Is Justin Herbert an MVP Contender?

Any new NFL season will spark a great deal of discussion. Among the topics up for debate are the obvious issues such as who will win the Super Bowl and lift the Vince Lombardi Trophy at the end of the campaign.

Teams naturally fall under the spotlight, and fans will discuss divisional winners, and whether their favorite franchises will make it beyond the regular season.

NFL followers will also debate individual players, and voice their opinions on who will win the big awards. The honors for Most Valuable Players across the season and for the Super Bowl itself, are up for grabs.

Runners and Riders

There’s always great interest in this category, but who are the players in contention for the MVP award this season? It’s generally the quarterbacks who make it to the top of the prediction table. Everything passes through their hands, and their actions will decide who wins and who loses.

The teams most likely to win the Super Bowl will also be highly fancied, and the current NFL MVP odds show Patrick Mahomes of the Kansas City Chiefs as the clear favorite. The closest challenges to the Chiefs man are expected to come from Lamar Jackson, C.J. Stroud, Josh Allen and Brock Purdy.

While the favorites do battle, could Justin Herbert slip under the radar? As the starting quarterback for the Los Angeles Chargers, he’s the player most likely to guide his team to the postseason, but could he be an outside contender for the MVP award?

Mixed Openings

Winners of the MVP across the regular season will frequently be part of the team that eventually wins the Super Bowl. In the case of Justin Herbert’s Los Angeles Chargers, it’s been a mixed start to 2024, and there is some ground to make up.

After five games of the new regular season, The Chargers had won three of their first five games. Those two defeats put the team in second place in the AFC West Division, behind the Kansas City Chiefs who have a perfect record of 5-0.

It was always going to be tough to overtake Super Bowl favorites Kansas City, but there is still hope that the Chargers can make it through the playoffs and into the postseason. In the overall AFC Conference standings, Herbert and his team occupy one of the wild card places.

Hope remains of a playoff push, but results need to pick up, and Justin Herbert is the man to drive the Chargers on.

Key Stats

The important stats for quarterbacks in 2024 reflect the Los Angeles Chargers’ mixed start to the new season. Herbert has played in all five of his team’s games so far, but he sits towards the bottom of the rankings for most key contributions.

In those five games, he’s completed six touchdown passes and returned 815 rushing yards. There have been 80 completions in 125 passing attempts, so his ratio is respectable, even if there is room for improvement.

Using overall stats, Justin Herbert currently ranks 28th out of all NFL quarterbacks this season. Those numbers don’t point toward an MVP winner, but he has the quality to build on that base, and we’re still in the early stages of the 2024 campaign.

We should also consider that Herbert has been carrying a bothersome injury in these early stages. While he’s battled through so far, we could assume that a fully fit Justin Herbert will improve on those modest stats.

2024 Targets

In 2023, the LA Chargers finished at the very bottom of the NFL West. An improvement on that dismal, 5-12 record will be a minimum target, but this roster has the quality to go much further.

A year earlier, a 10-7 return in 2022 gave the Chargers a place in the Wild Card playoffs as one of the best runners up. In an epic first postseason game, the team went down 31-30 to the Jacksonville Jaguars.

With many of the key players from 2022 still involved, this Los Angeles franchise has the ability to progress, but much will depend on their starting quarterback.

The question of whether Justin Herbert can be an MVP contender depends on his performances, and the Los Angeles Chargers’ results across the remainder of the regular season. He’ll also likely improve once he regains full fitness following his recent ankle injury. The Chargers’ start to the season has been OK, but the team needs to keep picking up wins.

Herbert’s career started positively as a rookie, but he’s now in his fifth season at the SoFi Stadium. He’s matured and is a key member of the team. He certainly can win the Most Valuable Player award, but it needs a big push from team and player, and those playoffs are a minimum target.

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