How close does Philip Rivers push Peyton Manning for MVP?

So, Peyton Manning is the clear MVP right? I'm not so sure it's as obvious as most people think and I wonder how the closing argument is really all that valid. That is to say, I believe the "value" part of MVP analysis is a little distorted from what it should really mean.

Please note: The entire purpose of this article is to debunk the idea that Peyton Manning is the runaway winner for MVP and that Philip Rivers more than challenges him for the honour. This is why other candidates won't be mentioned. Also, I know John has posted a somewhat similar story and we've talked about it a bunch, but it's something I wanted to post at other places too (which is also why it may seem parts of it aren't aimed at Charger fans).

What is the MVP?

Most Valuable Player has a somewhat subjective definition. A lot of people tend to judge it by an individual player's worth to their team, but this is an unbalanced measuring stick when you try comparing different players to others on different teams. Just because one player is more valuable to one team than another is to theirs, it doesn't necessarily mean they're playing to a higher standard. I think it's abundantly clear that once you start making semi-legitimate cases for Vince Young using this philosophy, it's rather flawed.

What is generally objective of crowning an MVP? It's pretty much the player of the year right? I rarely hear the term "valuable" being used as a way to describe a players value and contribution to the league as it's most outstanding player. A $200 watch may be worth more to someone flat out broke than a millionaire's $5000 watch, but it hardly makes it more valuable. Value to their team should definitely come in to it as a contributing factor, but when you use it as the only way to make a judgement you begin making an argument that I just find utterly ludicrous, yet so few others do.

Can you hold having a good backup against a contender for the award? Billy Volek may be one of the better backups in the league but should that take away from the merits of Philip Rivers? How far does this theory go? Could Rivers be on an absolute dynasty, with an amazing backup, play out of this world good, yet not win MVP because the Colts imploded when Manning and the entire offense got yanked.

Personally, I'd rather give the award to the best player, not the guy who's team would crumble the most without him.

Has Rivers played well enough to earn MVP?

Anyway you slice it, Rivers has had an incredible season. A strong accurate arm with a beautiful deep ball. Poise and presence in the pocket. A leader on and off the field. He's playing his best football of his career, and given his upward trend over the last couple of seasons and his burning desire for self-improvement, it's scary to think how good he'll continue to be. He's been playing as well as any other quarterback in the league.

Last season, Manning won MVP for leading a team out of a 3-4 record, to finish on a huge win-streak, playing fantastically in the process. Change the record to 2-3 and you have a similar situation with Rivers. Both lines were in turmoil, the bolts were lacking in focus and it took a while to dig out of the hole. Even in losses to Pittsburgh and Baltimore, Rivers put the team on his back and nearly pulled out the wins. Since then he's been clutch as they've come. He led the team on late, 4th quarter drives to win games against Raiders, Giants and Bengals. He looked supreme in games won by large margins (including those that appeared closer than they were thanks to garbage scores). A big part of the turnaround was Norv Turner (anyone who thinks the Chargers are streaking like this in spite of Norv are plain wrong), but a massive part was Rivers.

Rivers has some excellent targets that create mismatches for opposing defenses, but he makes use of them like few others can. He likely throws more high-risk balls than anyone else in the league, yet posted single digit receptions (a few of which came on tipped balls that should probably have been caught) and a 65.2% completion rate. In the offense San Diego runs, that's just plain ridiculous. Any criticisms Rivers has had (e.g. not being a winner, being a poor leader of the offense and generally being a stat whore) he's surely answered and then some.

Rivers vs. Manning: A comparison.

Manning does have Rivers beat in some key stats, namely yards, touchdowns and completion percentage. However, Manning also threw many more passes than Rivers, who has a Yards per Attempt of 8.8 compared to Manning's 7.9. That's almost a full yard. Think about just how good Peyton has been and then try to imagine this gulf in Y/A. Manning's higher completion could easily be explained as being a result of throwing shorter, easier to complete passes.

Rivers has Manning beat in other stats, too. He has less interceptions (9 to 16), a higher QB Rating, a better TD:INT ration, many more 40+ yard plays and a higher amount of 1st downs thrown per pass (a league leading 42.8%). That last stat is huge in my opinion.

Over the last half of the season I think Rivers has been the better QB. Manning had a stretch of 9 interceptions in 5 games, the same amount of picks Rivers had over the entire season. He also  posted only two 100+ QB Ratings in his last 8 games (not including the final two, where he got pulled early – not that it stopped Rivers from putting up a 101.8 rating against the Redskins). Rivers had 5 out of 8 in this respect. In this stretch he also had a massive four games over 130. Manning threw interceptions in 11 out of 16 games, with 4 multi-pick games. Rivers threw interceptions in 6 out of 16 games, with 3 multi-pick games (with no 3+ pick games, compared to Manning's 1).

I'll now be bringing up a stat called DVOA. For those unfamiliar with it, this is a short explanation:

Defense-adjusted Value Over Average. DVOA breaks down every single play of the NFL season to see how much success offensive players achieved in each specific situation compared to the league average in that situation, adjusted for the strength of the opponent.

In DVOA, Rivers leads Manning (and indeed, the rest of the league) 46.1% to 38.1%. Manning is good for only 5th in the league.

In DYAR (a similar stat, which measures a player's cumulative DVOA in it's simplest terms), Manning edges out Rivers 1,932 to 1,919. An extremely slim lead that can be explained by Manning's higher amount of attempts.

Chargers offense vs. Colts offense

Many people are saying Manning as a relatively poor supporting cast. I don't agree. I actually think it's a reasonably close comparison. Manning and Rivers are both the focal point of the offense. They each have a legitimate WR1 (Wayne/Jackson), an elite TE (Clark/Gates), an up and coming big play WR2 (Garcon/Floyd) and a talented, young WR3 who still contributes effectively (Collie/Naanee).

Both teams have had injuries on the O-line. I can't comment too accurately on the Colts line, although I know their starting LT has been hurt. I don't know if it could compare to the issues the Chargers line has been dealing with. In preseason they had a rookie RG (Louis Vasquez) who won his position battle basically by default. In the first game, he went down, as well as starting Center, Nick Hardwick, the lynch pin of the line. Vasquez missed only a couple of games, but Hardwick was out until just a couple of weeks prior to the end of the regular season. Their replacements? At Center, Scott Murczkowski (a converted Guard). At RG, Brandyn Dombrowski (not even converted, a Tackle playing out of position – and a natural LT at that). It took the line several games to gel and had another set back when starting RT, Jeromey Clary was placed on IR with a season-ending leg injury.

The Colts running game is no hot stuff, with the Chargers averaging a slightly worse 3.3 yards per carry. It just about does the job in terms of maintaining any semblance of balance by not allowing the defense to completely sell out against the pass. For both teams, the run game (barely) keeps the offense ticking, but it's the aerial attack that wins games.

Conclusion

I don't believe it's cut and dry at all. A thoroughly legitimate argument can be made for Philip Rivers to not only be Peyton Manning's runner up, but ahead of him as the 2009 NFL MVP. They have both led their team's under sizeable burdens and played as well as, if not better, than anyone else. Peyton gets added credit for being a "coach on the field", but Rivers beats him in efficiency, looks after the ball better and has done it in more tumultuous circumstances (Manning has a new Head Coach but he was slowly transitioned in and it's still pretty much the same organisation). A runaway win for Manning, it should not be.