3 dark-horses for 2022 NFL MVP award ft. Geno Smith

Only four weeks remain in the 2022 regular season as the NFL world gets a good sense of the league. That being the case, it's time for the fun stuff - predicting Super Bowl matchups and MVP candidates.

The most prestigious [individual] award an NFL player can earn is the annual Associated Press MVP award. This honor is given to the player who voters deem the "most valuable" league-wide throughout the regular season, typically a player on the offensive side of the ball.

And boy, it sure is fun building cases for why players should take home this award as the season advances.

As it stands, quarterbacks Patrick Mahomes and Jalen Hurts are the front-runners, but that doesn't mean others don't have an argument as to why they should receive the honor. Among these players are "dark-horse" candidates; players who aren't favored for the award, but have merit in being considered.

Those players are the focus here.

Dark-horse NFL MVP candidates: Geno Smith, QB, Seattle Seahawks

A quarterback, how boring.

For each of the last nine seasons, a quarterback has won the Associated Press MVP award. Since 2001, 19-of-22 winners have been a team's signal-caller. While there's nothing exciting about listing a quarterback as a dark-horse NFL MVP candidate, Geno Smith's under-the-radar season cannot go unnoticed.

Throughout 14 weeks of football, the man under center in Seattle has been responsible for 25 passing touchdowns and 3,433 passing yards. Smith has thrown only eight interceptions, and has the fourth-highest percentage of "big time throws" (throws with "excellent" ball placement and timing) among starting QBs.

More impressively, Smith's 106.8 quarterback rating ranks third league-wide, and his 71.5% completion percentage leads all quarterbacks who have started at least one contest this season.

Heading into Week 14, Russell Wilson's replacement in Seattle was the only quarterback to post a passer rating of over 100 during each of his last six contests. To put this into perspective, no other signal caller league-wide had an active streak of achieving this feat for longer than one game at the time.

Throughout the season as a whole, Smith has finished nine contests with a passer rating of over 100. No other quarterback in the NFL has hit this mark more than seven times, aside from Jalen Hurts, who still sits behind Smith's total with eight.

After a loss against San Francisco, where Smith threw for 238 yards with a touchdown and no interceptions, the Seahawks are 7-7. If the team can get back to their winning ways, their quarterback has a legitimate chance to win the MVP award this season.

Josh Jacobs, RB, Las Vegas Raiders

Four weeks into the 2022 season, Josh Jacobs earned the second-highest Pro Football Focus grade among players league-wide at his position; a ranking he'd keep until Week 7, where he leaped Nick Chubb for the top spot without ever looking back.

Jacobs is doing things that almost don't make sense. Not only did the 24-year-old enter Week 13 already totaling more yards on the ground than any other player, but his 144 rushing yards against the Chargers was 39 more than anyone else throughout the week.

Now, after Thursday's contest against the Rams, Jacobs sits at 1,402 rushing yards - over 200 yards ahead of Derrick Henry in second (1,199).

This monstrous total wasn't achieved by having the most attempts, but rather due to the type of efficiency that's second-to-none. Among starting running backs, Jacobs is tied for the most yards per carry at 5.2, and his 2.7 yards after contact per carry ranks higher than anyone.

The Raiders' first-round pick in the 2019 NFL Draft is also responsible for the longest rushing play from scrimmage this season. Against the Seattle Seahawks, the team fellow dark-horse NFL MVP candidate Geno Smith plays quarterback for, Jacobs took the ball 86 yards for a walk-off touchdown in overtime.

“JACOBS IS ON HIS WAY!! THE RAIDERS ARE GONNA WIN THIS GAME!!”

Greg Gumbel calls Josh Jacobs’ THRILLING 86-yard walk-off TD against the Seahawks 🙌🤯

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Thanks to his performance against Seattle, Jacobs sits alone as the only player in league history to record 225+ yards on the ground with 70+ receiving yards in a single contest.

After 12 games, the Raiders running back had 1,303 rushing yards, 10 rushing touchdowns, and a yards per carry mark north of 5.37. This feat has only been achieved five times before; once by Walter Payton (1977), once by O.J. Simpson (1073), and three times by Jim Brown (1958, 1963, 1965).

Alas, the Raiders' record of 5-8 comes to mind as an immediate counter-argument for his MVP case - and it's a fair defense. That said, Las Vegas will cap off their season by facing Mac Jones, Brock Purdy, and Kenny Pickett. These are three very favorable quarterback matchups.

In Week 18, the final week of the season, the Silver and Black will battle their division rivals from Kansas City - and there's a chance Patrick Mahomes won't take the field. If the Chiefs win each of their next three matchups between now and then, while Buffalo drops all three of their matches, Kansas City will lock up the top seed in the AFC prior to the start of the week. In this scenario, Mahomes would almost certainly rest up.

If the Chiefs don't lock up the top seed in the AFC prior to Week 18, stay calm; the Raiders were two points away from knocking down Kansas City during their first meeting earlier in the season, possessing a 17-point lead at the half before things went south. Winning record for Las Vegas? If so, possible MVP for Josh Jacobs.

Micah Parsons, EDGE, Cowboys

Will we really see a defensive player take home the NFL MVP award this season? Probably not, but Parsons still deserves his flowers.

What Parsons is doing this season is practically unheard of. His pass-rushing grade of 91.3 ranks second among edge rushers behind only Myles Garrett, his 37 total pressures rank fifth, and he's tied for the fifth-most sacks with 12. Furthermore, Parsons is beating his blocker 22% of the time; the sixth-highest rate league-wide among edge rushers with at least 100 snaps as a pass rusher.

These pass-rushing statistics classify Micah Parsons as an elite pass rusher this season. It isn't the pass-rushing that differentiates him, though.

What makes the Cowboys' second-year edge rusher such a unique player deserving of MVP consideration? It's what he can do when he drops back into coverage - which he does quite often.

Micah Parsons has dropped into coverage 62 times this season, consistently proving his skillset goes well beyond attacking quarterbacks. The 23-year-old's coverage grade of 81.9 ranks 16th across the league among defenders who have logged a minimum of 50 coverage snaps.

When Parsons isn't part of the Cowboys' pass rush, he's causing opposing teams headaches in other ways. Only 50% of passes in his direction are being completed, and he's holding opposing quarterbacks to a passer rating of only 77.1. Altogether, the Penn State alum is responsible for personally breaking up 25% of throws his way.

Parsons is excelling in every facet of the game defensively, and if he keeps it up, he might be looking at an MVP vote or two.