ON TODAY'S SCORECARD
From VIP to MVP

Josh Allen of the Buffalo Bills, Trevor Lawrence of the Jacksonville Jaguars, Drake Maye of the New England Patriots, Christian McCaffrey of the San Francisco 49ers and Matthew Stafford of the Los Angeles Rams have been voted the five finalists for the 2025 NFL Associated Press Most Valuable Player award.

Allen is the only finalist to have been voted an MVP, taking home the award last season. He played 17 games for the Bills this season, throwing for 3,668 yards, 25 touchdowns and a career-high 69.3 completion percentage while also rushing for 579 yards and 14 touchdowns to lead the team to its seventh straight playoff appearance.

Lawrence nearly doubled his passing yards total from 2024 with 4,007 yards and a career-high 29 touchdowns as the Jaguars won the AFC South and made the playoffs for the first time since 2022.

The Patriots' revival was in large part because of the play of Maye. He led New England led to a 14-3 record, and their first AFC East crown since 2019. The second-year quarterback posted career numbers across the board with 4,394 passing yards, 31 touchdowns and an NFL-best completion percentage (72%) and 113.5 passer rating. He also rushed for 450 yards and four touchdowns.

McCaffrey, who was a first-team All-Pro along with Stafford, recovered from an injury that derailed his 2024 season to play all 17 games for the 49ers in 2025. He rushed for 1,202 yards and 10 touchdowns and also caught 102 passes for 924 receiving yards and seven touchdowns as San Francisco finished with a 12-5 record and returned to the postseason.

No NFL quarterback had more passing yards (4,707) or passing touchdowns (46) than Stafford as the Rams finished with a 12-5 record in the touch NFC West. He was right behind Maye in passer rating (109.2) and was named a first-team All-Pro for the first time in his 17-season career. It was the first time Stafford had reached the 4,000-yard mark since 2021, his first season in L.A., and only the third time in his career he's surpassed 40 passing touchdowns.

Here are the stats of the 4 quarterbacks that were nominated in this year’s class...

2025 - 2026 season

The NFL MVP award (officially the Associated Press NFL MVP) has been presented most seasons since 1957.

Quarterbacks are by far the most common winners, with 48 MVP awards going to QBs all-time.

The QB with the most MVPs is Peyton Manning (5), followed by Aaron Rodgers (4).

Running backs have won the AP NFL MVP award the second-most times, 18 all-time

There’s a great chance we’re going to see a Super Bowl we’ve seen before. At least from a historical perspective. 

If the Patriots get to Super Bowl LX, we’re guaranteed of it. They’ve already played the Rams twice (winning both) and beat the Seahawks in their classic Super Bowl XLIX victory. Meanwhile, Seattle also played the Broncos a year prior to its galling last-minute loss to New England, winning 43–8 for the franchise’s only championship.

So, if you want a new game? Root for the Broncos and Rams. For that matchup to occur, though, both teams will need to win as underdogs.

The last time both underdogs won on Championship Sunday was ironically in 2018, when New England and Los Angeles went on the road and beat the Chiefs and Saints, respectively.

TRENDING TODAY
A Mafia Hit

As Buffalo licks its wounds following yet another heartbreaking postseason loss, it's worth exploring whether the early 2020s Bills — an era that officially ended with Sean McDermott's recent firing — are the best team in NFL history to never win a Super Bowl.

Consider this: The Bills are one of just four NFL teams to win a playoff game in six consecutive seasons. But while the Cowboys (1991-96), Patriots (2011-18) and Chiefs (2018-24) each won three Super Bowls during their streaks, Buffalo didn't even appear in one during theirs (2020-25).

• They've also turned losing postseason games into an art form, becoming the first team in NFL history to lose by three or fewer points in the playoffs in back-to-back-to-back seasons.

• And it's not like the Bills have just snuck into the playoffs, either. They've won five of the last six AFC East titles and, statistically, they've been the NFL's best regular-season team of the first half of the decade.

By the numbers: It took a couple years for the Bills to jell under McDermott (hired in 2017) and Josh Allen (drafted in 2018), but since 2020 they lead the NFL in all four major regular-season stats, boasting the most wins of any team while having the best scoring offense and defense.

• Wins: 73 (Chiefs are second with 72)

• Points for: 2,896 (Cowboys: 2,722)

• Points against: 1,994 (Chiefs: 2,043)

• Differential: +902* (Ravens: +581)

• *First place by a mile: The gap between the Bills and second-place Ravens is larger than the gap between the Ravens and ninth-place Rams (+267).

The dynasty that never was: Unfortunately for Buffalo, greatness is measured in rings, and the Bills are one of just four teams in the history of the "Big Four" leagues to have a .600+ win percentage in at least seven straight seasons without ever advancing to a championship, joining the 1968-75 Oakland Raiders, 1981-87 Milwaukee Bucks and 2004-11 San Jose Sharks.

A different kind of sadness: This half-decade of near-dominance calls to mind the infamous "Four Falls of Buffalo," when Jim Kelly's Bills advanced to four straight Super Bowls from 1990-93… and lost all four of them. It begs the question: Is the current iteration of the team even more disappointing? It just might be.

Looking ahead: Keep your heads up, Bills Mafia. Josh Allen is only 29, and it takes only one glorious championship to forget all the past heartbreak. But you'd better get it done soon, because that kid in New England looks poised to turn your division into a gauntlet for the foreseeable future.

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