2024 NFL Regular Season: g-bebe’s Lamar attempts to slay Dom’s Josh for title of mafia boss

Didn't Hamlin play in like 4-5 games that year, and almost all on ST? Great feel-good story but I'd rather give the award to somebody that had a meaningful contribution on the field.

Well, Josh Jacobs went thru some hardship last year. He had to play under Antonio Pierce. I would vote for him.

Darnold is not coming back to anything, he was always bad until this season.

Yeah, you are looking at it the wrong way. The Dolphins without Tua playing were rolling out not even a top 40 QB. A much better way is what are the Ravens or Bills with an average QB? I'd say the Bills would be significantly under .500 and the Ravens would be only slightly worse.

Lol. That's the whole point of the award. It is a feel good award. Someone almost dies on the field and the aftermath transcends beyond football. But nah, give it to the old white guy who mostly sucked until last year and wasn't playing who then had like 6 good games, but was only impressive cause of how much he sucked beforehand. GMAFB.

It seemed like McDaniel had zero interest of redoing the playbook bringing in Huntley, who obviously could not perform at the level of Tua.

If week 1 McDaniel was forced to work with Huntley they probably win 4-5 games. That first week without Tua they would win maybe 2.

It's not an award I really pay any attention to, so if that's standard, fair enough lol.

Are there a lot of examples of it being given to a guy who juuuust started getting back on the field later in the season like Hamlin? Or who just played a token amount of snaps or whatever?

I don't really mind the voters not wanting to give it to Hamlin because he didn't play very much, but then Flacco isn't the winner either because he only played 6 games and didn't come back from anything.

It should've been someone like Tua who cameback from injury and had a great yr and played the whole season, not someone who rolled off the couch and gave the Browns like 6 solid games.

That was the straw that broke the camels back for comeback and made the AP say wtf is going on really

I'm on board with this.

One guy got his old ass off the bench and threw a few TD passes.

The other guy came back from the dead and not only walked again but played in the NFL.

I'm sure Ravens would be a good deal worse, Lamar is a great player but Bills would fall completely off the map imo.

Their best WR is Khalil Shakir, they just play this gimmick bend but dont break defense that only works because teams have to keep up with Allen and their offense. Ravens D sucked first half of the year but this is still a D with Hamilton, Humphrey, Roquan, Madubuike and they've rebounded since. Offense has Flowers, Andrews, Bateman. Oh btw Derrick Henry is on the team and running people over every week.

Also, to me this isn't the NBA where every game gets measured equally because it is a long ass season and no games mean anything. 4th and 2 and Josh Allen ran the Chiefs offense over with the season on the damn line, if the Chiefs didn't run so pure the rest of the season that win gets you homefield. He then goes into Detroit and LAR and hangs 40+ b2b. I also think (and the voters have done this as well FOREVER) that you overweight big games more towards the end of the season. Lamar basically came up short vs Philly and @Pitt. Last year Purdy or CMC was probably winning then they implode on Xmas and Lamar wins.

I probably sound biased but trust me, I don't care about any of these players but objectively, the Bills suck pretty bad...Reminds me of a LeBron Cleveland 1.0 team.

If it is just straight DYAR and EPA per play and advanced stats then Lamar wins I guess.....3 in 6 years, didn't know I was watching the GOAT in his prime. Pretty cool, I guess.

I know Hamlin actually almost died. But Flacco practically came back from the dead to lead the Browns to playoffs. What else do you guys expect a man to do?

The fact that the world hates Deshaun didn’t hurt, either.

Bills were supposed to be in rebuilding mode this year, so that's a big plus for Josh getting MVP. What hurts him is Bills not getting HFA, which historically is a big factor for MVP. One can say the 17 game season is long (and indeed it is), but getting your *ss handed to you early in the season by the guy who is either #1 or #2 in the MVP race does matter with the voters. If BUF wins that game Josh gets MVP in a landslide, regardless of any stats Lamar fans might point to.

Ravens system is designed around Lamar, and it has been for a few years now. Putting Josh into that system would not work out well because it short changes Josh's big gains running the ball, but exposes his inability to extend plays like Lamar. And I don't mean that to slight Josh, but Lamar is far and away the best at avoiding sacks and extending plays. He is even better than Mahomes, who seems to have slowed down a bit but has other qualities that no other QB has.

IRT Lamar in BUF, I agree Lamar would not have achieved the same level of success that Josh has, but again the Bills system is 100% Josh, just like in BAL.

Flacco's stats weren't even that impressive. Just Deshaun was awful, so it made him look like peak Mahomes. It's actually embarrassing and disgraceful he won.

I have no problem with Lamar winning this year over Josh in a vacuum. They are both deserving.

I do, however, have a problem with Lamar winning it last year and the reasons given by voters AND winning it this year When they are apparently ignoring those same reasons when it comes to Josh.

It's bullsh*t. And makes the award meaningless.

I think because the Bills have basically been a contender for 5-6 years now that people just kinda underrate how talent deficient this team is.

This happened with the Patriots and Brady a few times throughout the years. Over time people just associate the team with being "good" and you don't really get the proper credit for carrying a team. Although I never thought Brady got MVP snubbed fwiw.

Some of this is because Bills schedule was much harder, but there is a reason they were similar odds to win the division as the Jets/Dolphins despite having a consensus top 3 player in the league. That reason is because everyone knew the talent on this team sucked with Diggs being dealt/washed, Milano missing most of the year, Hyde/Poyer/White all heading out and the Allen era 1.0 defenses largely having faded. It is just a pretty mid group as the kids would say.

Fast forward 4 months and while people acknowledge Allen/Lamar is close, they don't really seem to be giving Allen the credit for this.

Allen basically has the teams Peyton Manning stans thought he had in the mid 2000s (boom roasted)

I won't argue about the Bills minus Allen, but Ravens minus Lamar are not "slightly worse." We've seen what the Ravens were with Huntley and it's a far cry from what that offense is currently.

edit: that's also to say that Henry has benefitted greatly from being in an offense with Lamar. Vice versa is true too, but I think we have enough data to suggest that Lamar makes the players around him great.

What is unique here is neither Lamar nor Josh have done anything in the playoffs. With Brady/Manning at least they got to the SB and won, and in the case of Brady he won a lot.

As said above MVP is a regular season award, but if one of these guys had gotten to and/or won a SB it would significantly improve their MVP equity in future years.

I get the idea that BUF is replacement level talent outside of Josh, but a look around the league and there are few, if any teams that stand up well outside of a top level QB. PHI and MIN maybe.

I don't think so really, if playoff resume mattering was a thing then Lamar would've clearly lost.

Instead he is going to have more MVPs than playoff wins at time of voting. I figured voters wouldn't want to do that for fear of him struggling again would make them look bad, but they just didn't care and said DYAR ride or die.

Agree with you that NFL is basically just musical chairs parity besides the sustainable edge of QB now. Still I'd say Allen is varying levels of talent/coaching behind Mahomes, Hurts, Lamar, Burrow, Goff

And to those saying The Bills have Josh and a bunch of nobodies, even tho that makes the argument that Josh should be MVP over Lamar stronger, is not true

Dion Dawkins is considered by most who actually watch the games AND the analytics be a top 5 OT. Spencer Brown a top 15 OT. Gregory Rousseau pressure/rush is up there with the best in the league, hell so is Von's this year - but one doesn't have double digit sacks and the other doesn't play a lot of snaps. Taron Johnson has been a top 3 Slot corner the last 3 years...some day the best. And Christian Benford is like top 5 in every metric for CBs that you can find, but he's a former 6th round pick who no one really
And don't even get me started on James Cook. Lol the guy leads the league in touchdowns, or is right there (I haven't looked it up to see if he still is) and that's with Josh apparently vulturing his inside-the-5 touches, like everyone complains about.
Hell, Khalil Shakir has a fantastic year as a slot receiver and led the league in YAC for most of the year.

They are not nobodies, just not known lol.

Anyway, playoff football, baby! Love it. So fun. And I love I get to see the Bills be one of the favorites, no matter the result.

Ravens in their last 11 games sans Lamar are 3-8, so they're clearly worse off without him. Can't really compare to the Bills since Josh is a tough cookie and doesn't miss games.

I mean every team has some good players, sure. But if by the 2nd sentence you're naming a situational pass rusher and a slot corner, then it kinda speaks to the point.

I can't think of a 13-14 win team that had less talent from 2-52 on the roster than this Bills team.

I also can't prove this but I think a lot of their OL metrics have to do with blocking for Josh Allen.

Obviously most backups suck, Allen/Lamar go down at any given time and team could get a lot worse.

The best proxy for this is if you replaced both with a replacement level QB (I don't know, who is average and we could slot into both teams? Kyler Murray?) then what happens?

I'd guess Ravens are still above avg/decent and the Bills probably suck

Imagine if Josh won SB last year, and Lamar had won MVP (which he did). IMO swing voters would have a much easier time voting Josh because he has that SB win along with very impressive reg season stats/record in 2024.

But I do agree with you that the hardcore Lamar/stats guys would not change their vote regardless. But they would be in the minority so it wouldn't matter.

It also goes to coaching. I don't think there is much of an argument that Jim Harbough is a better coach than Sean McDermott, and would likely do more with less.

Don't some of those games include rest/playoff seeding locked games?

But like with Tua, a coach is not going to change to a different system more favorable to a replacement QB if the starter will be returning.