The LA Chargers easily defeated the New York Giants in Week 14 of the 2021 NFL season and yet again, Justin Herbert shined. The second-year quarterback was taken out halfway through the fourth quarter or he probably would have finished with 300 yards and four passing touchdowns. He was that good on Sunday despite missing his top receiver in Keenan Allen.
Herbert has been lighting it up all season after a record-setting rookie year. While he has had a small assortment of bad games, the great have far outweighed the bad and he is the main reason why the LA Chargers are 8-5 and are in a great spot to make the playoffs.
We have talked about Justin Herbert's MVP chances before here on Bolt Beat but it is starting to feel real. There are only four more weeks left in the season and Herbert continues to be among the best in the league when there is really only one clear-cut favorite and he can easily be surpassed (more on that later).
Justin Herbert can absolutely win the MVP, but two things need to happen.
Justin Herbert has the numbers and we know that he is going to continue to play at a high level. That we are not questioning. There are two others important things to check off the list if Herbert is going to win his first MVP award. One of them he is partly in control, the other he is not.
Let's dive into the two things that must happen, starting with the thing that he is partly in control of.
1. The LA Chargers have to win out
Part of the MVP award is team success. Most of the time, if a quarterback if having an insane year then their team is obviously having a good season as well. However, Herbert could be having the exact same season with the exact same stats and if the Chargers were 5-8 then he would not be in the conversation whatsoever.
While the Chargers are definitely in a great spot to make the playoffs, they have to do more than just make the playoffs for Herbert to win the award. Being a playoff team is part of the equation but more times than not you have to win your division to win the MVP award. In fact, the last player to win the MVP award and not win the division was Adrian Peterson in 2012, who was already breaking the mold as a running back.
The LA Chargers have to win the AFC West for Herbert to get the respect that he deserves from the voters and in order to win the AFC West, the Chargers have to win out. They are currently a game behind the Kansas City Chiefs in the division but they do have the tiebreaker. If the Bolts win them all, they win the West.
There are not enough games realistically on the schedule after the Chargers-Chiefs matchup in Week 15 for the Chargers to catch the Chiefs if they win. Beating Kansas City on Thursday night is the first step to get the buzz around Herbert (beating Patrick Mahomes twice will do that) and winning out to go 12-5 will be the icing on the cake.
Even if the Chargers win every other game except for the Chiefs game it won't be enough. Heck, they could beat the Chiefs but if they lose after that and lose the division then he is not winning the award. The Bolts need to finish among the top teams in the AFC for Justin Herbert to be properly recognized.
2. Tom Brady needs to have a stinker (or two)
Tom Brady is the current front-runner for the MVP award and the one thing that Justin Herbert is fighting is the narrative. Brady has the narrative behind him this season and once a player gets that narrative it is often hard to break it. Voters typically hone in who they want to vote for MVP three-fourths of the way through the season and more times than not that player wins the award.
There are times in which there are battles, such as last season with Aaron Rodgers and Patrick Mahomes, but this year it is so clear that voters want to vote Tom Brady for what he is accomplishing with the Bucs. Heck, Aaron Rodgers is having another miraculous season and he is not even talked about because Brady has a stranglehold on the narrative.
The good thing for Herbert is that he does not need both Brady and Rodgers to play poorly down the stretch. Herbert is going to get the edge over Rodgers (if they win out) because Rodgers missed a game and there is voter's fatigue. He just needs Tom Brady to play a bad game or two down the stretch.
The schedule is not that tough, though. The Bucs play the Panthers twice, the Jets and the Saints. The Saints do give Brady fits and the Panthers still have a decent secondary. If he just has one bad game in the final four it could be enough.
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It is not like Brady's stats are way better than Herbert's. He is absolutely in striking range and all it takes is one bad game for Brady and one huge game for Justin Herbert against a horrible team like the Texans to level the playing field statistically.