Caleb Williams has done enough early in the season to force his way into the MVP conversation, but ESPN’s Ben Solak sees the same roadblock that has tripped up candidates before: missed time.
Williams has played barely three full games this season, yet the case is already there. Solak’s point is not that Williams is going to win the award, but that he could become the kind of candidate who plays so well, so often, that he stays in the discussion long enough for absences to matter when voters separate the top names.
The numbers explain why the buzz is real. After returning from a hamstring injury, Williams looked electric in Atlanta in Week 6, throwing for 305 yards, completing 30 of 36 passes, and finishing with a touchdown and no interceptions.
Among quarterbacks with at least 100 dropbacks, no one has been more accurate. That stands out even more when you put it next to Williams’ career completion percentage of 61.2%.
He closed last season at 58.1%, the lowest mark of his young career and one of the lowest in football in 2025.
That’s why the issue is not performance. It’s availability. Even though the missed time is relatively short, it may still end up being the detail that knocks him out of the race when the season gets into its final stretch.
Solak pointed to Jalen Hurts in 2022 as the cautionary tale. Hurts was in the middle of one of the best seasons of his career, with Philadelphia sitting at 12-1 under him, 22 touchdown passes, just 3 interceptions, and 10 more scores on the ground.
He entered Week 15 against Chicago as the betting favorite for MVP, then sprained his shoulder and missed only two games. Those two games proved decisive, with Patrick Mahomes eventually winning the award.
Williams’ situation is obviously different, but the lesson is the same. He has looked sharp under head coach Ben Johnson, and the pairing has plenty of runway left.
If Williams stays healthy the rest of the way and keeps stacking big games, he belongs in the MVP talk. But if someone like Brock Purdy doesn’t slow down, those missed games could be the thing that leaves Williams with another near miss instead of the trophy.
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