With a dearth of sports to bet on during this global pandemic, gamblers are undoubtedly desperate for something to bet on. Ordinarily, I’d use that as an explanation for this stat, which comes via Syracuse.com…
“According to Oddschecker spokesperson Pete Watt, there are more bets on [Josh] Allen to win MVP right now than any other player … Allen has received 23% of total bets for 2020 MVP to this point and the next closest is Arizona’s Kyler Murray (30/1 odds) with 14% of bets. [Patrick] Mahomes has received 13% of total bets.”
But I’m really not surprised that bettors are latching on to a quarterback who was statistically mediocre in 2019 to win the award. At this time last year, Mitch Trubisky was one of the most popular bets to win MVP…
Mitch Trubisky is the most popular bet to win MVP 😮
(via @CaesarsPalace) pic.twitter.com/az69uQKir1
— br_betting (@br_betting) July 1, 2019
We all know how that turned out. It got so bad for Trubisky and the Bears, one betting site actually refunded bettors who made the awful decision to put money on him.
The parallels between Allen’s 2019 season and Trubisky’s 2018 season are hard to ignore. Both were clearly weak spots for teams that made the playoffs on the strength of a great defense. And both performed poorly in the advanced metrics that have the most predictive power — namely, performance from a clean pocket.
Allen did seem to clean up his turnover issues over the second half of the season, which has fans in Buffalo thinking that trend will continue in 2020. But the underlying stats suggest that his cleaner stat line was the result of unsustainable luck, as I wrote last December:
Yes, Allen has turned the ball over only four times (two interceptions and two fumbles lost) in the last 10 weeks, but only two players in the entire NFL have fumbled more often over that time — Buffalo has just recovered seven of his nine fumbles. And, according to Sports Info Solutions, defenders have dropped five would-be interceptions thrown by Allen since Week 10 alone. Allen hasn’t really protected the ball any better. He’s just been luckier.
Like Bears fans last offseason, Bills fans are banking on their taking a leap in Year 3 … and bettors seem to be right there with them. You might be thinking, Allen is a question mark but he’s definitely better than Trubisky, right?
Well, Trubisky looked like a far more promising player after his second season in the league. Here’s a comparison of the two after their second seasons, via Pro Football Reference:
Allen has 50-1 odds to win the award. That’s good value, I suppose, but the chances of Allen making that big of a leap are so astronomical, putting any amount of money on him seems to be a waste.