It’s impossible to 100 percent guarantee which player will win MVP honors of a particular Super Bowl, but it can for the most part be quite narrowed down: Do not pick a kicker or tight end but instead the quarterback of the team that is likely to win.
Odds courtesy of OddsShark.com
Super Bowl LIII is February 3 from Atlanta between the NFC champion Los Angeles Rams and AFC champion New England Patriots. To zero surprise, the two starting quarterbacks, the Rams‘ Jared Goff and Patriots’ Tom Brady, are the MVP favorites.
Brady leads the pack with odds of +110 because his Patriots are 3-point favorites to win the game. Brady has won five Super Bowl rings, most of any quarterback in league history. His four Super Bowl MVP Awards also are the most. The only Super Bowl that Brady won and he didn’t take home MVP honors was XXXIX when teammate and receiver Deion Branch did.
We are at Super Bowl 53, and quarterbacks have won the award 29 times, including two straight and nine of the past 12. Thus, Goff is the second-favorite at +225 and there’s no other player under +1100 (Rams running back Todd Gurley is that price). The NFL is simply a quarterback-driven, pass-happy league these days. It’s why quarterbacks almost always win regular-season MVP honors as well – as Kansas City’s Patrick Mahomes is likely to do for the 2018 campaign.
Definitely do not bet on a player from a losing team to win MVP honors as that has happened just once: In Super Bowl V, the Dallas Cowboys lost to the Baltimore Colts, but Cowboys linebacker Chuck Howley took home the award thanks to his two interceptions.
A place-kicker actually has won regular-season MVP: The Washington Redskins’ Mark Moseley in the strike-shortened 1982 season. None have taken Super Bowl MVP. The Patriots’ Stephen Gostkowski and Rams’ Greg Zuerlein are each +10000. The Rams aren’t in the Super Bowl without Zuerlein, who hit a game-tying 48-yarder late in the NFC title game in New Orleans and then the winning 57-yarder in OT. That guy has the leg to make a 70-yarder and might not be a bad longer-shot MVP pick.
No tight end has won MVP, either, and New England’s Rob Gronkowski, in perhaps his final game, is +3300. Los Angeles’ Tyler Higbee is +20000 and Gerald Everett is the same price.
