Best Sports Take of 2023 and Why Running Backs Can't Win MVP

The official HoS position on CMC's MVP argument

Congrats to Raheem Palmer from The Ringer, who’s submitted my favorite pure sports take of 2023. It’s the take I keep returning to this month as the current NFL MVP conversation evolves, such as when leading MVP candidate and HoS muse Brock Purdy (QB) says that teammate Christian McCaffrey (RB) should get the award.

This Purdy quote kicked off sports debates over whether McCaffrey really is the most valuable player in the league, a proposition that I, Joe Football Writer, regard as insane. More on that later, though. First, let’s look at how the MVP conversation in sports went from a happy celebration to a grueling zero-sum analysis.

When “Most Valuable” Overcame “Best”

So why do I keep returning to Palmer’s take? Because he identified a culture shift towards literal-mindedness in analysis of the award, which is something I’ve felt without necessarily completely noticing. In general, I love when someone chronicles a change that’s imperceptible as it’s happening, but obvious in retrospect. This dumb transition, niche as it is, illustrates a broader trend in sports analysis: Away from simplistic glorification and towards talmudic debate over specifics.

“MVP” used not to be so literal a distinction. Often, it would go to a player on a dominant team who happened to put up great stats. No wide receiver ever won because an explosive passing game would highlight the quarterback. Defensive players almost never won either, for reasons that were rarely spelled out.

The setup was similar in the NBA. Defense is half the game, but less so a consideration for MVP, and the hardware would go to the best guy on a memorably dominant team. There were exceptions to these general rules, such as Michael Jordan getting the MVP on a 50-win Bulls squad, but MJ is, after all, the human exception. Usually, even if you were obviously the best player, you needed a great team season to achieve a top individual honor.

Then the Internet happened, and nerds started mocking the old sports writers who voted on these matters. It started in baseball. Blogs like Fire Joe Morgan made a game of pointing out how the old guard ascribed magical powers to guys who just happened to be on great teams. This was an era of newly intense analysis, devoted to tearing down myths. Out of it, pitcher King Felix Hernandez earned the Cy Young in 2010, despite winning only 13 games on a terrible Mariners squad. This never would have happened in the Old Days and it marked a nerd triumph. It was the dawn of a new age, one where individual quality would be painstakingly isolated from team results.

I was Team Nerd back then, eager for the revolution to come to basketball. I was annoyed that Derrick Rose won MVP when other players were clearly better. I too wanted “Most Valuable” to actually mean “most valuable.” Perhaps, looking back, I was wrong to want what I wanted.

Why was this shift towards literal MVP bad? Well, in the grand scheme it’s no great tragedy. It’s just that we’ve gone from a relatively positive MVP conversation, one based on affirmation, to a more complicated and negative analysis. We (the Royal ‘we’) have probably incentivized more selfishness among athletes by attempting to isolate them from their teammates, criticizing one to praise the other even when all are winning. On the other hand, the shift has been a boon to the sports talk shows I enjoy. You can argue for hours about which team would be more screwed by which player getting injured, if you’re into that sort of thing (I’m into that sort of thing).

The literalist MVP interpretation then becomes not just an affirmation of the athlete but an indictment of his surroundings. Or, on the flip side, per Brock Purdy, we can slight a player’s production based on our belief in his surrounding pieces. This has made the award occasionally complicated for coaches and teammates to discuss openly. The dominant narrative is now less, “What a season!” and more often, “When you consider this, that and the other factor, some player is less important for winning games than you might assume.” Which is why it pains me at some level to make this exact point, but here we go.

The Problem with Choosing a Running Back

So if we’re having this oddly negative MVP conversation every year, we might as well have it in a way that makes sense. Christian McCaffrey’s literal MVP case doesn’t track, despite his quarterback’s endorsement, and is obviously downstream of people in sports media disbelieving in said quarterback. Many NFL observers don’t buy Purdy as the league’s most valuable player because a) Patrick Mahomes is always the most valuable player, even when his receivers can’t catch; b) the Niners have so much talent; and c) draftism.

It is quite reasonable, in my opinion, to think someone other than Purdy is the literal Most Valuable Player in 2023. I personally believe he’s been undervalued due to expectations, but I certainly can’t completely disaggregate his quality from the obvious quality of his surrounding teammates. There are a couple of elite quarterbacks whose circumstances were suboptimal, so I get choosing them over Brock. Would the Bills be totally dead without Josh Allen, for instance? Maybe they’ll win out and change the MVP conversation. Former MVP Lamar Jackson might prevail over Purdy in an upcoming Monday night game and demonstrate why he should be considered. Patrick Mahomes, aforementioned, is clearly the main reason the Chiefs are still Super Bowl contenders. Take your pick.

What I don’t get, as an outsider to football analysis, is this: Former players and current pundits making the case for a running back. Even a great running back. Even a running back who checks every box I would want checked from that kind of player. Such is football and a clear case for why “best” and “most valuable” are different categories.

To be clear, McCaffrey’s MVP push is getting more of a hearing in the media than in Vegas, and I have to salute America’s gambling apparatus for its sanity on this. But I think the current momentum behind CMC-MVP is worth bringing up, because it offers some insight into just how quirky a sport football is.

What’s so bizarre about making the case against Christian McCaffrey is that he’s pretty much flawless. At running back, he’s close to being a perfect player. He’s a great traditional rusher, between the tackles and outside them, plus he runs routes like a wide receiver. When CMC’s not running or catching, he’s sacrificing his body on blocks. He does everything he’s asked to do and does it at an elite level. So why is this not an MVP?

Because football is weird, man. Different situations in the game present wildly different levels of importance. This is unlike basketball, where possessions are relatively equal. Basketball has high leverage moments at the end of games, but lacks a true analog to the repeated stand off with “3rd and long,” a situation that usually decides whether a scoring drive continues. And it’s the quarterback’s moment.

When analysts explain QB importance with “they touch the ball on every play,” I think that description obscures this aspect. Centers also touch the ball on every play; they aren’t quarterbacks. QBs are QBs in part due to when they get the ball. Beyond all the jobs involved in running an offense, or “game managing,” as some derisively put it, quarterbacks have the main responsibility of extending a drive when a conversion is absolutely needed. Running backs largely do not.

The dominant 49ers face comparatively fewer third-down conversions, but still require them to string drives together. On the season, Purdy has converted 46 third-down conversions in passing situations, with two passing fourth-down conversions. He’s 62-of-96 in these scenarios, with 840 yards gained, eight sacks yielded, and one interception coughed up. I should also note that Purdy scrambled for two conversions on third and long. That’s roughly 50 passing situation conversions in “gotta have it” circumstances, on top-tier efficiency in that context.

The obvious question then is, “How many of those passes involve McCaffrey?” and the answer is “five.” Brandon Aiyuk caught more of these conversions (13), as did Deebo Samuel (8), as did Jauan Jennings (7), as did tight end George Kittle (7), who recently endorsed CMC for MVP.

An obvious contention is that McCaffrey rushes for conversions, which he does. But here’s where it gets murky. CMC deserves credit for his 12 short-yardage conversions on 20 third-down attempts, but “3rd and very short” is a conversion for running backs, on average. Also, “gotta have it” is confounded here because on some of these plays, you can try again on fourth down if you come up short (CMC is 2-of-3 on fourth-and-short conversions). Overall, McCaffrey has 19 total conversions on third or fourth down, with a majority coming on rushing situations that are more likely to convert than an obvious passing down.

Let’s do a comparison, using the highest-paid running back vs. the highest-paid wide receiver on third and fourth down. Even when you combine CMC’s rushing and receiving conversions in these situations, he has fewer conversions than Tyreek Hill of the Miami Dolphins, who snagged 25. When four or more yards needed in such situations, McCaffrey has six conversions. Hill has 20. This is one reason why, as unimpeachable as Christian McCaffrey is as a player, he makes roughly half as much in salary as Hill makes. People talk a lot about Hill bending defenses and it’s true, but there’s also the part where he’ll bail you out on third and long. No running back has this responsibility, even as skilled a runner and receiver as McCaffrey. You can take this as an example of why wideouts deserve more credit, but the main point is that RBs aren’t as involved in high leverage.

Are there confounding variables to the Niners-focused conclusion here? Yes. There’s the matter of the replacement gap between Purdy and his backup, plus whatever value you attach to McCaffrey as a blocker. There’s also the matter of how CMC helps you avoid “gotta have it” situations in the first place, plus whatever intangibles can’t possibly be captured by statistics.

But, in the end, if you look over all the factors, you end up returning to a boring conclusion: The most valuable player, whoever he is, is a quarterback. You can run the ball really well like last season’s Raiders (Remember Josh Jacobs?), but, if you struggle to pass on third down you’re still…the Raiders. Or, for a more McCaffrey-based example, his last team was bad despite his best efforts. In 2019, when CMC delivered his then career season, the Panther offense was still impotent because they were terrible when passing on third down.

This isn’t exactly a hot take, but quarterbacks are extremely important, even if Mark Schlereth and other former players from the 1990s try and argue otherwise on TV. It doesn’t mean that a quarterback in a given year is having the league’s “best” season. It does mean he’s having the most valuable one, though. That’s the game, at least according to the rules we made. If we’re literally deciding MVP, it can’t be CMC.