Vikings RB Adrian Peterson made a late entrance to this race. He did not crack the top 10 on the MVP Meter until Week 10 and was on the lower end of the truly legitimate candidates on our top 10 just last week in part because we expected the Vikings — a team we projected to win four games in our season preview — to miss the playoffs.

The balance we have attempted to strike on the Meter is built on assessing the state of the MVP race as it is while also projecting where it is heading. To win MVP honors, Peterson’s eye-popping production would not be enough. The top candidates lead their teams to the playoffs, at minimum, and we thought Peterson and Minnesota would come up a bit short playing in one of the league’s toughest divisions. That was a projection. It didn’t become reality. The Vikings won their 10th game, beating the Packers, 37-34, in Week 17. The Vikings clinched a wild-card berth with the win, and Peterson moved to the top spot on the Meter, which he had not previously held this season.

Aaron Rodgers, Peyton Manning, Tom Brady and Matt Ryan each held the No. 1 slot on the Meter this season, and J.J. Watt remained in contention until his Texans tapered off in the final quarter of the season.

However, Peterson did the most with the least. No one was more indispensable than him this regular season. On a team that finished with the 31st-ranked passing offense in the league, Peterson made the strongest case for the MVP award in a fairly deep field of worthy candidates, edging out Rodgers, Manning and Brady, who finished a very close second, third and fourth on the Meter.