Patrick Mahomes will need to find another reason to be motivated.
After landing at No. 4 in each of the past two years, Mahomes has become for the first time in his career the No. 1 player on the NFL’s player-generated top 100 list.
Last September, Mahomes counted to four during a victory over the Ravens and quarterback Lamar Jackson, who finished No. 1 on the 2020 list. (The prior season, Mahomes counted to 10 during a game against the Bears, who drafted quarterback Mitch Trubisky at No. 2, allowing Mahomes to slide to No. 10.) Although Mahomes downplayed the gesture as simply reflecting the number of touchdown passes he had thrown at that point, he had made a social-media note of his placement on last year’s list.
This year, Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers -- the 2020 MVP -- may find added motivation from the fact that he finished at No. 3.
So why did the MVP not land at No. 1? The problem continues to be the timing of the vote, which happens during not after the prior season. Also, the league continues to simply ask players to vote by making their own personal list of the top 20 players in the league. Those results are then scored (20 points for No. 1 and one point for No. 20) and the players are ranked one through 100, accordingly.
The process is therefore hardly scientific. And, in recent years, the NFL has significantly downplayed the series. It used to be a 10-week process, with one hour of 10 players revealed every Sunday night throughout the summer. It’s now crammed into the three weekends of the preseason, at a time when football fans are otherwise paying attention to, you know, football games.
Still, players who find motivation in anything and everything will find motivation in any actual or perceived slights arising from the top 100 list. Whether it’s Rodgers at No. 3 or Tom Brady at No. 7 or Josh Allen at No. 10 or anyone else who ended up lower than he thinks he should be, it’s another little nudge to get them to do a little more in 2021. Most will never utter a word about it, because they think it’s beneath them to care about such matters. Some, like Mahomes, will find a way to make sure that the rest of us get the point.