NFL MVP Chase after Week 2: It’s not about Tom Brady’s TDs

After Week 1 of the 2021 NFL season, 16 teams were undefeated, and they produced the initial batch of 50 players earning an MVP point. Those teams went 7–9 in Week 2, and there are now seven teams at 2–0, 18 at 1–1, and seven at 0–2.

Winning the game is the first requirement for earning an MVP point, and we now have 75 players with at least one MVP point. I won’t list them all today.

I will, however, list the 12 players from the undefeated teams that have two MVP points. I’ll note that the undefeated Raiders aren’t represented; they have several who earned an MVP point in Week 1 or Week 2, but nobody, not even QB Derek Carr, did so both weeks.

Note that the list is alphabetical, and doesn’t imply that Tom Brady is in the “lead” despite his 9 TD passes in two games. In fact, his 97.0 passer rating in Week 1 is the bare minimum for a quarterback to earn an MVP point; if Brady had a 96.9 rating that week, he wouldn’t have earned an MVP point and wouldn’t be on this list.

One doesn’t have to play great to reach the benchmarks that earn an MVP point, but one does have to play well above the NFL average, and that’s hard for even great players to do week after week, even in victory.

In any case, here are the week’s MVP Chase leaders heading into Week 3, all tied with 2 MVP points.

Tom Brady, QB, Buccaneers