in 317 tries, although his pick on Sunday was essentially a Hail Mary after poor Chiefs clock management. Mahomes is completing 66.2 percent of his passes. Brees is completing 76.3 percent of his throws. Just as Mahomes is challenging the touchdown record, Brees is threatening to take the completion percentage record and jump it from 72.1 percent by more than 4 percentage points. Completions can be overrated, but 40.9 percent of Brees' completions go for first downs, which is well above the league average of 36.3 percent.

Mahomes is averaging nearly a full yard more per pass than Brees, but a lot of that comes from his receivers' work on screens. Strip them out and Brees is completing 74.9 percent of his passes and averaging 8.7 yards per attempt. Mahomes is completing 61.9 percent of his non-screen passes while averaging ... 8.7 yards per attempt. Both marks are great. You don't need me to tell you Brees' is better.

Of course, while both teams have excellent weapons, there's a reason I ranked the Chiefs' weapons as the scariest in football before the season. Brees' top two receivers are Michael Thomas and Alvin Kamara. Pretty terrifying. Mahomes gets to work with Tyreek Hill and Kareem Hunt. Also scary. After that, though, Mahomes' next two guys up are Travis Kelce and Sammy Watkins. Brees is working with Benjamin Watson and either Ted Ginn Jr. or rookie Tre'Quan Smith, depending on when you're judging the arsenals. Brees has Mark Ingram to help in pass protection and a better offensive line given the injuries on the interior for the Chiefs, but Mahomes has more with which to work.

I'm not exactly the QB wins type, but the Saints are 7-1 and the Chiefs are 8-1. The Saints' lone loss came in a game against the Bucs in which Brees put up 40 points and his defense allowed 48 points. The Chiefs' lone loss came in a game in which Mahomes scored 40 points and his defense allowed 43 points to the Patriots. The only thing I might mention is that Mahomes left a couple of would-be touchdowns on the table with bad throws in the first half. It would be foolish to say Mahomes played badly, but it also would be naive to pretend he couldn't have played better given the opportunities at hand.

The case for Mahomes outside of the touchdowns isn't as obvious, at least to me. He has thrown 38 more passes than Brees, the product of not yet having his bye week. Mahomes offers far more with his legs than Brees, as the Texas Tech product has 144 rushing yards and two touchdowns on 25 carries once you remove those pesky kneel-downs from his totals. Brees, ceding touches in the running game to Taysom Hill, has turned nine carries into 34 yards, although he also has two scores on sneaks, which mitigates some of the gap between the two.

At the end of the day, there just isn't much between these two. Brees has a passer rating of 120.6 and a Total QBR of 84.5. Mahomes has a passer rating of 116.7 and a Total QBR of 85.4. They're 1-2 in each category. Maybe I lean toward Brees because the sentimental, sappy side of me wants to see the 39-year-old Brees finally win league MVP before he retires. If you prefer Mahomes, I can't fault you. If Mahomes gets to 56 passing touchdowns and breaks the league record in his first full year as a starter, I'll join you on that side of the fence. For now, though, very narrowly, I lean toward Brees."

Link:http://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/2...-rookies-plays

[Rain Man]

Whenever I think of Drew Brees, I think of this commercial more than anything on the football field, and this commercial is horrific. I had never heard of "hot yoga" at the time, so I thought his hot yoga line was an incredibly awkward flirting thing.

I couldn't vote for Brees for MVP solely because of this commercial. You just don't do that kind of thing.

[Kiimo]

People aren't going to vote Brees over Mahomes because they like him more. Mahomes is breaking Brees' records.

Also people like Mahomes.

[srvy]

Originally Posted by Rain Man

Whenever I think of Drew Brees, I think of this commercial more than anything on the football field, and this commercial is horrific. I had never heard of "hot yoga" at the time, so I thought his hot yoga line was an incredibly awkward flirting thing.

I couldn't vote for Brees for MVP solely because of this commercial. You just don't do that kind of thing.

That was horrid but Brees won the lottery in life even with that thing on the side of his face.

[ThaVirus]

Man, **** Drew Brees. Man’s been in the league for like 17 season. If he hasn’t won an MVP by now then he just wasn’t good enough?

Has there even been a season in which the dude got snubbed? His best season I saw at a quick glance was 2011 with like 42 TDs and 12 INTs or something. Unfortunately for him, Rodgers threw 45 TDs and only 6 INTs.

[chiefzilla1501]

I would vote for mahomes. But when I compare him to brees, it's really hard to see brees isn't just as deserving. And it's a total sham that brees doesn't have an mvp by now. Much as I'd like to say mahomes is the clear winner, it's pretty much a toss up and I'm glad as hell that mahomes is one of two runaway candidates for mvp, let alone against an obvious first ballot hall of famer.

[CupidStunt]

It's not a toss-up. 18 TDs for Brees is 38% less TDs than Mahomes. That is not negligible; it's SIGNIFICANT. (Edit: I did forget Brees has missed a week but we are debating it right now, and even IF you give him let's say 3 TD in the week Mahomes misses, he's still miles behind either way.)

Mahomes is the MVP and it's not really close tbh. It's really not. Same way the DPOY race isn't close even though a few players have similar sacks to Donald, 1 even with more.

[wazu]

Just compare last year’s Chiefs offense with this year’s Chiefs offense. What has changed? It’s as if one player has elevated the team by a gigantic, historic margin, making said team a Super Bowl contender even though most preseason experts didn’t even have them winning their own division.

This is so awesome.

[Red Dawg]

Right now its not close. Mahomes has MVP numbers good for any season anyone has ever had. Wins to match not to mention against a highly ranked schedule. So far it's him.

[ThaVirus]

Originally Posted by chiefzilla1501

I would vote for mahomes. But when I compare him to brees, it's really hard to see brees isn't just as deserving. And it's a total sham that brees doesn't have an mvp by now. Much as I'd like to say mahomes is the clear winner, it's pretty much a toss up and I'm glad as hell that mahomes is one of two runaway candidates for mvp, let alone against an obvious first ballot hall of famer.

Ok. Not even being condescending- which season did he get snubbed for MVP?

[Halfcan]

Last week people were saying Gurly was the MVP over Mahomes.

Hunt is gaining on him- 16 total TD's to Hunt's 13 Total Td's

So the L A Lambs lose and now it is Brees over Mahomes-lol

Brees is having a fine year, but Mahomes is redefining the QB position.

[chiefzilla1501]

Originally Posted by ThaVirus

Ok. Not even being condescending- which season did he get snubbed for MVP?

2009 and 2011

2009 - you have to have an absolutely elite season to justify back to back mvps. Brees had every right to win that mvp over Peyton

2011 - Rodgers had an outstanding season, but brees had a record shattering season

There have been plenty of others. There have been plenty of other seasons where brees was very very much in the conversation. But those two are the most obvious.

[ThaVirus]

Originally Posted by chiefzilla1501

2009 and 2011

2009 - you have to have an absolutely elite season to justify back to back mvps. Brees had every right to win that mvp over Peyton

2011 - Rodgers had an outstanding season, but brees had a record shattering season

There have been plenty of others. There have been plenty of other seasons where brees was very very much in the conversation. But those two are the most obvious.

Nah, **** all that. I'll argue that Aaron Rodgers' 2010 postseason continuing into his 2011 regular season was the best stretch any QB's played in NFL history. Brees' season was great but he was only even mentioned because of volume stats. He put up 5,400 yards to Rodgers' 4,600 but it took him 150 more attempts to do so. Rodgers literally averaged a full yard more per attempt. They both threw for 45 TDs but Rodgers only threw 6 INTs to Brees' 14.

Rodgers' 2011 legitimately shits on Brees'.

2009 is a better argument. Brees was statistically better than Peyton but Manning took that team to 14-0 before he sat out and they finally lost a game.

Even if you contend that Brees should have won, it's hardly a snub. That was also the year that CJ2k went over 2,000 and Brett Favre went off as well.

[ThaVirus]

Also, I don't give a shit about passing yards. EASILY the most overrated statistic in football.

[redfan]

This is a touchdown league, and 29 is more than 18. That's a big gap.

edit:
Also Brees is ceding snaps to Hill.

[Luke Atamadong]

Originally Posted by Flying High D

I would be interested in Eric Berry’s opinion on this.

Heel get back to you.