Todd Gurley Is the Rare Running Back Capable of Being the NFL MVP

This is a league in which nearly 60 percent of plays are passes, barely 40 percent are runs. Per Spotrac, each of the top eight and 17 of the 20 highest-paid players in the NFL are quarterbacks, while there isn't a single running back ranked among the top 50. Twelve of the last 15 Super Bowls have been won by legendary quarterbacks named Manning, Brady, Roethlisberger, Rodgers or Brees. 

Fittingly, 10 of the last 11 and each of the last five league MVPs played the quarterback position. 

It's their league. Everybody else is just playing in it. 

But this year might be different. This year, as we arrive at the midway point of the 2018 regular season, Los Angeles Rams running back Todd Gurley is on a special track—one that looks and feels a lot like those that carried MVP rushers Terrell Davis in 1998, Marshall Faulk in 2000, Shaun Alexander in 2005, LaDainian Tomlinson in 2006 and Adrian Peterson in 2012. 

The centerpiece of the league's only 8-0 team, Gurley is defying current trends by stealing the spotlight from his quarterback.

That's almost hard to believe, considering that said quarterback, the made-for-prime-time Jared Goff, is a 24-year-old No. 1 overall pick who has already been to a Pro Bowl and is probably supposed to be the face of football in L.A.

But it's true—Sunday's highly billed matchup between the Rams and the Green Bay Packers at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum was meant to generate one of two headlines.

1. Savvy veteran Aaron Rodgers overcomes young stud Jared Goff in huge road victory

2. Young stud Jared Goff outlasts savvy veteran Aaron Rodgers in statement victory in L.A.

Neither Rodgers nor Goff played poorly in a 29-27 Rams win—they threw a combined four touchdown passes in turnover-free performances—but the former was robbed of a chance to work late-fourth-quarter magic when his teammate fumbled a kick return, and the latter was once again only the second-most valuable player in blue, gold and white. 

With 195 scrimmage yards and a touchdown on 31 touches, Gurley was the primary reason the Rams were able to overcome a slow start and control the game the rest of the way. Los Angeles trailed 10-0 with three minutes left in the first half, and at that point Goff had completed just six of 15 passes for 69 yards to go with three sacks. But 154 of Gurley's 195 yards came over the course of the next 33 minutes of action, and the Rams wound up possessing the ball for 57 percent of the game. 

That, though, was par for the course. The 24-year-old reigning Offensive Player of the Year now has a league-leading 1,151 yards from scrimmage (only one other player has more than 900) and 15 touchdowns (only one other player has more than nine, and none have more than 10). 

He's on pace to become the 10th back ever to record 2,300-plus yards from scrimmage in a season and only the second player ever to score 30-plus touchdowns in a single campaign. And that second pace would be even more promising had he not put his team first by essentially forfeiting a touchdown on the game-clinching rush in the final minute of Sunday's victory. 

Only two players have scored more than 27 touchdowns in a season. Both—Tomlinson in 2006 and Alexander in 2005—were MVPs. That scrimmage yardage pace is also higher than the totals for every aforementioned recent MVP back except Tomlinson and Adrian Peterson, but Gurley already has more touchdowns this year than Peterson had in his entire 2012 MVP campaign (15 to 13). 

So there's little doubt that Gurley's current course puts him in the MVP conversation, and that's before even considering that the Rams have yet to lose.

Patrick Mahomes, Drew Brees and Philip Rivers have put up MVP-caliber numbers, and they all benefit from the fact that they're employed to throw the ball rather than run with it. But none of them are on pace to shatter monumental records and none of them are leading unbeaten teams. 

You wouldn't have to go out on a precarious limb to suggest that if Gurley continues to lead the league in rushing and scores 30ish touchdowns and the Rams go 16-0, he'll be the 2018 MVP. But even if he merely remains within reaching distance of those projected accomplishments, it'll be hard to make a case that anyone is more valuable than him—regardless of how little the sport itself values his position. 

Brad Gagnon has covered the NFL for Bleacher Report since 2012.

Follow @Brad_Gagnon