The Best Bets In NFL Awards Markets Right Now (Episode 987 with Adam Levitan, Evan Silva, Ryan Reynolds)

**Adam Levitan** (0:15)
Hello, and welcome to episode 987 of the official establishtherun.com podcast. My name is Adam Levitan. I am one of the co-founders here at ETR.
As always joined by fellow co-founder, Evan Silva, the time to get the best prices in the NFL futures market is now, a few months before week one. To discuss this, I am joined by our own award specialist, Ryan Reynolds. Ryan, how's it going today, buddy?

**Ryan Reynolds** (0:42)
Adam, Evan, pleasure as always. Looking forward to my annual stop on your show.

**Adam Levitan** (0:47)
Evan, how's it going today, buddy?

**Evan Silva** (0:49)
It's going great. I think this is the most actionable shows that we do each off season. Can't wait to hear the takes.

**Adam Levitan** (0:57)
All right. On today's show, we are going to discuss all of the awards markets from a betting perspective, MVP, Offensive Rookie of the Year, Comeback, etc. Then at the end, we'll also hit quickly on some futures that we see, things like odds to win the Super Bowl, Division, odds to make the playoffs, etc.
All right. Let's get into it here, boys. Want to start with MVP. This was a hotly contested race last year. Matthew Stafford barely edges out Drake May. Reynolds, any thoughts on what happened last year and what typically wins the NFL MVP award?

**Ryan Reynolds** (1:36)
Yeah, it's generally a quarterback award for a long time now. Each of the last two years were really close races, really. And one thing I think we learned from those is if there's a close race, legacy tends to be the tiebreaker. Two years ago, Josh Allen winning his first MVP over Lamar Jackson winning his third. And Stafford, it's a career achievement award. He had an edge in raw production. Drake May had a super efficient season against a pretty, pretty historically weak schedule, I'd frame it.
Yeah, I would say if we're in a situation again where young guy, good year, older guy that needs like that feather in his cap for his legacy, voters are, that's going to swing some voters.

**Adam Levitan** (2:17)
It's just a reminder that the people voting for this are humans, and they're going to have biases such as, hey, Matthew Stafford's been a great guy, been a great player in this league for dozens of years. Even if you thought that Drake May was maybe slightly better, these people are humans and they're voting. And again, as we say every year, our job is not to figure out who should win the award. It is to figure out who these people will vote for. And a lot of the voters aren't analytically driven, they might just be ball guys or whatever.
So yeah, it's an important point, I think for sure. One thing that sticks out this year to me, Reynolds, is that Stafford and May were the two clear favorites last year and this year, they're nowhere near the top. May is 11 to 1, Stafford's 14 to 1, Josh Allen, Lamar Jackson, Patrick Mahomes, Justin Herbert, Joe Burrow are all ahead. So what do you think about the 2026 race for MVP right now, Reynolds?

**Ryan Reynolds** (3:13)
I know I was very upset to see Justin Herbert in the spot that you said, because I was kind of bullish on him coming into things, but he's priced too high for me, too low rather.
Again, I generally like the favorites in this race, so I don't really have anything interesting apart from this comment.
I'm not a Baker Mayfield guy. He's plus 5,500 on FanDuel. He opens the season against Cincinnati in a potential shootout. When you guys are doing your daily fantasy takes going into week one, I'm sure you'll be talking to that one at length. Then he's got Cleveland at home versus Minnesota versus the no Mike Parsons Packers at home at Dallas on Thursday Night Football. I could see him being very productive during that stretch with a three and two or better record in a very, very weak division. So I don't think Mayfield is going to end up winning, but I could see him being much more expensive in week two or three.

**Adam Levitan** (4:02)
Okay. So a big thing that's changed since we did this last year is the liquidity in prediction markets. And so what Ryan is talking about here, you can start with Baker Mayfield at 45 to one, even if you don't think he's going to win. He gets out to a hot start, he gets down to 20 to one. You can immediately turn a profit there much better than you get on cash out offers on sports books. So, you know, keep that in mind. I think the entire awards process and market has gained so much liquidity through their prediction markets. And there's so many other ways to play it now. From a football perspective, Evan Baker, the excuse for Baker last year was he was just hurt and he was playing hurt for much of the year. And that flowed through to just a really, really rough second half. So that's not the craziest thing that I've ever heard. I mean, Baker was people were talking about the level Baker was playing at early last year prior to the injury. So, Evan, any thoughts on Baker and any other MVP thoughts for 2026?