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Pro Football: 2026 NFL MVP Odds & Analysis

2026 NFL MVP odds have Brock Purdy narrowly in front at 23.5% as of October 2026, with Josh Allen right behind at 20.5% and Patrick Mahomes a clear third at 11.3%. Trevor Lawrence (about 7.7%) and Joe Burrow (about 7.7%) round out a top five that holds roughly 70% of the board, and every other player on a 28-name list trades at 5% or below. The level matters less than the direction: Purdy started the season as a long shot and has roughly tripled in a month, while Allen has held his price through a loss and Lamar Jackson has given back about seven points in a week after an ankle injury. On PredMart you can take a leveraged position on a single player in this market, from the co-favorites down to the cheapest long shots.

This is a long-dated award market. The regular season is only four weeks old for most teams, the voting happens after Week 18, and the winner is announced in February 2027. That leaves a lot of football for prices to absorb, and the board right now is mostly a ranking of hot starts, team records and the narratives voters tend to reward.

How the 2026 NFL MVP market resolves

The market resolves to the player who wins the NFL Most Valuable Player award for the 2026-27 season, using official NFL information, with a consensus of credible reporting as a backup source. If there is a tie, it follows the official NFL determination; if multiple winners are announced, it resolves to the player whose last name comes first alphabetically. If the season is cancelled, postponed past 11:59 PM ET on February 28, 2027, or no winner is declared by then, it resolves to "Other."

The award itself is decided by a vote of 50 sportswriters, broadcasters and former players, so this is a voting market, not a stats market. That distinction shapes everything below. Covers' MVP tracker notes that Adrian Peterson in 2012 was the last non-quarterback to win. The market prices that history in: 18 of the 28 named players on the board are quarterbacks, and the top 10 by price are all quarterbacks.

The board as of October 2026

Player Team Implied probability
Brock Purdy 49ers 23.5%
Josh Allen Bills 20.5%
Patrick Mahomes Chiefs 11.3%
Trevor Lawrence Jaguars ~7.7%
Joe Burrow Bengals ~7.7%
Lamar Jackson Ravens 5.0%
Dak Prescott Cowboys 4.7%
Drake Maye Patriots ~3.9%
Caleb Williams Bears ~2.8%
Matthew Stafford Rams 2.1%
Jared Goff Lions 1.7%
Jaxon Smith-Njigba Seahawks 1.5%
Jordan Love Packers 1.3%
Jahmyr Gibbs Lions 1.2%
Jalen Hurts Eagles 1.2%
Bo Nix Broncos 1.0%
Bijan Robinson Falcons 0.9%
Justin Herbert Chargers 0.8%
Everyone else 0.5% or less each

Two structural points stand out. First, the top two together hold 44% of the board, and the gap between them is three points, which on a market this long-dated is close to a coin flip between two narratives. Second, the volume has not followed the leaders. The contract with the most lifetime trading is Saquon Barkley (about $136K), followed by Baker Mayfield (about $135K), Caleb Williams (about $119K) and Justin Herbert (about $82K). Purdy, the current favorite, has traded only about $37K. The board's history is a record of preseason storylines that have since faded, which also means the current leaders have not been tested by deep liquidity yet.

Front-runner: Brock Purdy at 23.5%

Purdy's case is efficiency on a winning team, which is the profile voters have rewarded most often. The 49ers are 4-0 after wins over the Rams (27-7), Dolphins (35-13), Cardinals (36-30) and Broncos (24-14), per ESPN's schedule. NFL.com's MVP tracker, written by Kevin Patra, put Purdy first through four weeks and laid out the numbers: 11 touchdown passes, tied for the league lead, no sacks taken all season, and the league lead in passer rating (126.2), QBR (89.6) and net yards per attempt (8.9). His EPA per dropback of 0.53 was far ahead of the next quarterback, Lamar Jackson at 0.29. Yahoo's Week 5 MVP ladder also has him first, at 69.9% completions, 1,007 passing yards, 122 rushing yards, 12 total touchdowns and one interception, and calls the 49ers "the best team in football through the first four weeks."

The sportsbooks have moved the same way. ESPN's awards tracker notes Purdy came into the season at 18-1, the 10th-best price, and has climbed into a tie with Allen at the top of DraftKings' board. The prediction market price agrees with that rough parity but leans slightly toward Purdy.

The risks to the price are straightforward. Four games is a small sample, a passer rating above 120 rarely holds for 17 games, and the schedule gets harder. The 49ers play at Seattle on October 11, host Washington on October 19, and later travel to Kansas City on December 27 in what could be a direct MVP showdown with Mahomes. They also play the Rams twice and the Eagles in Week 17. Purdy's price is now a bet that he keeps putting up near-league-best efficiency while the 49ers stay at or near the top seed, and a single bad multi-interception game would hit this contract harder than it would hit Allen's.

Josh Allen at 20.5%: the incumbent case

Allen is the stickiest price on the board. The Bills are 3-1, and their one loss was a 29-26 upset at home to New England on October 4. Yet Allen's contract barely moved on the loss. The reason is the way he wins: NFL.com had him leading the league with 13 total touchdowns, including seven rushing touchdowns tied with Derrick Henry for the league lead, plus two fourth-quarter comeback wins. Through four weeks he had 1,039 passing yards with six passing touchdowns and three interceptions, and NFL.com summed up his start as "New head coach. Same Josh Allen."

His weak spot is the passing line. In the 24-16 win over the Chargers he threw two interceptions and no touchdown passes, with both his scores coming on the ground, and that game knocked his price down sharply on the regulated exchanges. Yahoo's ladder drops him to fifth and argues he "wouldn't even be top-three in voting" on current form. NFL.com also flags that the Bills defense was allowing 26.75 points per game and that receiver DJ Moore had left two games early with injuries. Allen's price is essentially a bet on name recognition, rushing touchdowns and a Bills team that finishes with one of the AFC's best records. The schedule offers clear test points: at the Rams on Monday, October 12, home against Baltimore on November 1, and home against Kansas City on Thanksgiving, November 26.

Biggest mover: Purdy's climb, and Jackson's ankle

The largest move on the board is Purdy's. On the market's own change data, his contract is up about 7.5 points in the past week and close to 16 points over the past month, which takes him from under 8% to 23.5%. The catalyst was a run of clean games, with mistake-free wins over Arizona (36-30) on September 27 and Denver (24-14) on October 4 doing most of the work. That kind of move shows why long-dated award markets are tradeable well before the vote: a contract going from roughly 7.6% to 23.5% is about a 210% move on the position, or about 840% on margin at 4x before costs, and the same mechanics punish the reverse, since at 4x a drop of only about 6% in the position's marked value reaches the 20% maintenance line.

The biggest drop is Lamar Jackson. His contract has lost roughly seven points in a week and now sits at 5%. ESPN's tracker says his DraftKings price lengthened from +600 to 11-1 after an ankle injury in Week 4, and Covers noted the same dip. The Ravens are 3-1 and level with Cleveland at the top of the AFC North, so the team context is still good; the question is availability. Baltimore plays at Atlanta on Sunday night, October 11, then at Cleveland and home to Cincinnati. Missed games matter more in MVP voting than in almost any other award, because the winner usually has the most complete season among the top contenders, so every week Jackson sits is priced as a direct cut to his chances.

The other notable faller is Justin Herbert. Sports Betting Dime's October 6 odds update lists him among the biggest MVP fallers, with his DraftKings price drifting from +3300 after Week 2 to +20000. The Chargers were 0-4 at that point, and Herbert was completing 59.7% of his passes with a 70.6 passer rating. The prediction market now has him at about 0.8%, which is roughly where an 0-4 quarterback belongs.

The rest of the field

Patrick Mahomes at 11.3% is the most interesting price behind the co-favorites. The Chiefs are 4-0, including a 33-30 overtime win over the Colts and a 30-27 win at Las Vegas, and Yahoo's ladder ranks him second, with 1,037 passing yards, 10 total touchdowns and two interceptions. Yahoo argues that running back Kenneth Walker "has revived something in Patrick Mahomes", and Walker himself was leading the league in rushing through four weeks according to NFL.com. ESPN lists Mahomes at +650 for MVP and as the -250 favorite for Comeback Player of the Year. The Chiefs are on a bye this weekend and then host the Chargers, so Mahomes' price will sit still while the two names above him play. His schedule contains the two games most likely to decide the voters' shortlist: at Buffalo on November 26 and home against San Francisco on December 27.

Trevor Lawrence at about 7.7% is the quietest riser. ESPN notes he opened at 22-1 and is now at +600 at DraftKings, just ahead of Mahomes. The Jaguars are 4-1, with a 35-6 rout of New England, a 22-17 win at Cincinnati and a 19-17 win over Philadelphia on October 11, and NFL.com's tracker lists a career-high 69.2% completion rate and a pace for a career-high 34 touchdown passes. The question with Lawrence is whether voters will treat a strong Jaguars season as an MVP season or as a Comeback-style story, and that depends heavily on Jacksonville's record by December.

Joe Burrow at roughly 7.7% has the widest gap between price and current form. The Bengals are 2-2 after back-to-back losses, 30-27 at Pittsburgh and 22-17 at home to Jacksonville, and Sports Betting Dime has his DraftKings price lengthening from +850 to +1600. Covers' tracker still names him its preferred value pick, arguing that if Cincinnati wins 11 or more games, Burrow is the MVP. Burrow's contract also has one of the wider spreads on the board, which makes the headline number less precise than it looks.

Dak Prescott at 4.7% leads the league in passing yards, with 1,381 yards, nine touchdowns and three interceptions through five games per ESPN, but Dallas is 2-3 after a 34-31 loss to Baltimore and a 24-16 home loss to Tampa Bay on October 8, and a Dallas defense Yahoo describes as among the league's worst caps how many wins he can bank. Drake Maye at about 3.9% has bounced around: he threw two interceptions and no touchdowns in the 35-6 loss at Jacksonville, then the Patriots won at Buffalo and beat Las Vegas 45-17 on October 11, and his contract jumped about three points in a single day on a thin order book, which is the kind of move to treat cautiously. Caleb Williams at about 2.8% carries a hamstring injury from a Week 2 loss to Minnesota that SI reported would cost him multiple weeks; his bid-ask spread is wide enough that the true price is anyone's guess.

Further down, Matthew Stafford (2.1%) threw two interceptions in a 30-26 loss at Denver, and Jared Goff (1.7%) has nine touchdowns and no interceptions through four games but a 2-2 Lions record. The non-quarterbacks are where the cheapest contracts live. Jaxon Smith-Njigba (1.5%) had 481 receiving yards and a league-leading six receiving touchdowns through four weeks, and NFL.com notes he, Chris Olave and CeeDee Lamb are all on pace for 2,000-plus receiving yards. Bijan Robinson (0.9%) entered Yahoo's top 10 after a 145-yard, two-touchdown Monday night game, and Jahmyr Gibbs (1.2%) has been one of the league's most productive dual-threat backs. History is the obstacle: no non-quarterback has won since 2012. Two of the season's biggest early stories, Kenneth Walker III and Carolina's Bryce Young (third on Yahoo's ladder), do not have their own named contracts on this board, which means a voter swing toward either would resolve to "Other" rather than to a priced player.

For price-sensitive traders, the asymmetry sits in the 1% to 8% band: a quarterback on a winning team priced at 2% to 5% needs only to climb into the voters' top three by December to double or triple, and at 4x that becomes a 400% to 800% swing on margin, although the thin books at these levels make the entry and exit prices matter as much as the thesis.

Catalysts and windows to watch

The board will reprice in steps, mostly on Sundays, and the dated windows are clear from the 2026 schedule:

Injuries are the undated catalyst that will matter most. A multi-week absence for any of the top five would redistribute several points across the board within a day, as Jackson's ankle already showed.

Bottom line

The 2026 NFL MVP market is a two-player race at the top with a credible third and a wide, cheap field. Purdy has the best numbers and the best team record of the top contenders, and the market has caught up fast, from a long shot in September to 23.5% now. Allen has the most durable narrative and a rushing touchdown profile voters have rewarded before, and his 20.5% has proven hard to dent. Mahomes at 11.3% is undefeated, has the schedule spots to make his case directly against both leaders, and looks like the most underpriced of the top three.

My read: the top of the board is close to fair, with a slight lean that Purdy's price already assumes a lot of efficiency that rarely survives 17 games, and that Mahomes deserves to trade closer to the two leaders than to the chasing pack. Lawrence is the most interesting mid-priced name if Jacksonville keeps winning, Jackson is a pure availability bet, and Burrow needs Cincinnati to stop losing before his price deserves defending. If you want to express that view, a leveraged position on a single contract such as Mahomes, sized for the Sunday-to-Sunday volatility and timed around the dated head-to-heads above, is the cleanest way to do it.

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