The first two-thirds of the CFL season has come and gone and the race for the league’s Most Outstanding Player award is, for lack of a better term, weird. Super weird.
The list of legitimate M.O.P. candidates has usually dwindled to a small handful of players by the time summer draws to a close. Heck, some years it’s essentially down to one.
This season, you could realistically make the case for well over 25 different players, none of whom have done enough to truly separate themselves from the pack.
A quarterback has been named M.O.P. 24 times since 1990, so one might assume that’ll be the case again this year. The problem is that the CFL’s leading passer, Bo Levi Mitchell, plays for a (likely) non-playoff team and was benched earlier this year. If Taylor Powell hadn’t gotten hurt, Mitchell would probably still be a backup. A backup can’t win M.O.P.
Cody Fajardo is the starting quarterback for the league’s best team, so maybe he should win the award. The issue is that he’s thrown for only 2,212 yards and 13 touchdowns this season, partly because he missed four games due to injury. Fajardo’s on pace for around 3,750 yards and 20 touchdowns on the year, which hardly screams “M.O.P.”
Brady Oliveira arguably should have won the award last season but he was recently surpassed by William Stanback as the CFL’s leading rusher. The Winnipeg native is also on pace for 300 fewer yards from scrimmage than he had a year ago and has yet to score a touchdown this season, which isn’t at all M.O.P.-ish.
Justin McInnis recently became the CFL’s first receiver to reach the 1,000-yard mark but most of that production came in his first six games. He’s averaged fewer than 50 yards per outing over B.C.’s last seven contests, which doesn’t seem like M.O.P. production.
It wouldn’t be unthinkable for a pass rusher to win M.O.P. but none have stood out from the pack this year. Bryan Cox Jr., Noah Curtis, Willie Jefferson, Micah Johnson, Sione Teuhema, and Michael Wakefield are all tied for the league lead with six, putting them on pace for nine. A defensive lineman with fewer than 10 sacks probably shouldn’t win M.O.P.
This would be a perfect year for a linebacker to win M.O.P. as Solomon Elimimian did in 2014, though the production has been fairly even across the board. Nyles Morgan leads the league with 85 total tackles but Tyrice Beverette has more sacks and forced fumbles and Jameer Thurman has more fumble recoveries. It’s a pretty even group.
A defensive back has never won M.O.P. before but it seems like that could change this year. Rolan Milligan Jr. is first league-wide in special teams tackles and pass knockdowns, though it’s been a month since he recorded an interception. Tyrell Ford is tied with Milligan for the league lead with six picks but it took a few games for him to get going early on.
Perhaps a kicker should be named M.O.P., as happened in the NFL in 1982 when Mark Moseley won M.V.P. The problem is that Rene Paredes and Sean Whyte have the highest field goal percentages, Lewis Ward has made the most kicks, and Sergio Castillo has made the longest kicks. One could make an argument for any of them to become the first CFL kicker to win M.O.P.
Members of the media will cast their team awards ballots in six weeks, by which time the landscape will presumably have shifted. A player could still separate themselves from the pack and let’s hope they do because right now, this race couldn’t be more unclear.
It’s so weird.
