Bills Central

Josh Allen to win NFL MVP or Super Bowl? Recent WR signing may be a sign

The signing of wide receiver Marquez Valdes-Scantling may be a good omen for Buffalo Bills quarterback Josh Allen.

Kyle Silagyi

Jan 21, 2024; Orchard Park, New York, USA; Buffalo Bills quarterback Josh Allen (17) drops back to
Jan 21, 2024; Orchard Park, New York, USA; Buffalo Bills quarterback Josh Allen (17) drops back to / Mark J. Rebilas-USA TODAY Sports
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The Buffalo Bills signed veteran wide receiver Marquez Valdes-Scantling to a one-year deal Tuesday morning, adding experience and field-stretching ability to a receiving corps that saw significant turnover throughout the 2024 NFL offseason. 

The signing was met with largely mixed reactions from the Buffalo faithful—though he adds a previously absent dynamic to the receiver room, Valdes-Scantling is in no way a needle mover. He’s a big-bodied and speedy boundary option, but he’s never supplanted 700 receiving yards in a single season; combine this with his 21 career drops on on-target passes, per Pro Football Focus, and one can see why it’s difficult to get too excited about this signing.

There is, however, a strange, but factual trend that Valdes-Scantling is at the root of, a now four-year running fad that suggests the signing of the 29-year-old is a good omen for the Bills and signal-caller Josh Allen:

Valdes-Scantling’s quarterback has won either the Super Bowl or NFL MVP Award in each of the last four seasons.

The trend started in the 2020 NFL season when the then-Green Bay Packers wideout caught 33 passes for a career-high 690 yards from quarterback Aaron Rodgers, helping the passer earn his third NFL MVP Award. He aided in the passer receiving the honor in back-to-back years in 2021, accounting for 430 of Rodgers’s 4,115 passing yards en route to his fourth MVP. 

Valdes-Scantling left one elite signal-caller for another in the 2022 NFL offseason, signing a three-year deal with the Kansas City Chiefs to join forces with Patrick Mahomes. The passer would not only earn his second NFL MVP Award in the wideout’s debut year with the team—he also led them to a Super Bowl victory. Mahomes and Valdes-Scantling would win another Super Bowl in the 2023 NFL season before Kansas City moved on from the field stretcher in the subsequent spring.

If the trend holes—which, fingers crossed—Allen should probably start clearing a space on his mantel for his MVP trophy. We’ll also hope that the weather opts to play nice on the afternoon of Buffalo’s Super Bowl LIX parade.

Related: Camp Body or Probable Contributor? Analyzing Bills' latest free agent WR signing

Humorous trend aside, Valdes-Scantling has objectively had little to do with his quarterbacks earning MVP honors, accounting for just 13% of the 13,664 passing yards his quarterbacks combined for over the three straight MVP seasons. That said, he was a playoff performer for the Chiefs over his two years with the team; he caught seven passes for 122 yards and two scores in the 2022 postseason and another eight passes for 128 yards in 2023, including a touchdown in Super Bowl LVIII.

Should Allen win NFL MVP in the 2024 NFL season, the honor will be more so attributed to his own talent and ability than the presence of Valdes-Scantling. The quarterback has earned MVP votes in three out of the last four seasons; he’s the only quarterback in NFL history who has constructed four consecutive seasons in which he’s tallied more than 40 total touchdowns, and if he’s able to make it a fifth in the 2024 NFL season, an MVP trophy may be in his future.

Besides, if he carries a receiving corps that prominently features Valdes-Scantling to a productive year, he likely deserves to be named MVP.

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Kyle Silagyi
KYLE SILAGYI

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