Josh Allen Tops MVP Board, But Bryce Young Is the Sleeper Worth Watching
Allen leads the MVP futures again after a 365-point PPR season in 2025, but the longshot case for Carolina's Bryce Young is quietly building.
QB20 price for a rising fourth-year QB is a bargain worth grabbing.
- Allen: 365 PPR pts in 2025, our QB2, No. 6 overall
- Allen ran for 579 yds, 14 TD last season (2025)
- Young: 3011 pass yds, 23 TD in 2025 (16 games)
- Young form: +2.4 fantasy pts over last 5 games
- Allen form: -3 fantasy pts over last 5 games
With the preseason kicking off in a little over a week, the MVP futures board is already open — and the names up top won't surprise anyone. Josh Allen sits in front, trailed by Lamar Jackson, Justin Herbert and Joe Burrow. Allen earned the pole position honestly: he stacked 365 PPR points across 17 games in 2025, good for our QB2 and the No. 6 overall player, on the back of 3,668 passing yards, 25 touchdowns and a monstrous 579 rushing yards with 14 scores on the ground.
That rushing floor is why Allen is basically MVP-proof from a fantasy standpoint. Even his "cold" stretch — his last five games came in three fantasy points below his season average — still left him near the top of the position. When your worst month is that productive, you're a set-and-forget QB1 no matter what the odds board says.
The Longshot Angle
The more interesting bet lives further down the board. Carolina's Bryce Young is being floated as a longshot MVP flier, and there's a real logic to it. Young threw for 3,011 yards and 23 touchdowns over 16 games in 2025, added 216 rushing yards and two scores, and finished as our QB20 with 220 PPR points. Not elite — but for a fourth-year passer trending up, it's a foundation.
The bull case leans on roster help and continuity. GM Dan Morgan is chasing impact free agents with seven picks in the 2026 draft to work with, and the Young-to-Tetairoa McMillan connection kept flashing late in the year. If the Panthers defense takes a step and Young keeps building, a surprise playoff run isn't crazy — and MVP narratives follow winning quarterbacks.
History says don't overthink the field, though. Offensive players have dominated the award forever — only Alan Page (1971) and Lawrence Taylor (1986) have won it on defense since 1957 — and Green Bay's ten trophies, three of them from Aaron Rodgers, underline how narrow the winners' circle really is. Rodgers, now in Pittsburgh, put up 227 PPR points as our QB19 last season, a reminder that even former MVPs age out of the conversation.
For fantasy managers, treat this as two different plays. Allen is your anchor — draft him with confidence, ignore the late-season dip, and never bench him. Young is the value grab: at a QB20 cost with a +2.4 fantasy-point uptick over his final five games (2025), he's a cheap upside swing in single-QB leagues and a legitimate starter in superflex. Buy the ascending quarterback before the price catches up to the hype.
