Matthew Stafford has 15th-best MVP odds for 2019

The last—and only—time a Detroit Lions player won the AP NFL Most Valuable Player award was back in 1997, when Hall of Fame running back Barry Sanders became the third running back ever to eclipse 2,000 rushing yards in a season.

If you’re the betting type, you might be thinking, “Well, I guess the Detroit Lions are due.”

Extremely flawed thinking aside, Westgate SuperBook released their 2019 NFL MVP odds, and Lions quarterback Matthew Stafford was among the slimmest odds. He currently sits at 80-to-1 odds, which ranks him tied for the 15th-best odds in the entire NFL.

Those odds firmly put Stafford in the third or fourth tier for quarterbacks in the league. Here are the 13 quarterbacks with shorter odds than the Lions veteran quarterback:

• Patrick Mahomes (4:1)
• Aaron Rodgers (8:1)
• Andrew Luck (8:1)
• Carson Wentz (10:1)
• Drew Brees (10:1)
• Tom Brady (12:1)
• Philip Rivers (14:1)
• Russell Wilson (14:1)
• Ben Roethlisberger (25:1)
• Matt Ryan (25:1)
• Baker Mayfield (25:1)
• Jared Goff (60:1)
• Cam Newton (60:1)

Additionally, Cowboys running back Ezekiel Elliott also has better odds than Stafford, at 60-to-1.

This isn’t to say there are definitively 13 quarterbacks better than Matthew Stafford. Almost always the MVP of the league is the best player on the best team. So these odds, in part, reflect confidence in each players’ team succeeding in 2019. As has been established this offseason, Vegas isn’t very high on the Detroit Lions.

In case you were wondering, there weren’t any other Lions on the board for the MVP race, even though there were over half of the starting running backs listed and 74 total different players available.