Josh Allen’s MVP trophy is already old news, and he’s walking into SoFi Stadium tonight without his best pass rusher and two of his top receiving options. The last two reigning NFL MVPs face off on Monday night, and neither piece of hardware decides who wins the game actually in front of them.
Everybody wants to sell this as a rematch of greatness.
The Bills are 3-1 off their first loss of the season, a 29-26 defeat to the Patriots that also cost them DT Ed Oliver, who’s out Monday with the knee injury he suffered in that game. Receiver Joshua Palmer is out as well, and DJ Moore is questionable with a shoulder issue after a limited week of practice. Oliver was Buffalo’s best pass rusher. Losing him, plus two compromised receivers, leaves Allen thinner than his MVP season ever was, on the road, against a Rams passing attack that ranks second in the NFL.
That’s the real measuring stick: who’s actually the best quarterback right now, not a trophy from February.
ESPN is already selling tonight as something else:
https://x.com/espn/status/2109615068790886897
That framing has it backwards. An MVP vote freezes who was best during a season that’s already over. It says nothing about who’s sharper, healthier, or more dangerous tonight.
Allen’s own numbers make the better case than his trophy does. He has 13 total touchdowns and 1,039 passing yards through four games, and that’s the same quarterback who opened the season by torching the team that let Ben Johnson walk. That’s a player still chasing something, not one coasting on a trophy from February.
The Rams, for what it’s worth, aren’t walking in banged up either. Aaron Donald and two other projected starters were listed as good to go heading into Monday. Stafford’s 2025 MVP is exactly as irrelevant to tonight as Allen’s 2024 one.
Stafford’s receipts are just as gaudy: 4,707 yards, 46 touchdowns, and a 109.2 passer rating that beat out Drake Maye for the award. None of it throws a single pass tonight.
My mom calls after games like this and asks who’s actually better, not who used to be. She’s not an NFL analyst. She just always asks the right question.
Stack the evidence and the trophy argument falls apart on its own: a banged-up pass rush, a receiving corps running short, a cross-country trip, and a Rams offense playing its best football of the season. That’s not a rematch of two MVPs. That’s a gut check for one of them.
Trophies tell you who was best. Tonight decides who still is.
