It's been a while since an NFL MVP race came down to the final week, but Patrick Mahomes of the Kansas City Chiefs and Drew Brees of the New Orleans Saints are going down to the wire heading into Week 17.

Mahomes will get another chance to cement his case in Week 17 against the Oakland Raiders, but Brees will sit out on Sunday against the Carolina Panthers - with Teddy Bridgewater starting in his place.

Accordings to OddsShark, Mahomes remains the favorite to win MVP, with Brees a distant second. Philip Rivers of the Los Angeles Chargers comes in at third with +2500 odds of winning.

Brees' Saints have already locked up the top seed in the NFC, sitting pretty at 13-2 heading into their meaningless Week 17 game. The 39-year-old has 3,992 passing yards and 32 touchdowns against just five interceptions. Brees also surpassed Peyton Manning as the all-time passing yards leader in Week 5 against the Washington Redskins.

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Credit: Derick E. Hingle-USA TODAY Sports

But Mahomes has been the better quarterback, statistically speaking. He has 4,816 passing yards and a whopping 48 touchdowns and 11 interceptions. In the unlikely event that he tossed seven touchdowns against Oakland on Sunday, Mahomes will tie Manning's record of 55 touchdown passes in a single season.

Mahomes and the Chiefs will clinch the top seed in the AFC with a win against the Raiders on Sunday. Should they do that, Kansas City and New Orleans will each need just two home wins to set up a match of the two MVP candidates in Super Bowl LIII.

What This Means

Both Brees and Mahomes are more than deserving of the MVP award, and hey, it's possible they wind up splitting the votes. Even though the latter has put up more impressive stats, the former has led his team to the top record in all of football and endured a record-breaking season.

Let's just be thankful we aren't the ones who have to make the extremely difficult decision of only putting one player down on the voting card.

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