If there is one award in the NFL that generates the most controversy, discussion, and futures bets, it’s the Most Valuable Player (MVP) award. Part of the struggle is in the name as people try to redefine the ‘value’ aspect of the award on a yearly basis, often changing arguments to fit the particular player they want to support.
We’re also coming off a very contested MVP race in the 2024 NFL season as Lamar Jackson was voted 1st-team All-Pro at quarterback, receiving 30 votes to 18 for Josh Allen. But the same group of 50 voters decided to vote 27-23 in favor of Allen to win his 1st MVP award, meaning a few of the less analytical voters decided to discard years of voting logic by switching their vote to Allen.
If the best quarterback in the league isn’t the most valuable player, then who is? But with Allen getting his charity MVP out of the way, maybe things can go back to normal in the 2025 season.
Here are the current odds from top sportsbooks like BetOnline (check our BetOnline Review) on the favorites to win MVP in the 2025 NFL season:
- Lamar Jackson (+550)
- Joe Burrow (+600)
- Patrick Mahomes (+600)
- Josh Allen (+625)
- Jayden Daniels (+750)
- Justin Herbert (+1400)
- CJ Stroud (+2200)
- Jalen Hurts (+2500)
With last year’s unusual results in mind, here are some dos and don’ts for how to approach futures bets on the NFL MVP winner this season.
DON’T Bet on Non-Quarterbacks to Win MVP
They say the NFL MVP award is just the best quarterback award, and there’s a lot of truth to that now. More specifically, it’s the “Quarterback with Great Stats on a Team with a Great Record” award. Seventeen of the last 18 MVP winners were quarterbacks.
The last non-quarterback to win the award was running back Adrian Peterson in 2012, and that took 2,097 rushing yards after a torn ACL year and enough voter fatigue with Peyton Manning to happen. It also helped that Manning waxed a bad team in Week 17 while Peterson rushed for 199 yards against the Packers to get into the playoffs on the final Sunday of the year.
Running Backs No Longer in the MVP Picture
But generally speaking, running backs don’t get much attention for the award anymore as the workhorses have largely died out, 2024 withstanding. But even last year, neither
Saquon Barkley (Eagles) nor Derrick Henry (Ravens) received any 1st-place MVP votes. Barkley finished a distant 3rd in the new ranked voting system.
You can confidently predict a quarterback will win this award again in 2025. That’s why half the top odds leaders are half of the starting quarterbacks in the league before you get to Barkley at +5000 odds. And he’s not going to replicate the record number of 60-yard touchdown runs he had last year.
The Wide Receiver Challenge
Betting on a wide receiver is also tough as they’d have to have the perfect scenario for it to happen. They’d have to uplift a poor quarterback situation, help the team win a lot of games with signature moments, probably win the triple crown or get to 2,000 receiving yards, and that’s just asking too much of anyone at a position so dependent on others.
No tight end or offensive lineman has ever won the award, and they likely never will. Even tougher to justify would be to waste a bet on a defensive player to win MVP. That hasn’t happened since Lawrence Taylor for the 1986 Giants, and that was another perfect storm scenario without any stellar quarterbacks as the best one statistically (Dan Marino) was on an 8-8 team that missed the playoffs.
The Defensive Player of the Year award is plenty good enough to honor the league’s best defender that season. They won’t win MVP this year, so don’t bother betting on anyone to.
DO Bet on a Narrative for the Quarterback
You know you’re going to bet on a quarterback to win NFL MVP, but you shouldn’t just choose one at random or because he’s a great player. You have to attach some type of narrative to their MVP case that the voters can latch onto when they justify their vote.
Mahomes and Allen: Perfect Narratives
For example, Patrick Mahomes was a good MVP bet in 2022 because he was going into a season without Tyreek Hill after the team traded away his best wide receiver and didn’t do much to replace him. Sure enough, Mahomes still led the league in passing yards and touchdowns and claimed the No. 1 seed with the best offense in the game, winning his 2nd MVP award.
For the 2024 season, Josh Allen had a similar narrative in Buffalo after the team traded his No. 1 wide receiver, Stefon Diggs, and didn’t do a whole lot to adequately replace him. Allen got off to a strong start, then had a big finish to garner enough votes for MVP over Jackson, who had the anti-narrative that adding Derrick Henry was giving him too much help in Baltimore.
2025 Narratives Are Trickier
You really can’t apply that particular narrative in 2025 as the top quarterbacks in MVP odds are all coming back with their best weapon in place. But there are other narratives to draw here.
One might say Joe Burrow is the next quarterback to get an MVP if this is truly the participation trophy era, and we have to make sure everyone gets their turn. But the narrative there is the Bengals had a slow start, almost made the playoffs at 9-8, and Burrow is going to prove he was right to get the team to pay his wideouts the most money in NFL history for a duo as he’ll make it work. How can the defense get any worse?
There’s also a narrative that Jayden Daniels had the best rookie quarterback season ever for Washington, and with a better defense and the trades for Deebo Samuel and Laremy Tunsil, he should have a better team around him after already getting one game within the Super Bowl as a rookie. Maybe he ascends to another level a la Dan Marino in 1984 and has his MVP season in 2025.
Another good narrative could be a Patrick Mahomes revenge tour after his stats were down the last 2 years and coming off that ugly Super Bowl rout. Maybe the Chiefs shift away from targeting an older Travis Kelce and focus the offense on getting the ball downfield again to speedy wideouts like Rashee Rice (back healthy) and Xavier Worthy (no longer a rookie).
A Word of Caution
Of course, these don’t always work out, as the Daniels’ narrative is very similar to what CJ Stroud had going for him in Houston after the team acquired Stefon Diggs and Danielle Hunter. Injuries ravaged that receiving corps, and the offensive line wasn’t up to par either for Stroud, who basically saw his MVP campaign end before October.
Burrow and Daniels, a pair of top 5 MVP candidates, also present another cautionary tale in MVP betting this season.
DON’T Bet on Someone You Don’t Expect to Win Many Games
If there is something NFL MVP voters are consistent about, it’s giving the award to someone who wins a lot of games, especially when it’s the quarterback position:
- Of the last 37 quarterbacks to win MVP since 1978, 32 of them were a No. 1 or No. 2 seed with 27 winners (73%) playing for a No. 1 seed.
- Since 1978, 32 of the 37 quarterbacks to win MVP award have won at least 12 games.
- The only quarterback to win NFL MVP in the 16-game era who didn’t win at least 11 games was John Elway in 1987, which was a 15-game season with 3 games played by replacement players during a strike.
1987 was also one of the most contested MVP races ever, with Joe Montana and Jerry Rice stealing votes from each other in San Francisco, which allowed Elway to pull out a narrow win.
But this does show that MVP voters aren’t kind to quarterbacks who barely get above .500 with a 9-8 or 10-win team, no matter the circumstances. Finishing as a wild card team is also rarely awarded, as the last quarterback to do that was Peyton Manning in 2008, and he at least was 12-4 after a slow start that season.
For these reasons, this is why the 2025 picks of Burrow and Daniels for MVP may not be the best choices due to the competition they face in their divisions with the Ravens and Eagles. Granted, if they overtake those teams to win the division and challenge for a top 2 seed, then there’s the MVP case solidified. But neither is favored to do so right now.
If you don’t think the quarterback you’re betting on to win MVP can win at least 11 games – it’s probably 12 now in the 17-game era – then you probably want to look elsewhere.
DO Hedge Your NFL MVP Bets
Remember, it’s a long season, and many different players can be the MVP favorite throughout it. In the 2021 season, everyone from Patrick Mahomes, Kyler Murray, Matthew Stafford, Josh Allen, and Tom Brady spent time as the favorite before Aaron Rodgers won it in the end.
You don’t want to get too high on one player and go all in on them to win this award. It’s better to hedge on other players throughout the season, especially if you are making NFL award parlays with other awards on them. Even a solid bet on an MVP runner-up can help you with cash out offers if your other picks are solid.
Who to Watch in 2025
After the big battle between Jackson and Allen last year, voters may be looking for fresh blood in 2025. That’s why the best players to focus on early are Burrow, Daniels, and Mahomes.
But don’t be afraid to get creative and add some stock in Brock Purdy (+2800 at BetOnline) as he gets an easy schedule and should have healthier weapons around him. He was an MVP favorite as late as Christmas in the 2023 season before he imploded against Baltimore, allowing Jackson to escape with the award.
For a bigger longshot, you could bet on new coach Ben Johnson working some magic with Caleb Williams (+3300 at BetOnline) in Chicago, joining the list of second-year quarterbacks to win the award like Dan Marino (1984), Kurt Warner (1999), Patrick Mahomes (2018), and Lamar Jackson (2019).
Patterns Among MVP Winners
Most MVP winners are explainable, if not predictable. In fact, Allen was the 1st winner of the award who hadn’t already won it before, since Jackson in 2019, as we had a series of multiple-time winners with Aaron Rodgers (2020-21), Mahomes (2022), and Jackson (2023).
There’s not really a historical precedent for someone like Trevor Lawrence just magically turning into an MVP-winning quarterback in Year 5 after a so-so 4-year start to his career. Even when Brian Sipe (1980 Browns) was named MVP in a career year, he was a candidate in 1979, too. These things just don’t come out of nowhere most of the time.
Find a narrative for some quarterbacks you expect to win a lot of games with great stats and stick to bets on them. Then just hope voters like Chris Simms, Emmanuel Acho, and Dan Orlovsky don’t blow up all logic in January to give someone else the award because of “aura” or whatever.
