Earlier in December, Josh Allen looked like a lock to win his first MVP award, with Lamar Jackson well behind. His Bills have essentially been unbeatable since back-to-back setbacks in the first half of the season, and in their lone setback, Allen made all sorts of statistical history by throwing for 342 yards and three scores while running for 82 yards and another three visits to paydirt.
He was anti-Jared Goff. Whereas Goff could throw five interceptions and win, Allen could put on the cape and lose. In the discussion of “value,” the case for Allen might best be made by what he did to keep his team competitive in a spot where the towel could have easily been thrown in early.
The Allen case is strong, and the story is a great one for a starved fan base. But does that make it the right one?
The Ultimate Josh Allen vs. Lamar Jackson Debate
Jackson won the award last season, and while back-to-back honors aren’t a common occurrence, we have seen five players accomplish the feat (Jim Brown, Joe Montana, Brett Favre, Aaron Rodgers, and Peyton Manning twice). We look to strip human bias from our analysis, so when it was flagged that Jackson’s grade in our proprietary QB+ metric is now 7.5% higher than it was a year ago, we decided to dive into the Allen vs. Jackson case from a strictly numeric point of view.
The results were interesting – and very one-sided.
For us, the first step in this process is analyzing not just the raw QB+ number but also adjusting it based on matchup. Is acing your addition/subjection test the same as posting a big number on a calculus exam?
As you can see from the graphic above, both Allen and Jackson have routinely produced over expectations (the average QB+ allowed by the opponent they faced), but in terms of range of outcomes, Jackson has had the better season. In comparing the two:
Jackson owns the top-5 weeks over QB+ expectation (and seven of the top 8). Allen owns four of the bottom-6 performances.
Taking all of the data we have up to this point, this is where things currently stand in terms of annual production relative to expectations.
Now that we’ve addressed opponents overall, what if we lower the microscope a bit? The two things that get brought up most in debates like this are ‘How did you do against similar competition?’ and ‘What did it look like when they shared the field?’
MORE: PFN’s QB+ Rankings
Depending on which metric you value the most will determine if you grade the Bills or Ravens defense, but they are close enough across the board to evaluate their head-to-head meeting with the common opponent spots that are a natural comparison point:
The final piece of the puzzle for most in evaluating any award that is voted upon by human beings is the ‘what have you done for me lately’ angle. Reasonable minds can argue as to the importance of early season production on an award like this that is voted for five months later, but if your stance is that the value of performance increases with time, here’s what the time-lapse looks like:
In a similar vein, let’s not forget that the Ravens were slow out of the gate this season and have looked like a different team after opening the season with consecutive losses. If you want to fully dismiss the first few weeks of the season, something some voters could certainly do given the number of things that have changed over time:
Josh Allen (-240) remains a decent betting favorite heading into the weekend of Week 17, but Lamar Jackson (+180) is coming along the outside and is more than deserving of consideration.
The Bills are very likely to finish ahead of Baltimore in the race for the AFC’s second seed (a win on Sunday would clinch it), and that could sway some of the vote, but if we are going based on raw data, the wrong quarterback is getting the majority of the attention.