Jalen Hurts faces his only legit MVP competition on Sunday, even if Christian McCaffrey can’t win

My first thought was to start this thing off by saying that the two best players in the NFL will be at Lincoln Financial Field on Sunday. Unfortunately, I don’t believe that to be true.

Even if there was an intellectually honest way to compare players at different positions, not to mention an intellectually honest way to define what it means to be the best, there are a slew of players who might rank ahead of Jalen Hurts and Christian McCaffrey. Patrick Mahomes, Myles Garrett, Tyreek Hill, T.J. Watt: all would have a strong MVP case in a position-neutral world.

But Hurts and McCaffrey are something. Somewhere out there is a word that adequately captures the similarities between the two stars who will be at the center of the stage when the Eagles host the 49ers on Sunday.

Versatile? They most definitely are that, but it’s far too mundane.

Dynamic? Closer, but too nebulous to pin down.

Singular? Impactful?

Still not there.

Revolutionary? Unprecedented?

I like it, and we’ll double back on both in a bit. But the word I’m looking for is a little more complex.

Unsolvable.

That’s it.

Hurts and McCaffrey are unsolvable. They are questions without answers. Their versatility and their dynamism is what enables them to make a singular impact on each game. The thing that makes them revolutionarily great is the inability for opponents to counter it. It is the rarest of traits in their profession.

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Football is a game that is inherently interconnected. It is a game of specialists, an interconnected web of experts, each one inextricably reliant on another. The passing specialist cannot do his job without the blocking specialists and catching specialists. The running specialist cannot do his job without the blocking specialists and the passing specialist. The pass-coverage specialist can’t do his job without the the specialist who pressures the other team’s passing specialist. This web of dependency is what makes the specialists in the trenches so valuable. With the possible exception of a true shutdown cornerback, theirs are the only positions that are truly pass-fail. They are the only players who can succeed without help.

But then we have Hurts and McCaffrey.

I won’t go so far as to say that they can succeed without help. But there is an element of that in both of their games. In the NBA, the revolutionary terminology is “positionless.” Hurts and McCaffrey are both as close to positionless as it comes in the NFL.

If Hurts were not a quarterback, he would still be on an NFL roster listed at running back. If he was, he might be the second-best running back in the game behind McCaffrey. That’s not hyperbole. You see it every time the Eagles line up on fourth-and-1. You see it every time some other team attempts to do what the Eagles do.

You saw it last Sunday, early in the first quarter, the Bills facing fourth-and-1 near midfield. Josh Allen is the biggest quarterback in the NFL, arguably the second-best dual-threat passer, and he ran into a brick wall. He converted, but he did it barely, and he did it standing up. For Hurts, there are no brick walls. He has the lower body strength of an offensive lineman, the pad level of a running back, and the will of a dog that has not eaten for weeks. He is the reason that the Tush Push became the Brotherly Shove. He is the reason to roll your eyes at the debate.

It is the same with McCaffrey. You will see it on Sunday. If you don’t, then Hurts will have sealed his case as the NFL’s True MVP.

McCaffrey is his only legit competition. At least, in a just world. In the real world, a running back does not stand a chance. The last non-quarterback to win the award was Adrian Peterson. That was 11 years ago, in 2012, back when the NFL still remembered the days when it didn’t take a great quarterback to win.

But McCaffrey is no running back. Not even close. Earlier this week, somebody asked Eagles defensive coordinator Sean Desai to list the keys to stopping the 49ers’ superstar.

“That’s a good question,” Desai began.

It was a good question because it is the only question. It’s the only question because it is one that nobody has answered.

McCaffrey will take the field on Sunday having touched the ball on 36.2% of the 49ers’ offensive plays. He has gained 31.2% of their total yards from scrimmage, and 18.6% of their first downs. Think about that. In every NFL offense, on every NFL play, there are five non-quarterbacks who can gain yards. An equal distribution would leave each one with 20 percent of the touches. McCaffrey has close to double that allotment.

It is easy to see why. Drop an alien onto Earth and show him a football game and he will immediately identify No. 23 with the gold helmet as the best player on the field. The strength, the body control, the feel for open space. He does not gain yards. He makes them.

“You’ve got to put bodies around him,” Desai said. “Have to get different looks, affect his route progression from different angles and put different matchups on him because they do a great job of creating matchups there.”

Desai was talking about a running back, mind you.

The language is the same whenever anybody discusses the challenge of stopping Hurts. You aren’t trying to stop one player. You are trying to stop two.

The reason the Eagles are 10-1 is the same reason the 49ers are 8-3. The difference between the two is mostly the importance of the position that each superstar plays.

Which is why Hurts should be MVP of the league right now. But don’t sleep on McCaffrey. If the 49ers win on Sunday, he will be the reason. If they do? If he finishes the season as the best player on the NFC’s first or second best team?

The answer is pretty easy to solve.