Former NFL MVP picks $260,000,000 QB over Patrick Mahomes, Josh Allen
We're bang in the middle of Week 16 and the NFL Playoff Picture is beginning to get that much clearer. The league's top quarterbacks are showing up and showing out. Patrick Mahomes' Chiefs are top of the AFC and are within a shout of locking up the No. 1 seed but have Josh Allen's Buffalo Bills breathing down their necks.
Lamar Jackson, an MVP contender alongside Allen, has been fighting his own battle, with the Baltimore Ravens in prime position to fall in as the AFC's No. 5 seed. The MVP debate has seen some shift in recent weeks with Allen at the top after putting the Bills offense on his back but the shouts for Jackson will not stop just yet.
Former NFL MVP Cam Newton made his stance on Jackson clear this week on ESPN's First Take.
The Carolina Panthers legend stood up for his fellow dual-threat QB, sending a direct message to Stephen A Smith, saying:
“You must watch what you say about Lamar Jackson. I don’t appreciate it. Respectfully, I see how you talk about Lamar. He’s the greatest quarterback in the league. Right now, I’m taking Lamar Jackson over any other quarterback in the NFL.
“You got to watch what you say about Lamar Jackson because you’re not holding Josh Allen to the same standards.”
Newton believes Jackson is at the top of his game right now, playing well above the likes of Patrick Mahomes, Josh Allen, Jared Goff and the rest of the quarterbacks in the league.
Jackson signed a five-year, $260 million contract that temporarily made him the highest-paid QB in the NFL. That deal has since been eclipsed by a number of signal-callers. Dak Prescott is at the top with an average annual salary of $60 million a year.
Is Lamar Jackson outperforming Josh Allen and Patrick Mahomes?
Interestingly, Pro Football Network's QB+ metric, which assigns a grade and a score to every quarterback by using stats like success rates when pressured, third-down conversion rate, pocket production and their clutch gene, has Jackson at the top in Week 16. The metric gave the Ravens QB an A+ grade with a score of 99.8.
Josh Allen is at an A grade with a score of 93.2, followed by Jared Goff (A-, 91.7), Joe Burrow (A-, 91.7) and Jalen Hurts (B+, 89.2). Mahomes is all the way down at number 12 with a B- grade and an 82.9 score.