We need a new individual honor in the NFL. We're calling it the MV non-QB P – the most valuable player who doesn't play quarterback.

 

It's an honor long overdue.

 

After all, America's pigskin "pundits" are obsessed with offensive players and with quarterbacks in particular. Just look at the long list of NFL MVPs or college ball's Heisman Trophy winners. Both awards are almost exclusively reserved for offensive players.

 

Hell, in the NFL, the tools who vote for MVP should just rename it the Peyton Manning Memorial Award: they now hand him MVP honors each year merely as a mindless reflex, even on seasons when he clearly did not deserve it, as was the case in both 2008 and 2009.

 

But we can't be too critical: even the operatic Pavarotti of pigskin, the Cold, Hard Football Facts, is guilty of hitting a sour note when we too often sing the praises of quarterbacks at the expense of the 21 other guys on the field.

 

But at least we know we have a problem. And as our Uncle Bill tells us each Wednesday night in the basement of the Oak Street Baptist Church & Jiffy Lube, admitting you have a problem is half the battle. (In case you're wondering, the sign out front of the Oak Street Baptist Church & Jiffy Lube reads: "Forbidden fruit creates many jams ... and some tasty homemade wine coolers.")

 

So it's this obsession with offense and with quarterbacks that spawned the introduction of our new MV non-QB P.

 

And that player over the past six seasons, the NFL's Most Valuable Non-Quarterback Player, is Jared Allen, the high-motor defensive end currently plying his trade with the Minnesota Favrkings, a team that was so much more than just its over-exposed quarterback last year.

Most outlets and pigskin "pundits" have few ways to measure the performance of defensive linemen, save for sacks and the often misleading tackles: the former was not even an official stat until 1982, the latter, the most basic function of defense, is still not an official stat.

 

The Cold, Hard Football Facts, however, boast a statistic that's so official that it should goose steps around the internet in shiny black boots with an iron cross on its chest. In fact, it's one of the greatest indicators in sports and the only stat to our knowledge that measures the performance of each team's defensive front. We call it the Defensive Hog Index, an incredible indicator pioneered by our beloved Colonel Comey one night while waiting in the Taco Bell drive-thru lane.  

 

(The Defensive Hog Index, for you CHFF newbies, measures each defense in three areas: ability to stop the run, ability to force Negative Pass Plays – sacks and INTs – and ability to get off the field on third down. )

 

In the three years since we've offered the Defensive Hog Index, the No. 1 team in the indicator has twice won the Super Bowl (the 2007 Giants and 2008 Steelers). The No. 1 team last year went 11-5 and reached the playoffs (Green Bay). Not a bad performance considering the indicator came to Comey in between bites of a 99-cent chalupa.

 

In addition to identifying great teams, the Defensive Hog Index allows us to prove that Allen is the NFL's MV non-QB P.

Allen arrived in Kansas City in 2004, on a team desperate for defensive help. 

 

The pre-Allen Chiefs of 2003 went 13-3, won the AFC West and boasted the league's No. 1 offense (30.2 PPG). But they fielded a brutal defense (20.8 PPG, 19th), as the football world witnessed in a divisional playoff game  against the Colts.

 

Peyton Manning and the Indy offense shredded the Kansas City defense like cabbage in cole slaw that day: they gained 142 yards on the ground, 304 through the air, averaged a dominating 6.9 yards per play and the converted 8 of 11 third downs. The Chiefs were helpless defensively.

 

So Kansas City's promising 2003 season came crashing down around it, with a frustrating a 31-28 one-and-done playoff defeat at home.

 

Big changes were needed, and Allen was a part of that movement to solidify the defense. The Chiefs drafted him in the fourth round out of Idaho State. The Kansas City defense was actually worse in 2004 (27.2 PPG, 29th), but Allen showed promise with 9.0 sacks as a rookie.

 

By 2007, the Kansas City defense had improved dramatically, to the point that the stoppers carried the team despite a poor offense. Allen was a dominant defensive end in 2007 – league leading 15.5 sacks – and the Chiefs were a dominant group of Defensive Hogs: No. 5 overall on our Defensive Hog Index and the NFL's best defense on third downs.

 

Then Allen was traded to Minnesota in 2008: the Vikings instantly went from a one-dimensional group of great run stoppers to a group of Defensive Hogs dominant in all phases of the game. They remained a dominant group in 2009.

 

The Chiefs, meanwhile, have imploded in the wake of the Allen departure. A dominant defensive front in 2007, the Chiefs fielded one of the worst defensive lines in memory 2008. They barely improved in 2009.

 

Quarterbacks rarely have that kind of immediate impact on a team's fortunes, let alone defensive ends. So let's break it all down.

Allen's 2007 Chiefs dominated up front. Here's how they sized up on our 2007 Defensive Hog Index:

Here's how the Chiefs stacked up in our Defensive Hog Index in 2008, the first year without Allen:

Talk about a total statistical collapse.

Most tellingly, the Chiefs fell from No. 5 on our Defensive Hog Index in 2007 to 32nd and dead last in 2008.

 

It was a disastrous collapse the likes of which we've really seen out of a single defensive unit in the space of one season.

The Vikings acquired Allen for big bucks ($72 million) and a slew of draft picks before the start of the 2008 season. If you value the performance of your Defensive Hogs, it was money and picks well spent, as Minnesota witnessed an instant improvement in the fortunes of their defense.

 

The pre-Allen Vikings of 2007 were great on run defense but, overall, an average group of Defensive Hogs. The 2007 Vikings finished:

Add Allen in 2008, and the Vikings instantly become a dominant defensive front in all phases of the Defensive Hog Index. The 2008 Vikings finished:

The 2008 Vikings, in other words, continued to stop the run as well as any team in football. But their ability to force quarterbacks into sacks and INTs, and their ability to get off the field on third down, skyrocketed in both instances.

 

The Allen impact was most noticeable in third-down defense: the Chiefs fell from No. 1 in 2007 to No. 31 in 2008; the Vikings improved from No. 18 in 2007 to No. 4 in 2008.

 

Both defenses, it appears, were just tougher and nastier and more likely to get off the field with Allen in the line-up.

 

Kansas City's struggles, and Minnesota's dominance, continued in 2009.

 

The 2009 Chiefs finished No. 29 overall on our Defensive Hog index: 31st against the run (4.72 YPA), 28th at forcing Negative Pass Plays (7.14%) and 15th in third-down defense (38.12%).

 

The 2009 Vikings finished No. 3 overall on our Defensive Hog Index: 6th against the run, 9th at forcing Negative Pass Plays (9.97%) and 3rd in third-down defense (34.5%).

 

The Allen impact was also obvious, at least in Kansas City, in the most important place: the scoreboard. The 2007 Chiefs surrendered 20.9 PPG (14th in the NFL); the Chiefs were then torched for 27.5 PPG (29th) in 2008 and 26.5 PPG (29th)  in 2009.

 

The Chiefs, in other words, have fallen apart in every measureable way defensively since Allen left for Minnesota.

 

The Vikings, for their part, have remained static in scoring defense with Allen in the line-up: 19.4 PPG (12th) in 2007; 20.8 PPG (13th) in 2008; and 19.5 PPG (10th) in 2009.

 

But clearly, as chronicled above, the production of Minnesota's defensive front has skyrocketed since the Vikings acquired Allen.

 

Nowhere was his impact felt more strongly than in Minnesota's two biggest games of the 2009 season, the two games against the Packers that lifted the Vikings to the NFC North crown. Naturally, the offensive players got all the attention: and Minnesota quarterback Brett Favre's efforts against his old team generated endless headlines from the pigskin "pundits."

 

But it was Allen, not Favre or any offensive player, who was the dominant force in both games: he hauled down Green Bay quarterback Aaron Rodgers four and half times in their first meeting, a 30-23 Minnesota victory. He added three more sacks in the rematch, a 38-26 Minnesota victory.

 

That's 7.5 sacks for Allen in just two games (he had 14.5 for the year). His old team, the Chiefs? They registered a paltry 22 sacks in all of 2009, 31st among 32 NFL teams.

 

The Vikings, meanwhile, were just 8-8 back in the pre-Allen season of 2007. They've won the NFC North each of the past two years with Allen in the line-up, and were one BrettFavre mistake away from playing in the Super Bowl last year.

 

It's a dizzying array of Cold, Hard Football Facts, but they all add up to one thing: Jared Allen is pro football's greatest impact player and our nominee for the NFL's MV non-QB P.