Darnold, Mayfield and Sagapolutele: who will be the NFL’s next first-time MVP?

There has been a trend in recent NFL seasons. Around Week 8, the MVP race starts to follow a predictable script: Patrick Mahomes, Josh Allen and Lamar Jackson (if the Ravens are rolling) will almost certainly feature.

Between 2015 and 2019, the NFL had four first-time MVP winners – Cam Newton, Matt Ryan, Mahomes and Jackson. But in the last five years, only Allen has been a first-time winner (Aaron Rodgers, Mahomes and Jackson were the other victors).

Allen is favorite to go back-to-back this season, which would make it five times in the last six years the league has crowned a previous winner. But voters experience fatigue; everyone wants a fresh star. And this year’s list of first-time candidates feels unusually deep and unusually fun. Maybe these guys won’t win this year, but let’s look at the players who could break up the Mahomes-Allen-Jackson triumvirate in the next few seasons.

A few notes: the ratings below are for the players’ chances of winning the award in the next few years, not specifically this season. We’ve also left out perennial contenders like Joe Burrow, Matthew Stafford and Dak Prescott in favor of some longer shots.

Sam Darnold, Seattle Seahawks

It’s no longer a joke: Darnold is one of the best quarterbacks in the NFL. In Minnesota, it was easy to scoff at his ascent. You could point to the schematic environment and his excellent supporting cast. That’s not the case in Seattle.

The Seahawks’ run game has yet to gel. The offensive line is improved, but still lags behind the league’s best. Jaxon Smith-Njigba has been one of the five best receivers in the league this year, but has been elevated by the decision-making and accuracy of Darnold.

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Seattle have retooled their offense around Darnold, who is still only 28 (younger than Burrow, who was drafted two years later). They hunt chunk plays, banking on Darnold’s arm to push the ball down the field. In that role, he looks more like Stafford than the Darnold we saw during his Jets years. Early in his career, Darnold struggled when pressured, staring down the rush and gagging away costly turnovers. He’s stripped much of that fat from his game. Where once he saw ghosts, now he is creating plays when his protection breaks down or the structure of the offense is off.

Bounce through whatever quarterback metric you like, and Darnold is at the top, or near the top, of the list. He leads the league in the RBSDM composite, which pieces together the value of every offensive play and measures how much a quarterback can be deemed responsible for that value. Whoever tops that number by the end of the year typically winds up in the final three in MVP voting.

Through five weeks, Darnold has proved last season in Minnesota was no fluke. This is who he is now, and that’s been an upgrade for Seattle over Geno Smith. If he can lead the Seahawks to a division title, the redemption narrative will carry him into the conversation with Allen and Mahomes.

MVP likelihood: 7/10. This year could be his best chance to win it.

Baker Mayfield, Tampa Bay Buccaneers

Speaking of redemption arcs. There was a time when the Panthers employed Baker Mayfield and Darnold. Oof. Mayfield has gone from scout team pass-rusherin Carolina to franchise quarterback in Tampa Bay.

The MVP is, to an extent, a narrative award, and few have a cooler story than Mayfield. Burrow, Stafford and Prescott are better quarterbacks. But there is something about his story that should garner extra credit among voters. Multiple franchises gave up on him before he arrived in Tampa. He’s had three different offensive coordinators in the last three seasons, but has continued to pilot the Bucs offense at the highest level.

Mayfield hasn’t been as clean this year as he was in 2024. Down to down, he’s been a little scattershot. But he’s working in a tricky environment: Tampa’s run game has stalled, and the offensive line has been weakened by injuries. Yet despite those problems, Mayfield is playing the best all-around ball of his career. He’s already led the Bucs to four game-winning drives this season and he leads the league in Big Time Throw Rate, according to Pro Football Focus. He is doing more with less, including waltzing into Seattle with a beat-up line and dropping 38 points on one of the best defenses in football (though one that had plenty of injury issues to deal with of its own).

In a time before advanced analytics, Mayfield would be leading this year’s race. He has put his team on his back more than any other quarterback in crunch time. Voters still value that stuff, but not quite to the same degree they did in the 1990s and early 2000s.

MVP likelihood: 4/10. His gambler style will lead him to throw a few games away.

Jayden Daniels, Washington Commanders

Daniels returned from injury against the Chargers on Sunday and reminded everyone why, last season, he was the most impressive rookie to enter the league in a generation. Daniels shredded the Chargers in the second half on the road, lifting the Commanders to a comfortable win in LA.

It hasn’t been the smoothest start to his second season. The Commanders’ team-building approach around Daniels has been peculiar. They’ve tried to fast-track success, recognizing they’ve hit on something special with a quarterback on a cheap rookie contract. But they’re left with the oldest roster in the league by some distance. And it shows, particularly on defense.

Over the medium term, Washington’s roster construction could ding Daniels. But he remains a one-man supernova at the game’s most valuable position. He is the closest quarterback in the league to Jackson: a precision passer who is also electric with the ball in his hands as a runner. If he can push the Commanders past the Eagles at the top of the NFC East in the next couple of years, he will be a lock for the award.

MVP likelihood: 8/10. The surest player from his vaunted rookie class to win in the next three years.

Justin Herbert, Los Angeles Chargers

It was all going so well for Herbert and the Chargers. Two weeks into the season, it felt like this was hisyear. Finally, the pieces around him were slotted into place. And the Chargers had shifted to a Herbert-centric offense, turning from a run-focused group into a passing one. It was as if Jim Harbaugh set out with the goal of winning Herbert the MVP award just as much as he was looking to dethrone the Chiefs in the AFC West.

That’s changed. The Chargers have lost too many pieces along their offensive line. They dropped a winnable game against the Giants and were hammered along both sides of the line of scrimmage by the Commanders. The degree of difficulty for Herbert at this point, this season, is too high. Even to keep the chains moving, he has to strap on his superhero cape. That’s fun in small samples – and valuable for the MVP award when it comes under a national spotlight – but unsustainable over the slog of a regular season.

Herbert has MVP talent. When the Chargers are healthy, he is the favorite for the award among the players on this list. He fits the billing: the rule of new, the playmaking, the winning. He passes the eye test and holds a monopoly over some of the fanciest metrics. But it won’t be this year.

MVP likelihood: 9/10. Eventually, the Chargers will stay healthy, and Herbert will break through.

Travis Hunter, Jacksonville Jaguars

The MVP is a quarterback award – the last non-QB to win it was Adrian Peterson in the 2012 season. Still, playing on both sides of the ball is a big help for anyone trying to upset the quarterback cartel.

It’s been an inauspicious start for Hunter as a two-way phenom. The Jags have bounced back and forth between primarily using him on offense and defense. Last week, they settled on a 40-snap rotation on either side of the ball. And that feels like the right figure for a rookie trying to get up to the speed of the pro game while learning a complex offense and the league’s most disguise-laden defense.

Hunter has been fine as a rookie, but he hasn’t been an instant gamechanger. There have been flashes of the talent that made him the Heisman winner, but he has yet to take over a game while playing both ways. At some point, the Jags may settle on using him on one side while only bringing him on the field for select packages the other way. But that’s not the plan at the moment.

That may make Hunter’s development curve steeper, but it also ups his MVP potential. Who else could realistically have double-digit touchdowns as a receiver while also grabbing five or more takeaways? If Hunter realizes his Ohtani-like potential on both sides of the ball, voters will look past the quarterbacks.

MVP likelihood. 5/10. The only “defensive” player who has a sniff.

Drake Maye, New England Patriots

Maye burst into the national spotlight with his performance on the road in Buffalo on Sunday. But he has been steadily putting together an MVP campaign all season.

The Patriots are fourth in the league in passing efficiency this year. A lot of that has to do with the return of Josh McDaniels. The offensive coordinator has schemed up wide-open receivers all over the place. But it also speaks to Maye’s development. He’s cut down his brain-farts-per-game from four to two. He’s mastering the easy things. And when the offense falls apart and he’s asked to create on his own, he looks like a mini Josh Allen.

The advanced data paints him as the fourth-most valuable quarterback in the league this season. And it’s hard to disagree. His accuracy has improved. He doesn’t throw interceptions. He can rip it to all parts of the field and he is a legitimate dual-threat. Oh, and he’s doing it with a so-so offensive line, a crop of running backs who continually fumble, and a blah batch of receivers outside Stefon Diggs.

This year may be a season too early. But the Patriots should make the playoffs, given their start and upcoming schedule. As they continue to add talent, Maye’s chances will grow.

MVP likelihood: 6/10. He’s working on the Allen timeline.

Jaron-Keawe Sagapolutele, Cal

Wildcard time. If Allen, Mahomes and Jackson continue to share the MVP award among themselves, the next first-time winner may not even be in the league yet.

Every year when the draft rolls around, prognosticators will tell fanbases not to worry about that year’s crop of shaky quarterback talent. Just wait until next year! Some organizations always seem to be waiting for the next mass influx of talented QBs.

Last year was no different, but the 2026 draft class has so far disappointed. Arch Manning, Garrett Nussmeier and LaNorris Sellers, shoo-ins to be high draft picks before the season, have struggled. There is no sure-fire No 1 pick, but rather a crop of eight talented yet flawed prospects that teams are considering at the top of the draft.

So let’s punt even further down the road. The most exciting quarterback in college this year is Sagapolutele, a true freshman at Cal. The Hawaiian transferred out of Oregon after losing a quarterback battle to Dante Moore – a potential future No 1 overall pick – and already looks the part of a future franchise quarterback. A lefty, Sagapolutele is the kind of intelligent, decisive, pocket passer that pro teams covet. He also happens to have a rocket for an arm and is an explosive runner.

Sagapolutele will not be eligible to enter the draft until 2028. That means he won’t enter real MVP conversations for at least five years, if he continues on his current trajectory. But if he were eligible this year, he would be the favorite to be taken No 1 overall.

MVP likelihood: 2/10. He’s two years away from being two years away and a lot can happen between college and the pros.