Should Packers’ Aaron Rodgers be in the MVP conversation?

The Green Bay Packers are through six games of the season and one football media outlet has Aaron Rodgers as an MVP candidate.

The Packers are a surprising 5-1 this season through six games. Let’s be honest, you are surprised too. With a brand new head coach and a completely new offense, I don’t think anyone expected the Packers to be 5-1, let alone 3-0 in the NFC North. Yet, here we are.

You can make the case that the defense deserves the credit, and they do, but you can’t deny that this offense has looked good at times, and is only getting better by the week. The stats may not show it, but if you are without your top-five receiver in the league and still putting up yards and points, you must be doing something right, something maybe even MVP-worthy.

At least, that’s what Mike Florio from ProFootballTalk, who’s beef with Rodgers is well documented, seems to think. He has Aaron Rodgers as an MVP candidate so far this season. So why is Rodgers’ name even bring brought up in the same breath as them as far as MVP awards go? It’s simple. Because they are winning.

He doesn’t have near the stats Russell Wilson or Patrick Mahomes are putting up, and let’s be honest, the MVP award is stats-driven. Both Wilson and Mahomes have 400 yards or more passing than Rodgers and they each have 14 touchdown passes to Rodgers’ eight. Rodgers also has more interceptions (two) than both of them combined.

Even myself, a biased Packer fan, laughed at the idea. But the more you think about it, the more it makes some sense. Let’s be honest, if the Packers didn’t have Aaron Rodgers as their starting quarterback, they wouldn’t be 5-1. If the Packers had an average or even an above-average quarterback in the game on Monday night, the Packers leave Lambeau with a loss.

In a game like Monday night, it seemed like Murphy’s Law, anything that could go wrong, would. You don’t have your top receiver, your slot receiver leaves the game and all you are left with is a hobbled Marquez Valdes-Scantling and undrafted players in Jake Kumerow, Darrius Shepherd, and Allen Lazard.

Yet, he led the Packers back from down nine points in the fourth quarter to get the win. That’s what MVPs do. They take what they have, make everyone around them better, and they win football games.

If the Packers end up with the number one seed in the NFC or even number two, it will be because Rodgers carried this offense. Yes, the defense will be huge too, but the defense doesn’t score points, or at least not enough to win games.

Now, do I actually believe Rodgers will win the MVP award? No. Absolutely not, unless he goes on a historic run these last 10 games, which we’ve seen him do, but I think those days are long gone.

Now, do I think he will be in the discussion for MVP?

No.

But maybe he should be.