NFL MVP Odds 2026

Prices from Kalshi's "MVP Winner?" market, as of Saturday, September 5, 2026, 3:33 PM ET. A price of 11 cents means the market prices that outcome at about an 11% chance.

Josh Allen is the top name on the board at 11 cents, which is the thinnest lead a favorite can have. Joe Burrow and Lamar Jackson sit right behind at 10 cents each, and Justin Herbert is at 9, so the top four are packed inside two cents with the season not yet played.

The Full Board

Forty-five names carry a price. Here are the fourteen at 3 cents or better, with the 24-hour move from Friday's close.

Two moves across fourteen names. That is what a board looks like when nothing has happened yet.

The Three At The Top Are Three Different Arguments

Sports Illustrated ran a piece on September 2 headlined "Why Buffalo Bills QB Josh Allen Is the Overwhelming Favorite for NFL MVP". At 11 cents, the board is not pricing anything close to overwhelming. Allen's case is the one that needs the least explanation: a previous AP MVP winner, a quarterback who scores touchdowns with both arm and legs, and an offense that has been built around that for years. The rushing production is the part that matters to voters, because it turns an ordinary passing week into a two-touchdown box score. The risk is the same one that has always been there, which is that Buffalo's regular season has to be good enough to make Allen the story rather than the Bills' January result.

Lamar Jackson at 10 cents is the highest-ceiling name on the list and the one with the strangest history. Two MVPs already, one of them unanimous, and both came in seasons where Baltimore's offense looked unlike anyone else's. Nobody has won three since Peyton Manning won five, and voter fatigue is a real drag on a player who has been great for six straight years. A third award almost certainly requires a season that forces the issue, which for Jackson means the rushing number climbing back toward what it was in 2019 while the Ravens win 13 or 14 games.

Joe Burrow at 10 cents is the cautionary case study on the whole board. In 2024, Burrow led the NFL in passing yards and passing touchdowns, and Cincinnati missed the playoffs, and the award went elsewhere. The AP MVP is voted by a 50-person media panel, and that panel has never separated individual production from team wins for very long. CBS Sports wrote in late August that bettors were backing Burrow while the open question was whether the Bengals' rebuilt defense holds up. That is the correct framing. Burrow's passing is not the variable. The other side of the ball is.

The Middle Of The Board Is Where The Real Money Is

The activity numbers say something the prices do not. About 10,483,219 contracts are open across the board, about 11,631,540 have traded since the market opened, and about 193,549 changed hands in the last 24 hours. The three busiest names in that window were Bo Nix at 38,363 contracts, Jalen Hurts at 23,188 and Dak Prescott at 12,448.

Only one of those three is inside the top eight. Nix is not on the priced list above at all, which puts the Broncos quarterback at 3 cents or less, and Nix drew about 1.7 times the volume of anyone else. Hurts is at 3 cents despite being the quarterback who won Super Bowl LIX. That is the shape of a longshot market: people are buying cheap tickets on young quarterbacks and on players whose teams they expect to be very good, not paying 11 cents for the guy everyone already agrees with.

Prescott's +1 is the only upward move on the board. Dallas has the schedule and the offensive weapons for a passing-yards season, and Prescott has finished second in MVP voting before, so the name has been in the conversation without ever landing.

The rest of the middle tier splits into clean groups. Justin Herbert at 9 cents is the arm-talent bet under Jim Harbaugh, whose offenses lean run-first, which is exactly the tension in that number. Patrick Mahomes at 7 cents is the two-time winner the electorate has largely moved past, and the FOX Sports framing this week asked whether Mahomes can challenge at all. Matthew Stafford at 7 cents is a 38-year-old quarterback in a Sean McVay offense, which is a volume bet more than a player bet. Caleb Williams at 7 cents is the most interesting number on the board: a former first overall pick entering year two under Ben Johnson, and Johnson's play-calling is the reason that price is not 4 cents. Drake Maye at 6 cents is the same bet a year earlier in New England, and Maye is the only name that fell in the last day.

What The Contract Actually Settles On

The rule is short, and it is worth reading before assuming anything about how this pays. From Kalshi, on the Allen contract:

Rule: If Josh Allen wins the Pro Football AP Regular Season MVP in the 2026-27 season, then the market resolves to Yes.

Every other name has the identical rule with their own name in it. Two things follow. It is the AP award specifically, not any other outlet's MVP, and it is the regular season award, so a great January does nothing. The listed close is February 12, 2028, which is well past when the award is handed out at NFL Honors, so the settlement date on the ticket is not the date the question gets answered.

There is one more filter worth knowing. The AP MVP has gone to a quarterback every year since Adrian Peterson won it in 2012. The New York Times asked on September 4 whether Bijan Robinson can win MVP, and the honest answer is that a running back has needed a historic season to even get close for more than a decade. That is why 44 of the 45 priced names play the same position.

The Week The Board Did Nothing

Eight straight daily closes tell the story better than any single snapshot. Allen went 10, 11, 11, 11, 11, 11, 11, 11 from Friday August 28 through Friday September 4, a range of one cent. Jackson closed at 10 every single day, a range of zero. Burrow ranged from 9 to 10, dipping once on August 31 and coming right back. Herbert is the only top name that gave anything back, opening the window at 10 and settling at 9 from September 1 onward. Stafford chopped between 6 and 7 for eight days without going anywhere.

For anyone who follows this for fantasy or DFS reasons, that flatness is the useful signal. There is no consensus yet on which offense is going to be the best one in the league, and the market has not priced a single team's projection above anyone else's in any meaningful way. Preseason results, roster cuts and depth chart news moved nothing. Snaps that count will.

What Happens Next

The 2026 regular season opens Thursday, September 10, and the board should start separating within about three weeks, because that is when quarterback stat lines stop being projections. Watch whether the Allen, Jackson and Burrow cluster breaks apart or stays inside a cent of each other, since a bunched top four is unusual to hold once games are played. Watch the Bengals' defense in particular, because Burrow's number is more sensitive to Cincinnati's win total than to Burrow's own production. Watch Bo Nix and the other cheap names too, since that is where the volume has been going and a fast start moves a 2-cent contract far more than it moves an 11-cent one. Prices will keep updating daily, and the AP award itself is announced at NFL Honors the night before the Super Bowl, while the contract's listed close is February 12, 2028.