NFL Midseason Awards: MVP, Best Team and Top Coach

All right. Halfway point of the season. Who's your MVP so far in the first half of the National Football League? Yeah, it's tough because there's a lot of guys playing really well right now. I think you make a case for Josh Allen. I think you can make a case for Caleb Williams. I think you make a case for Jordan Love, too, who has really flown under the radar carrying that Packers team. I just look at how Joe Burrow played in that London game at this point and what he's meant to that Bengals offense. I think he's scored something like 20 touchdowns over his last four games, and he's just passing at such a high level. Every single throw he makes has near-perfect ball placement. He makes maybe one or two bad throws a game or throws that you're saying, oh, that's a little bit questionable. He's just playing quarterback position at the highest level, I think, of anyone right now as a pure pocket passer, as a pure passer. And I just think that's going to go a long way. I think the Bengals have the best path to winning the AFC North as well because the Ravens, they're not going to be able to, without Lamar Jackson, really compete. The Browns, we're seeing them come back down to earth a bit. I think this Bengals-Steelers game on Sunday Night Football this upcoming week in Week 10, I think this could be an opportunity for Burrow on the big stage to just show people exactly how great he is right now. So he's currently my favorite, but I think you can make a strong case for a variety of players across the league with Josh Allen, Jordan Love, and Caleb Williams, even despite his four-interception game last night being in hot pursuit. Boy, you know, I don't know if there's a dominant team this year, and I think the league loves that. They love the word parity. To me, sometimes that word parity means mediocre football. Who's the best team in the NFL right now in the first half of the season? Yeah, it's a tough question because I think you could make a good case for the Bengals with how they're playing. Their defense has been so much better. We've talked about Al Golden on this program many times. The work he's doing with that Bengals defense is great. I think we're going to get a nice preview tonight. If the Buffalo Bills can really... Find a way to beat that Brian Flores defense tonight on Monday Night Football. I think you'll have a good case to say, well, the Bills offense might be the best in the league because Josh Allen's such a great dual threat playmaker. So I think he'll have an opportunity to stake a claim to that. So I think that it's between those two teams in my head right now. I think you can look at the NFC, too, and say the 49ers, but I'm still waiting for those injury issues to catch up with them. Maybe they never do, and maybe Kyle Shanahan's just doing one of the best coaching jobs in the league this year. But I'm kind of still skeptical of the 49ers. I will continue to be that way until we know that they're as healthy as they can be. You mentioned coaching, so let's go there. In the first half of the season, who's done the best coaching job this year? Yeah, I think Shanahan 100% deserves credit for what he's been able to do. Ben Johnson has done a great job just continuing to build that Bears offense. But you see these odds to win coach of the year here. John Harbaugh, he has to be the number one answer at this point. Nobody really thought that the Giants were like a shoo-in to maybe compete for the NFC East. There was a lot of talk before the season of saying, well, maybe if Jackson Dart takes a step forward, maybe they could be a good team. You lost Jackson Dart, what, two weeks into the season and everyone wrote you off. It was going to be Jameis Winston the rest of the way. Jameis Winston posted a winning record in four starts. Now they move to J.J. McCarthy, who's continuing his winning streak as a starter. So I think that Harbaugh deserves a lot of credit for finding a way to build this team, carry an identity. He's made a lot of bold decisions, basically benching Cam Scadaboo one week, and then the next week he came out and had one of the best games of his career. So I just think Harbaugh's done such a great job. I'll give flowers to Todd Munkin as well. No one expected the Browns to have a winning record really at any point this season for them to be five and four right now, even with them coming back to earth a little bit in the last couple of weeks is extremely impressive. I don't think they'll make the playoffs, but Munkin has them on the right track. So I think he deserves a little bit more praise than he's getting at this point.