I don’t know. I think that Seattle may have won their division without Alexander, but no way would they have clinched home field advantage for the playoffs and be serious contenders for winning the Super Bowl, and not just filling the spot for the NFC. That is why I think he deserves the MVP award - he took his game to another level, and thus took his team to another level also.
Well, I think some of you folks here are totally and completely insane.
If you take the MVP award to mean exactly what it says…Most Valuable Player then I’m in the camp which says that a QB deserves it every single year. The QB is by far the least replacible player on any team and does so much both physically and mentally for himself and facilitating every other player that you can’t argue that anyone is more valuable.
This year, Brady and Manning are both excellent canidates. I put Manning at #1 by virtue of him essentially being a coach on the field. That’s not to say Brady isn’t doing a lot of leading but Peyton is basically the offensive coordinator on that team.
Of course, I’m not really the type who sees the MVP in that light. I’d prefer it to be called the MOP like in college hoops. By that definition Alexander is absolutely the MVP.
I simply cannot fathom how anyone can argue that Tiki is more valuable than Alexander aside from pure NYC bias and/or just having never watched Alexander live.
Tiki had 2390 total yards. That’s exceptional, no doubt. Alexander had about 1958 yards, which is a significant difference. However Shaun had 28 TDs to Tiki’s whopping 11. I think that more than makes up for 430 yards. You cannot argue that Alexander is the product of an excellent team and then ignore the same argument for Tiki, it’s silly.
Lets compare the cast of characters surrounding them.
Tiki had Burress, Shockey, Toomer and Eli.
Shaun had Engram, Jurevicious, Jackson (for 6 games), Stevens and Hasselbeck.
I would seriously struggle to create an argument in which Alexander was keyed on less than Tiki. The Giants offense was very potent (if inconsistent) and had WRs that opened up space for Tiki all year. The Seahawks had a really iffy passing game for much of the season. They were pulling WRs in off the streets this season and every defensive gameplan was geared totally to stopping Shaun.
And here’s the most damning fact for Tiki. The Giants pulled Tiki off the field in goal-line situations! How can a guy me the MVP when he wasn’t even the most reliable RB near the goalline on his own team! Alexander never left the field and was the teams back in all situations. How can Tiki possibly be more valuable than a guy who was responsible for over 50% of his teams TDs. A team, which I might add, finished it’s season with 3 more wins than Tiki’s.
Putting Larry Johnson ahead of him based on a “coulda shoulda” is completely ridiculous. Even more than Tiki’s “woulda shoulda” regarding his red-zone touches. Fact is these guys weren’t the teams best options and therefore to have them nar the top of your MVP list is blindness.
The reason Tiki is on the sideline in goal line situations is because the Giants offensive line is undersized. They never blow the defensive line off the line of scrimmage.
The 'Hawks offensive line, OTOH, blows people back from the point of attack. Have you ever noticed how many of Alexander’s 3rd & 1 and short goalline runs involve no defender ever touching him? Have you ever seen that happen a single time for the Giants in similar situations? The whole reason for Jacobs is that he’s big enough to do the pile-moving that you would normally see the offensive line doing, like they do in Seattle.
Swap 'em, and I’ll bet you that Tiki still earns 1800 yards. Alexander behind the Giants line? 1300 tops, with maybe 13 touches.
The painful thing in this argument is that the Giants could have drafted Alexander, but instead opted for Ron Dayne. sigh
The Seahawks have a great offensive line, no doubt, and I think you’re selling the Giants a bit short, but you’re basically trying to give Tiki the award based on speculation instead of what Alexander actually realized.
Big yards are great, but TDs win football games. If you want to try and convince people that 2400 yds and 11 TDs are more valuable than 1900 and 28 TDs go for it. I won’t agree, but you can make the case if you want. But to vote for Tiki based on “what he might have done” if the situations were reversed is pretty flimsy.
I don’t think that the “Seattle’s line was dominant” argument is any more compelling than the “Tiki’s passing game was stronger” argument.
One other IMHO point is that I don’t necessarily feel that receiving yards are quite equivalent to rushing yards in value. They matter for sure, but I don’t think you can pretend that 2000 total yards wins as many games as 2000 rushing yards.
Don’t get me wrong, I like all the Giants offensive linemen, but they are undersized. They’re great for just about everything except short yardage situations. The Seattle line happens to be ideal for short yardage situations, and this has given Alexander a bunch of easy touchdowns. He’s probably had just as many tough touchdowns as Tiki and Jacobs combined, so it’s not the be-all and end-all debate point, but it is a factor.
And I agree wholeheartedly that rushing yards are more important than receiving.
Mainly the point for Tiki is that he’s a bigger part of the Giants offense than Alexander is for the Seahawks. That makes him more valuable to the team.
Now, if we’re talking about a Most Productive Player award, Alexander wins it hands down.
Barber/Giants Alexander/Seahawks
TDs 11/45 28/57
--pct 24% 49%
points* 66/375 168/396
team FG/att 35/42 18/25
rushing att 357/469 370/519
rushing yds/total 1860/2209 1880/2457
--pct 84% 76%
total yards/total 2390/5787 1958/5915
--pct 41% 33%
*NFL.com doesn't list PATs or Total Team Points Scored in their stats window.
Barber is a much higher percentage of his team’s total yardage, it’s true. He’s also a much larger part of his team’s ground attack than Alexander is of the 'Hawks.
What have the Giants got to show for all of those yards? 17 more field goal attempts — and Alexander scored 17 more TDs.
Looks to me as if it’s six of one, half a dozen of the other. Barber has been much more valuable gaining yards, but TDs win games.
I put a list of ten earlier in this thread, and had Brady-Tiki as one-two and above the rest. I put Manning fifth, but the more I think about it (and the more you guys talk), the more the 1-5 (and especially 3-5) all sort of just mesh together for me. I guess it comes down to “valuable” for me - the NFL, unlike the other sports, actually does have a separate Offensive POY award that matters (the Hank Aaron award or whatever? please).
The other bias, for me, is the number of games I see of each of these teams. I saw about 10 Pats games this year, and about 8 Giants games - when I’m in Baltimore they both pop up pretty often as out-of-market type games, and when I’m home they’re both in-market. On the other side of it, I saw I think 4 Indy games and 3 games each of Seattle and Cinci. I was able to see the shift of the Giants offense from “deadly from all places” early in the year to “let Tiki carry you” throughout the second half - similarly, I saw how Brady carried the team through the first half when they had no running game or defense. I think the sheer individual “carrying-the-team” effort tends to sway how I think about MVP-type awards - which is probably a little weird since I’m normally such a stathead.