Good Morning, Stumpers!

 Anybody else remember spitgate from the opening game of this NFL Season, Eagles-Cowboys? And the 1-hour lightning delay. Man, that feels like yesterday. And now here we are, after tonight we’ll be on to Week 11. Time flies. Hang on one sec, I gotta get a tissue…

Phew, sorry about that. Allergies, I promise.

Drake Maye and Matthew Stafford are the top 2 candidates for MVP right now! What a time to be alive! Happy Monday, everybody!

Stump Story / Glue Of The Day

🏈🏆️ MVP Race of The Decade??

In different eras of any sport, you have your usual suspects that are the MVP candidates throughout the entire season. Recently, it’s been Mahomes, Allen, and Lamar. One way or another, you will see those names at the top. In basketball, it’s been Jokic, Giannis, and now SGA, who have been regulars in the top 3. The 2025 NFL Season is doing something a little different!

If I asked you who you would give the MVP to after 10 weeks in the regular season, who would you say?

The best record in the NFL is 8-2, which is held by three teams (Patriots, Colts, Broncos). Right behind them at 7-2 are the Seahawks and the Rams.

Before we even get into MVP talk, just those teams alone being the best five records in the NFL is something not a single person would have said before this season. In a time where there is parity from season to season, it is refreshing to see a new batch of teams at the top. Can you imagine a Colts-Seahawks Super Bowl? Broncos-Rams? Patriots-Packers? That last one would send shockwaves through the league. AFC East and NFC North fanbases would riot, but that’s just the way she goes sometimes.

The leader in the clubhouse right now is Drake Maye. He is currently the favorite amongst the Patriots’ 7-game winning streak. Their Week 1 loss against the Raiders now seems incomprehensible! Maye has been playing out of his mind, and Mike Vrabel has had the boys ready to go on Sundays. Their next three games are Jets, Bengals, and Giants. If they take care of business, they’ll be 11-2, in great shape for the 1-seed, and Maye will still be the favorite when we reconvene in a month.

Who’s going to stop him?

Could it be……dare I say…..a RUNNING BACK?

No. It can’t be right. The league just won’t give this award to a running back anymore. I don’t like that, because what Jonathan Taylor is doing right now is amazing. Clearly, the MVP voters aren’t fantasy football players, because if any of them had JT on their team, he would be getting their vote in an instant. 50 points this past week! Are you kidding me? He just had 286 scrimmage yards and 3 TDs against what everybody has been praising as a good defense in Atlanta. This was his 5th game of the year with 3 TDs. FIFTH! He’s scoring 3 TDs in 50% of the Colts’ games this year. Unreal! Despite their 8-2 record, Danny Jones has looked mortal these last few weeks, which is why he isn’t getting as much traction, but with a great November, he could work himself right into the conversation as well.

The second favorite in terms of odds right now: Matthew Stafford. This comes after his 4 TD performance yesterday against the 49ers. Stafford sits VERY close behind Drake Maye, and with a real shot at the 1-seed in the NFC, the 37-year-old Super Bowl Champ could very well win his first MVP award.

This next guy is sixth in the odds right now, but as of recently, all he does is win. Sam Darnold. If anybody was watching that Seahawks game yesterday, every time you left the TV for a second in the first quarter, they had scored another TD before you got back. This is in large part to their defense (which will probably end up hurting Darnold’s MVP case), but you can’t knock winning. Last year, Darnold brought the Vikings to 14-3, and now the Seahawks are 7-2. JSN is playing like the #1 WR in football, and the Seahawks are humming. They don’t have an easy path ahead, with the Rams twice, the Colts, the Niners, and the Vikings. They have it all in front of them; however, if they win these tough games, Darnold will force his way into the middle of MVP talks.

It’s no doubt a fun season right now; we’ve got new guys at the top, familiar faces trying to claw themselves back, and a lot of chaos throughout.

Last year, there were jokes circulating that everybody had all these dream Super Bowl matchups that they wanted to see, and that it would probably just end up being Chiefs-Eagles.

This year, we have all these new teams at the top, and 15-20 potential Super Bowl matchups that nobody would have seen coming. Is it all just going to lead to Chiefs-Eagles?

Nope. It’s not. I can see it.

Bills-Lions. For all the marbles. 

Anyway, this isn’t the time for Super Bowl predictions, just a shoutout to all of these new MVP candidates! Lot of ball left!

Of! The! Day’s!

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