NFL MVP Race: Favorites and Fast Risers Heading Into Week 16

The NFL MVP race is officially catching fire, and now that we’re heading into the final stretch of the regular season, the conversation is getting real.

It’s been a season full of plot twists, with a few guys playing out of their minds and flipping the script week after week. And for once, it’s not just the usual names living at the top of the board. As we roll into Week 16, a handful of new faces have worked their way into the spotlight and made this thing legitimately interesting.

Either way, tracking the MVP chase is always part of the fun especially for fans who live for the weekly debate and for the daily fantasy crowd looking for every possible edge.

For those interested in playing DFS, RotoGrinders NFL offers a comprehensive content schedule packed with tools that DFS fans can use to analyze player performances, track trends, and optimize lineups. With that in mind, here are the contenders to be crowned the 2025 NFL MVP.

Matthew Stafford

Matt Stafford is playing some of the best football we’ve ever seen from him. In Week 14, he carved up the Cardinals and drove the Rams to a 45-17 beatdown over their NFC West rivals. And what makes it even more impressive is how quickly he bounced back after the Week 13 loss to the Panthers, when he tossed three interceptions. On the season, he’s still only got four picks total.

Now in Year 17, Stafford is leading the league in touchdown passes with 35, and he’s got the Rams sitting at 11-3. They’ve also stacked up wins against a couple of nasty defenses, including the Texans and Seahawks, which only adds to the case that he’s not just putting up numbers, he’s doing it against real competition.

At 37, the window for an MVP run isn’t exactly wide open anymore, even in what’s already shaping up as a Hall of Fame career. The question is whether that Panthers hiccup did enough damage to knock him off the top line.

Drake Maye

For a lot of people, the MVP choice is Drake Maye, and it’s not hard to see why. He’s been flat-out outstanding for the Patriots this season, thriving under Mike Vrabel and driving New England to an 11-3 record. The Week 14 bye was basically the first time the Patriots have had a chance to breathe.

Going into that bye after the win over the Giants, Maye was sitting on top of the league in passer rating (111.9), completion percentage (71.5), and passing yards (3,412). Through 13 games, he’s thrown 23 touchdowns with only six interceptions, which is exactly the kind of clean, efficient production voters love.

Sure, there will be people who roll their eyes and point to New England’s soft schedule, since they came in with the “easiest” slate by NFL records. But Maye has still done what he’s supposed to do, and he’s shown up in the bigger spots too, including that game against the Bills in Week 5. You can’t penalize a guy for dominating what’s in front of him.

Josh Allen

One of the usual suspects is trying to muscle his way back into the MVP conversation, and it’s Josh Allen. A couple late-season heaters have put him right back on the radar, starting with Week 14 against the Bengals. The Bills were chasing that game for most of the day, but Allen dragged them across the finish line in a 39-34 win.

He accounted for four touchdowns in that one, and the moment everyone’s going to remember is the 40-yard sprint through the snow in the fourth quarter. And it wasn’t a one-off, either. Go back to Week 11 against the Buccaneers and Baker Mayfield, and Allen lit them up for six total touchdowns in a 44-32 win.

The tricky part is the context. He already won MVP in 2024, and even if the raw numbers look great again, the week-to-week hasn’t been as sharp as last season. Voters tend to punish that. Fair or not, the argument will be that he hasn’t clearly separated himself from last year’s version, and that could be the thing that keeps him from taking it again.

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