Winter is coming, which means it's just about that time of year again. The time of year when the true contenders begin separating from the pack. The time of year when the MVP race heats up.
Welcome to CBS Sports' first edition of our weekly MVP watch. Every week until the end of the season, the five NFL writers here at CBS Sports will be submitting our very own MVP ballots in which we rank our top five candidates. Each vote will be added up with first-place votes counting as five points, second-place votes counting as four points, and so on, until we have our MVP choice after each remaining week of the season.
The results this week weren't particularly shocking, but they did reflect what appears to be a neck and neck two-man race for MVP at the moment. After 10 weeks, Patrick Mahomes and Drew Brees are engaged in one of the more exciting MVP races in recent memory.
Mahomes, who has played in one more game than Brees, has thrown for 10 more touchdowns and nearly 550 more yards than Brees, but Brees is on pace to smash his own single-season record for completion percentage. He's completing 77.3 percent of his passes and he's thrown only one interception -- six fewer than Mahomes. It's also Brees who owns the better passer rating by more than six points and QBR by more than three points. Both quarterbacks play for teams that have dropped only one game. This is as close to a toss up as toss ups can get, but I can't shake the feeling that it'll be Mahomes' touchdown count combined with his sudden ascent and habit of making jaw-dropping plays that'll give him the edge over Brees at the end of the season. Mahomes is the new, exciting quarterback we've all fallen head over heels for. Brees is the future first ballot Hall of Famer who we've grown used to. It's tougher for him to wow us, because we already knew that he was capable of doing this.
Both players are entirely deserving. Only one point separates the two players in our collective ballot. The next closest player to Mahomes and Brees is Todd Gurley, and he's facing a double-digit deficit. This appears to be a two-man race as we head into the stretch run of the season.
2018 MVP vote heading into Week 11
1. Patrick Mahomes — 22 points
2. Drew Brees — 21 points
3. Todd Gurley — 10.5 points
4. Philip Rivers — 8 points
5. Jared Goff — 4.5 points
6. Khalil Mack — 3 points
T-7. Aaron Donald — 2 points
T-7. Cam Newton — 2 points
T-9. Ben Roethlisberger — 1 point
T-9. James Conner — 1 point
Let's get to everyone's individual ballot so you know who to yell at on Twitter.
John Breech's ballot
- Todd Gurley
- Patrick Mahomes
- Drew Brees
- Philip Rivers
- Ben Roethlisberger
I have Gurley at the top of my ballot and that's mainly because he's been the most impressive player in the NFL this year. My problem with putting Mahomes or Brees at the top is that every quarterback in the NFL has basically been putting up huge numbers this season, and in my mind, they're just canceling each other out. I mean, what they're doing is amazing, but not as amazing as what Gurley's doing. The Rams running back is head-and-shoulders the best player at his position and it's not even close. Not only is he leading the NFL in rushing BY MORE THAN 150 YARDS, but he's also the NFL's leading scorer right now. To put that in perspective, no running back has led the NFL in scoring since 2006 when LaDainian Tomlinson pulled it off, and yup, he won the MVP that year.
Finally, I have Ben Roethlisberger on my ballot because he was my preseason pick to win MVP and I'M GOING TO STAND BY HIM UNTIL THE VERY END. He's also earned his way on here by being one of the NFL's hottest quarterbacks over the past few weeks. Over the course of the Steelers current five-game winning streak, Big Ben has thrown 13 touchdown passes and just two interceptions. To put that in perspective, Mahomes has thrown 15 touchdowns and seven interceptions over the same span.
Will Brinson's ballot
- Patrick Mahomes
- Drew Brees
- Philip Rivers
- Cam Newton
- Khalil Mack
This is still Mahomes' award to lose, but the Saints look like the best team in football and if they finish with the best record in football, I firmly believe Drew Brees will end up winning MVP. Not just because he's deserving -- and he is! -- but because he's never won the award before and people will be fine handing Mahomes the OPOY award while giving Brees a lifetime achievement MVP honor. Rivers is closer to the first two guys than he is the last two guys on this list but isn't getting the respect of the voting public right now; the Chargers have only lost to the Rams and Chiefs and could secretly steal the division. Cam's been outstanding and warrants love for his play, even if his latest game was ... not great. Mack is rounding out the list because of his impact on a Bears defense that is paving the way for an NFC North title run.
Jared Dubin's ballot
1. Drew Brees
2. Patrick Mahomes
3/4. Jared Goff/Todd Gurley
5. Khalil Mack
Patrick Mahomes has the gaudier numbers and I did recently vote for him in our midseason awards column, but the absurd quality of the ecosystem in which he works has me leaning ever so slightly toward Brees at this moment. It's extremely difficult to disentangle Goff and Gurley from each other and I tend to think quarterbacks are de facto more valuable than running backs, but with the way the Rams run their offense, those guys essentially control every aspect of every play. They've both been phenomenal and I think one or both will get a lot of votes at the end of the year. Mack has taken the Bears defense to a whole new level and is the single biggest non-Matt Nagy reason that team is 6-3.
Sean Wagner-McGough's ballot
- Patrick Mahomes
- Drew Brees
- Philip Rivers
- Jared Goff
- Khalil Mack
It's a quarterback-driven league, so you'll find my top-four quarterbacks of the season listed above, all of whom are experiencing MVP-caliber seasons that would be good-enough to take first place in an ordinary season. But this isn't an ordinary season. As Chase Stuart over at Football Perspective continues to note, this is the best passing season of all time. Mahomes has been my leader for pretty much the entire season, but Brees has closed the gap. I now consider the two of them co-frontrunners.
The last spot might be controversial. What Todd Gurley is doing right now isn't lost on me, it's just that, I don't know if I can ever say a running back is the most valuable player. Gurley is an amazing running back, but if you plugged another amazing running back into that Rams offense -- like, say, Kareem Hunt or Ezekiel Elliott or Melvin Gordon -- that running back would be putting up similar numbers.
It's a quarterback-driven league, which means I also want to give credit to a player who is making opposing quarterbacks live through hell. Khalil Mack has turned the Bears' defense into arguably the best defense in football, providing an otherwise solid defense with a top-notch pass rush. Win-loss results aside, everyone could see the effects his ankle injury had on the entire Bears defense. With Mack back from injury, expect him to continue racking up sacks while leading the Bears to the playoffs for the first time since 2010.
Ryan Wilson's ballot
- Drew Brees
- Patrick Mahomes
- Todd Gurley
- Aaron Donald
- James Conner
Drew Brees is 39 years old, he's 6-0 and he's the NFL's best player. We write these words hours after he completed 88 percent of his passes against a Bengals team that had precisely zero answers as the Saints scored 51 points. For the season, Brees has a completion percentage of 77.3, and has a whopping lone interception in 304 pass attempts. For some perspective on just how mind-blowingly consistent Brees has been, consider this: He's completed at least 80 percent of his throws this season on four different occasions and only twice has had a passer rating below 100.
Patrick Mahomes has been the biggest surprise of 2018, and in terms of advanced metrics, he's actually been better than Brees, ranking first in both total value and value per play, according to Football Outsiders. Sunday was only the second time all season he's thrown for fewer than 300 yards, but he still completed 75 percent of his attempts and already has 31 touchdowns through 10 games.
In the offseason, Le'Veon Bell said 2018 was going to be his best season yet but since it doesn't look like he'll report, Todd Gurley has happily taken up the mantle as not only the league's best back but a legit MVP candidate. He's first in total value, second in value per play, and throw 10 games he already has 988 yards (5.0 YPC) and 13 touchdowns to go along with 402 receiving yards and four more scores. Gurley's teammate, Aaron Donald, joins him on this list because he is again the most dominant defensive player in football.
Finally, there's James Conner, the other beneficiary to Bell's absence. An after through as a rookie in 2017, carrying the ball just 32 times before suffering a knee injury, the Steelers' offense now runs through Conner. He has 771 rushing yards (4.7 YPC) and 10 touchdowns to go along with 387 receiving yards and another score. He's not as explosive as Gurley, but to the Steelers he's as important as Bell was in recent years.
