ORCHARD PARK, N.Y. — The Lombardi Trophy will be presented to the Super Bowl champions soon enough, but before that, some regular season awards will be announced.
The NFL Honors event is scheduled to start at 8 p.m. Thursday. A number of awards will be announced that night, including Most Valuable Player, for which Bills quarterback Josh Allen is nominated.
In fact, it's the third time in four years Allen has been a finalist for MVP, with the others being the 2020 and 2022 seasons.
So, should Allen win MVP? Here's the case for and against him taking home the award.
Why Allen might win
Touchdowns and production. As you might have heard, Allen led the league in touchdowns, throwing 29 touchdown passes (fifth) and running for another 15 (tied for second). He topped 4,300 yards passing, and Allen's play was a huge reason the Bills went from a middling 5-5 in mid-November to winning six of their next seven games to win the AFC East, again, and earning the No. 2 seed in the AFC. The playoff run ended with another loss to the Kansas City Chiefs and Patrick Mahomes, who is not an MVP finalist.
Why Allen might not win
Turnovers. He threw 11 interceptions during that 5-5 start, but that number dropped to seven picks in the next 10 games. His 18 interceptions ranked second in the NFL, behind Washington's Sam Howell, and was seven more than the next-closest MVP finalist, San Francisco's Brock Purdy. Another MVP candidate, Dak Prescott, threw half the number of interceptions (9) and did so on 11 more attempts than Allen. Lamar Jackson threw only seven picks, but on 122 fewer attempts.
Of the other candidates, Jackson is seen as the front-runner to win MVP for the second time in his six seasons. He also won back in 2019. Prescott and Purdy are the other quarterbacks.
San Francisco's Christian McCaffrey could be seen as a long-shot candidate based on position alone. The last running backs to win MVP were Adrian Peterson in 2012, and then back in 2005 and 2006, when Shaun Alexander and LaDainian Tomlinson did it in back-to-back seasons.