You forgot playoff games, also games during his rookie season when he was a backup, and his 1 game he was rested at the end of a season. He almost certainly still wore them if he’s that superstitious. Probably also wore them on the day of the 2 games he was injured and recovering back in 2019.
So the number is closer to 121, still not that bad.
Best Chiefs defense I can remember in a long time. Probably the best since we had all of Hali, Houston, Barry, and Flowers.
And, as evidenced by his 2019 season where he barely had over 3,000 passing yards, the volume passing starts aren’t a prerequisite to winning MVP
You’re right that volumetric passing stats aren’t a hard prerequisite. But he did have 1,206 rushing yards and 9 rushing TDs to go with his 3,127 passing yards and league leading 36 passing touchdowns to total 4,333 yards and 45 touchdowns. So overall a very productive year when you count his work on the ground.
This year so far he’s on pace for 3,690 passing yards, 17 passing TDs, 831 rushing yards, 9 rushing touchdowns to total: 4,521 yards and 26 touchdowns. And I think it’s that clear drop in scoring that has people wondering why he’s being considered so highly for MVP, a 19 TD drop from his MVP season.
His ANY/A, which correlates pretty closely with the QB who ends up winning MVP has dropped from his MVP winning season of 8.19 to 6.88. Anything over 8.00 is pretty elite and almost every MVP winner has had an ANY/A over 8. Anything below 7.00 is fairly pedestrian and closer to being league average.
So overall his efficiency and scoring are way down from his previous MVP season. So I think without watching the tape to wonder why he’s being thought of so highly right now other than the Ravens being good. But that’s just as much if not more because of their #1 ranked defense.
When he’s on, he can play like the best QB in the league. But he does have a lower floor and has more duds than a guy like Mahomes.
It’ll be interesting to see if as his career goes on if he can raise that floor and stop having as many duds. Could start getting some MVPs if he could do that.
I very much agree, a lot of people act like Reid and Alex Smith are big reasons Mahomes is as good as he is. But if you breakdown how he played in 2018, it matched up pretty closely to his college tape.
He was making a lot of the same type of decisions and had the same footwork and throwing mechanics. He did eventually get better footwork and smarter with his decision making, but he was basically the same exact player in 2018 as he was in college in 2016. He came right into the league and played like his college self to an MVP.
I will say that a better coach and org can help give a better opportunity to players to show their stuff, but at the end of the day these guys either have it or not. And at the end of the day, it was said once before by a former player under Reid. He doesn’t like to try to “develop” players. He takes what strengths they have and does his best to help maximize them. And that’s worked out pretty well for him.
He would technically be eligible to return to play, but the Eagles would still have to take him off their reserve/suspended list. They can just decide to waive him like they did instead of taking him off the list. And he had no more guaranteed money left and/or it was all voided a long time ago so the situation doesn’t really change much.