Pundit says there’s something ‘very anti-Purdy’ in MVP discussions

He tumbled from atop every sportsbook’s MVP odds sheet after laying the Christmas Day egg, and likely out of a race that a lot of people never wanted him in in the first place — or at least, that’s what The Ringer’s Ryen Russillo will have you believe.

“It felt like there was a really hard push from a lot of different circles to be, like, ‘Purdy can’t win this thing,’ as if he wasn’t worthy of it,” Russillo, who handled radio hosting duties at ESPN from 2009 to 2017 before joining The Ringer, said on his podcast Tuesday. “Because if Mahomes had the Purdy numbers and you’d say a comparable record, because that’s kind of where Kansas City is at this point … no one would have ever looked at those numbers and the resume and gone, ‘No, that guy’s not winning the MVP.’ But there was just something that was very anti-Purdy.”

Even after Monday’s dud, Purdy still has the top QBR and passer rating in the NFL. He’s No. 2 in passing yards (behind only Tua Tagovailoa) and No. 2 in touchdowns (behind only Dak Prescott).

“Well, don’t worry about it, anti-Purdy people, because he’s not going to win it,” Russillo said Tuesday. “… Look, San Francisco could roll against Washington and the LA Rams to finish the season, but I don’t see how any voters going to feel good about voting for Purdy over Lamar. It was a prime-time game. It was the only game that was on.”

Russillo went on to compare the NFL’s MVP voting to Heisman voting.

“Like a Heisman showdown of two quarterbacks — say both quarterbacks for Ohio State, Michigan were like the leaders and then one guy loses but has better numbers. Heisman voters — again that’s a massive, massive voter base, it’s just a lot of people voting on that award that I don’t think are super locked in — but they wouldn’t give it to the guy that lost. They just wouldn’t. So I don’t see how Lamar would lose votes to Purdy after that game and I’m not even saying that he should.”