Poor Playoff Performances Prove NFL MVP Voting Is Premature

Deciding who is most worthy of the NFL's annual superlatives is like playing a game within the game. It's an exciting exercise as people try to make cases for the men they believe are most deserving of the NFL's most prestigious awards.

But if there's anything the Wild-Card Round of the playoffs proved, it's that being one of the best for the previous four months is absolutely inconsequential when there's a Super Bowl on the line.

In 2008, the top three choices for the award weren't good enough for their teams. Peyton Manning—the NFL's Most Valuable Player—and his two runners-up—Chad Pennington and Michael Turner—will all be watching the remainder of the playoffs from the comfort of their own homes.

Players whose contributions to their respective teams were supposed to be among the best the NFL had to offer—and who were valued for carrying their teams into the playoffs—were all conspicuously absent in their playoff games. 

Manning failed to make the most of opportunities created by his defense as they forced critical San Diego turnovers. Chad Pennington gift-wrapped four interceptions for the Baltimore Ravens, and Michael Turner failed in helping the Falcons establish a run game.

But they were all in the playoffs, so they're absolutely worthy of winning the award, right?

The fact that the New Orleans Saints failed to make the playoffs is what made Drew Brees' 5,069-yard passing season irrelevant for MVP discussions, right?

If regular-season statistics are what define a man's worthiness to be acknowledged as the NFL's very best player, then it promotes a vicious hypocrisy in what everyone accepts as most important—the Super Bowl.

If we operate under the assumption that making the playoffs makes someone worthy of being the MVP, then we should assume the man worthy of winning it for the entire season will be on the winning Super Bowl team.

What's that? Being the Super Bowl MVP should be good enough? Maybe you're right.

But it still provides a vicious contradiction towards what's worthy of being awarded. If we're to assume the best player is given the award every year, we should expect them to go above and beyond expectations.

This mean averaging more than 2.3 yards per carry in the postseason. This means not throwing game-changing interceptions—four times. And it means being able to lead your team down the field after your defense created turnovers.

Or maybe not. Hey, they all made it to the playoffs.

Even if it was for only around three hours.

Angel Navedo covers the Jets-Examiner" target="_blank">New York Jets for Examiner.com. His work can also be found on NYJetsFan.com, where he is the Head Writer, and on MyGridironSpace.com—a premier social networking site built exclusively for NFL fans.

He is also a Senior Writer at Bleacher Report, where he is one of the New York Jets Community Leaders.