7. Patrick Mahomes, Kansas City Chiefs
MVP voters are going to be watching Patrick Mahomes with great interest this season.
Mahomes is coming off of a serious knee injury, as we all know, so he's not only going to be an MVP candidate, but the strongest contender for Comeback Player of the Year as well. He's the poster-child of the NFL, and because of that, he's going to get a lot of credit if the Chiefs are able to have a bounce-back season.
Although Mahomes is clearly one of the most valuable players in the NFL, he hasn't exactly played up to the MVP standard over the past three seasons. You have to throw more than 22-27 touchdowns to win the award. And Mahomes has done it before, so the chances are, he can do it again.
The question is whether or not he'll be able to do it coming off of injury. If anyone can, it's this guy.
6. Drake Maye, New England Patriots
Drake Maye was the NFL MVP runner-up this past season, finishing behind Matthew Stafford after a sensational sophomore season. And the chances are, he's going to be right back in the mix once again, especially with AJ Brown and Romeo Doubs being added to the mix at wide receiver.
The only thing giving me -- and anyone else, in all likelihood -- pause about Maye being an MVP candidate again this year is the stretch of games we saw from him in the playoffs this past year. It was a team effort, all things considered, but Maye finished with the worst playoff pass EPA (-41.2) in the history of Next Gen Stats.
Maye is going to have to prove this season that his playoff stretch was more of a fluke than the regular season he put together where he could seemingly do no wrong.
5. Caleb Williams, Chicago Bears
If any individual player's hype train is completely out of control at this point, it would have to be Caleb Williams of the Chicago Bears.
Chicago sports fans are absolutely loving life right now. The Chicago Cubs might have the biggest star in the game in Pete Crow-Armstrong. The White Sox have a stellar rookie class, including Munetaka Murakami and Colson Montgomery. The Chicago Bulls might even have a little something going these days with Matas Buzelis becoming a star and Caleb Wilson joining the squad. The Blackhawks have a superstar in Conor Bedard.
The Bears are right there alongside all of the other Chicago pro sports teams.
Williams is the superstar among the superstars. He delivered a tremendous sophomore season in 2025, his first under Ben Johnson. And the expectations in Year 3 are through the roof.
Add us as a preferred source on Google