The NFL is a quarterback-driven league, and it is easy to notice the importance of the position in the biggest moments. Elite quarterbacks have dramatically cut down on the idea of parity (especially in the AFC), while the position has dominated the MVP award over the past two-plus decades.
The latter trend continued this week when Buffalo Bills quarterback Josh Allen became the 12th consecutive quarterback to win the award — and the 22nd in the past 25 years.
It is getting really hard to imagine that run of positional dominance ending anytime soon. Especially since this seemed like it would have — or could have — been the year a non-quarterback played their way into the discussion and potentially won it.
That non-quarterback was Philadelphia Eagles running back Saquon Barkley.
Barkley’s 2024 season was nothing short of dominant. He rushed for over 2,000 yards, probably could have broken the league’s single-season rushing record had he not sat out the team’s Week 18 game and helped turn a really good Eagles team into one of the best teams in football.
Every week, he was a one-man highlight reel who not only produced at an elite rate, but he made home run plays that no other running back in the league was making.
He dominated.
He dominated so much that he won the NFL’s Offensive Player of the Year award by getting 35 out of the 50 first-place votes.
Despite all of that, he did not get a single first-place vote for MVP, only one second-place vote, and finished a very distant third in the overall voting behind Allen and Baltimore Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson.
In the history of the NFL MVP award it has been won by a quarterback 48 times, a running back 18 times, a defensive player just twice and a kicker once.
It has never been won by a wide receiver or tight end.
It’s not so much that Barkley should have won, or that Allen and Jackson were not deserving and worthy vote-getters. It’s just the reality that quarterbacks seem to have the market cornered on the award no matter what anybody else in the league does or how important they are to their team’s success.
If not Barkley, then who? And if not this season, then when?
Is there anything a running back could do that is better than that in a future season to win it? Is there anything a wide receiver could do ever? Defensive players just never get any serious recognition for it even if they can single-handedly change a game or a team’s season.
