Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers. Kyle Terada-USA TODAY Sports
Usually, to win something like a Most Valuable Player Award, a player has to be at his best. Repeatedly. But occasionally, you can win that award simply by not being at your best — because then, it becomes clear how much difference the player makes to a team.
How valuable he really is.
The Green Bay Packers were the only team to reach the postseason that ranked among the 10 worst in allowing rushing yards — and, in case you hadn’t noticed, the running game is making a renaissance, especially in Seattle.
That Aaron Rodgers had the Packers in position to win the NFC championship, that he won critical games down the stretch on one leg, speaks volumes — and it is why he deserved to be the MVP even if his team did not make it to the final game.
It’s tough enough to win games in the NFL for a player who is not physically impaired. It’s much harder to do when part of your game is not available and, in Rodgers’ case, it was clear that he wasn’t going to be scrambling out of the pocket very often.
Even though Rodgers ran — limped? — for one first down on the Packers’ final drive against the Seahawks, Seattle was able to set its defense secure in the knowledge the opposing quarterback wasn’t really going anywhere. There were opportunities earlier to scramble more in the backfield, to run, to find an open hole, but Rodgers could not take them. And Seattle knew it.
Of course, we already should have known how valuable Rodgers was to the Packers based on the 2013 season, when he missed almost eight full games and the Packers won only two of them, but he came back for the season finale to win and get them into the playoffs.
During the 2014 regular season, Rodgers ranked second in the NFL in the convoluted passer ratings and became the first quarterback in NFL history with a passer rating of 100 or greater in six straight seasons. He was first in fewest percentage of passes intercepted, second in average gain per pass attempt, third in touchdown passes and first in ratio of touchdowns (38) to interceptions (5).
To give those numbers a little perspective, Peyton Manning never has had a season with a TD-INT ratio as good as that, and Tom Brady has had only one. This was the second season for Rodgers in which he threw at least seven times as many touchdown passes as interceptions.
Of course, the very definition of “most valuable” always has been a subjective topic that caused debate.
It almost always goes to a quarterback in the NFL. The game revolves around the quarterback. You only have to see how the Arizona Cardinals imploded once they suffered a couple of injuries at that position to understand the concept.
Yet if you want to make a case for a player other than Rodgers, you ought to be looking at defensive end J.J. Watt of Houston. It would require more space than we have here to detail Watt’s effort to push the anonymous Texans into the playoffs, but just to list a few:
Five touchdowns scored, first player in more than a half-century to score more than one touchdown on both offense and defense, 20.5 sacks, five fumble recoveries, four forced fumbles, 10 passes defensed. Most teams would be glad to have one player with those numbers in any one category, and Watt had them across the board.
All of this will fade into irrelevance next week when the Seahawks and Patriots are getting ready for the Super Bowl, but looking back at the 2014 season, these were your two players who were the most valuable.
–Ira Miller is an award-winning sportswriter who has covered the National Football League for more than three decades and is a member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame Selection Committee. He is a national columnist for The Sports Xchange.
