A.D. and it's not even close. With Peyton there's room for debate at his position. Was he really better than Brady this year? At running back there's nobody within a country mile of what Peterson did this year. If Manning wins this year they might as well just drop the farce and make it a quarterback-only award.
For me it's AP....no doubt about it, and here are some reasons: 1. Division/Conference Peterson played in a division where the other 3 teams were LEGIT threats to make the playoffs. Green Bay and Detroit were playoff teams a year ago, and Chicago was 1 game out this season. It was no secret Minnesota was looked at as the 4th best team in the NFC North coming into this season. Then add in teams like San Francisco, Seattle, Giants, Cowboys, Skins, Atlanta, New Orleans, etc making it that much harder to earn a playoff spot in a very deep Conference. Manning and Brady play is sht divisions. 2. Supporting Cast Peyton has a top tier Defense, Brady has the best overall cast of Wideouts and TEs to throw to and BB running the show. Minnesota's only other legit offensive threat played roughly half a year (Harvin). Everyone and their mother's were in the box, doing everything possible to stop Peterson since he was the only legit threat to beat them......and it didn't matter because he still beat them....and beat them badly. Minnesota without Peterson is not a playoff team, and probably a 4-5 win team at best. Don't get me wrong, if you take Brady or Peyton off their respective teams they would be in trouble too, but we saw Denver win a sht division with Tebow playing "QB" for them, needing only 8 wins for a division title last year ....... and we have seen McDaniels and Belichick take Matt Cassel and make him look like a legit QB, winning 11 games back in 08. MVP - AP Sent from my LG-P999
Another vote for AP. Teams playing the Vikings know what they have to do. The majority of the teams they played this year still couldn't do it. That's, in my opinion, the very definition of the award. Take AP off the Vikes and they're a sub-.500 team. Manning had a great year but I'm not sure what makes his season that much better than Brady's, or Rodgers'. I know Rodgers had a slow start but he played lights out for most of the second half of the season. His comeback is certainly impressive, but that's not the criteria for the MVP.
Peterson is by far the true MVP of this league. Some may say its much closer than that. I completely disagree. Yes Manning has had an incredible season, yes he was also coming off injury, and yes he is valuable to his team. But, the question is how valuable? Without Manning last season the Broncos were a .500 team with 1 playoff victory. With Manning they are 13-3 +5 in wins. Last season the Vikings finished 3-13. Peterson missed, what - 4 games? This season, Vikings finished 10-6 riding on the legs of Peterson. +7 in wins. Vikings lost their only other offensive threat in Percy Harvin, they have a bum QB. In a passing league, Peterson rushes for 2000+ yards in which teams stack the box. Nobody respects the Vikings passing game, yet this freak of nature still finds ways to perform. AP FOR MVP!
Whoever wins MVP the other should win comeback player cause both deserve both awards maybe we should just trade all of our picks for Peterson?
Okay Question for the guys who pick Peterson. What would happen if you put Ponder and Peterson into Denver? Would Denver still win 13 games without Manning?
Come on junc You already admitted you hate Peyton, Elway and Broncos. I don't think you are being fair.
They still win the division but they don't get 13 games, probably like 8-10 range which is enough. If you are arguing QB position is the most valuable, yeah it's QB. But AP was the best player this year and the clear best player at his position and he dominated the position at a historic rate. If you take Peyton off the Broncos we can kind of compare and say look they got 8 last year. But if that's how you decide MVP, Peyton should have gotten it last year when the Colts without him became a team that almost went 0-16.
No actually I think MVP candidate should be able to carry his team to the Superbowl With Peyton, Denver is top Superbowl favorite based on Vegas bets. Minnesota is not even in top 6. I don't deny what Peterson did and the guy made me win my fantasy league. (Ironically my QB was Peyton). Peterson is good but he can't carry Minnesota to Superbowl all by himself. Peyton can. This is where I am coming from.
So every year the MVP would be coming from the QB position under these standards? That's the problem I have with that thinking. I do agree best QB this year goes to Peyton barely edging Rodgers, but what Adrian did at his level was historically great while what Peyton did was just great compared to this year's competition.