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

The Buffalo Bills signed veteran wide receiver Marquez Valdes-Scantling to a one-year contract Tuesday morning, adding experience and downfield stretch ability to a receiving corps that has seen significant turnover throughout throughout the 2024 NFL offseason.

The signing was met with largely mixed reactions from the Buffalo faithful — while he adds a previously absent dynamic to the receiver room, Valdes-Scantling is by no means a needle mover. He’s a big, fast boundary option, but he’s never surpassed 700 receiving yards in a single season; combine that with his 21 career turnovers on passes on goal, according to Pro Football Focus, and it’s understandable why he’s hard to get Also excited about this signing.

There is, however, a strange but factual trend that Valdes-Scantling is behind, a fad that has now lasted four years and which suggests that the signing of the 29-year-old bodes well for the Bills and the signal-caller . Josh Allen:

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

The trend began during the 2020 NFL season when the then-Green Bay Packers caught 33 passes for a career-high 690 yards from quarterback Aaron Rodgers, helping the passer win his third award NFL MVP. He helped the passer receive that honor in consecutive years in 2021, accounting for 430 of Rodgers’ 4,115 passing yards en route to his fourth MVP.

Valdes-Scantling left one elite signal-caller for another during 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 win his second NFL MVP award in the player’s first year with the team, but he would also lead them to a Super Bowl victory. Mahomes and Valdes-Scantling would win another Super Bowl in the 2023 NFL season before Kansas City came off the stretcher the following spring.

If the trend deepens, which crossed fingers—Allen should probably start clearing space on his mantel for his MVP trophy. We’re also hoping for good weather the afternoon of Buffalo’s Super Bowl LIX parade.

Related: Camp corps or likely contributor? Analyzing Bills’ Latest Free Agent WR Signing

Humorous tendency aside, Valdes-Scantling objectively has little to do with his quarterbacks winning MVP honors, accounting for just 13% of the 13,664 passing yards his quarterbacks have combined in three consecutive MVP seasons. That said, he was a playoff player for the Chiefs in his two years with the team; he caught seven passes for 122 yards and two scores in the 2022 playoffs and eight more passes for 128 yards in 2023, including a touchdown in Super Bowl LVIII.

If Allen wins the NFL MVP in the 2024 NFL season, the honor will be attributed more to his own talent and abilities than the presence of Valdes-Scantling. The quarterback has won MVP votes in three of the last four seasons; He is the only quarterback in NFL history to have built four straight seasons in which he accounted for more than 40 total touchdowns, and if he can make it a fifth in the 2024 season of the NFL, an MVP trophy could be in his future.

Furthermore, if he leads a receiving corps featuring Valdes-Scantling to a productive year, he probably deserves to be named MVP.