XFL Fantasy Awards - Most Valuable Player

It feels weird to be writing about season-long awards in mid-March, but here we are. With COVID-19 putting the whole world, let alone sports, on pause most leagues have decided to postpone their games and others such as the XFL have just decided to cancel their ongoing seasons.

It's been five weeks since the XFL kicked off its 2020 and second iteration. While it has not been a long ride during this first year of games (of which we've only watched 20 over a month and change), no one will convince me of this league not being fun as any other one out there. The XFL is here to stay, like it or not, and we here at RotoBaller are all for it.

With that in mind, it makes sense to cover what the first XFL season has given us by taking a look at the best (and worst) players and teams to feature in the league during this 2020 year by handing out some awards. I will be writing a handful of columns covering each of these "fake" XFL fantasy awards with the hope of you, the reader, getting to know better who was who during the past few weeks and who to keep an eye on going forward. Let's get to it!

Most Valuable Player - Winner: P.J. Walker (QB, HOU)

If you have any objection to this pick, then I don't know what you know about football that I'm totally missing. P.J. Walker was the no. 1 player in XFL football during the abbreviated 2020 season, full stop. And I've not even said "the no. 1 player in XFL fantasy football", but rather real-life football as a whole.

To the average viewer, names as those of Cameron Artis-Payne, Christine Michael, or Cardale Jones rang a bell back when the league was taking its first steps by announcing its player pool. When all was said and done, though, no one had done more than Walker in the first season of the league.

I'll go to the final point without making you lose any time. This was Walker compared to the rest of the XFL quarterbacks.

The clear leader in fantasy points. The leader in passing attempts, completions, yardage, and touchdowns. He was also the second-highest ranked player in rushing attempts and fourth-highest in rushing yardage (he also scored a rushing touchdown). Not only did Walker played good football, but he also broke the game and became a league-winner on his own.

Walker's 140.4 PPR led the XFL no matter the position, his 28.1 PPG were also no. 1 overall, and just to boast even more accolades he finished only three extra-points short of no. 1 Josh Johnson's 16. We had a blast watching Walker's exploits and are glad to see that he's gotten a chance in the NFL to play for the Carolina Panthers, who are now looking to replace Cam Newton.

Most Valuable Player - Runner Up: Cam Phillips (QB, HOU)

If P.J. Walker is the MVP of the season, then Houston is the Most Valuable Team of the year. Why? Enter Cam Phillips in the equation. If you think Walker was dominant against any other quarterback to feature in the XFL, look at what Phillips did among receivers.

Plain and utter dominance, that is what the chart above showcases. Phillips led every receiving category and his fantasy points (136.5) led the position by a mile (TE Donald Parham was second with 83.7, WR Tre McBride finished third with 74.1). He played all five possible games and even while he suffered a tight coverage in Week 4 that limited him to a putrid 1.9 PPR, he still found a way to lapping the field thanks to his other four monster performances.

Most Valuable Player - Third Place: Josh Johnson (QB, LA)

I could have picked a bunch of LA Wildcats here, not going to lie, but the quarterback position is always going to trump any other so I'm sticking with Josh Johnson. In just four games with LA (he didn't start in Week 1), Johnson racked up the third-most PPR (102.9) and averaged 25.7 PPG. Those marks ranked him QB2 only behind P.J. Walker. Even if he had played in Week 1 to that average, he would have still finished behind Walker (and Cam Phillips) but so much closer to them.

Johnson was one of only three quarterbacks to break the 1,000-passing yards mark along with Walker and Jordan Ta'amu, and the only one (11) along with Walker (15) to throw more than six touchdowns. He led the league in extra-points with 16.

As far as other potential nominees, I mentioned the idea of picking other players from LA. Both WR Tre McBride and WR Nelson Spruce finished the season with only three games played, but they performed to such levels that they could have very well contended for the MVP award had they played the full season. McBride averaged 24.7 PPG in his three games and reached 271 receiving yards on 16 receptions to go with four touchdowns, while Spruce logged 267 yards on 20 receptions and two scores on the season.

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