Super Bowl MVP: Shaquille Barrett Odds to Win Super Bowl 55 MVP in 2021

Outside of the Lombardi Trophy itself, one of the most prestigious awards on the line for this week'sKansas City Chiefs vs. Tampa Bay Buccaneers showdown is the Super Bowl MVP award.

FanDuel Sportsbook has Super Bowl MVP odds available for a ton of players. One interesting dark-horse pick could be Bucs' pass-rusher Shaquille Barrett.

Shaquille Barrett Super Bowl MVP Odds

Barrett's odds to win Super Bowl MVP are sitting at +5000, which have him tied for the ninth-best odds among all players.

This award tends to go to quarterbacks, and almost always goes to offensive players, but we've seen a defender take home the hardware a few times of late. Most recently, Von Miller did it in 2016's Super Bowl 50, and Malcolm Smith did it in Super Bowl XLVIII in 2014. Prior to that, though, a defender hadn't won the award since Dexter Jackson in 2003.

But there's reason to believe Barrett can become the third defensive Super Bowl MVP in the past eight years.

Barrett's 19.5 sacks were the most in the NFL in 2019, and he followed up that campaign with an 8-sack season in 2020. He also generated 77 pressures, which was good for the most among all edge rushers, per ProFootballFocus. The guy is as close to unblockable as it gets.

That could pose a significant problem for a Chiefs team that's playing without its two best O-Linemen, tackles Eric Fisher and Mitchell Schwartz, as Barrett will frequently be lining up against backups. He took advantage of a similar matchup in the NFC Championship, recording 3.0 sacks against a Green Bay Packers team that was also playing without its best OT, David Bakhtiari.

If he has a similarly dominant outing against KC, Barrett has a real shot to bring home the Super Bowl MVP.

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Max Staley is not a FanDuel employee. In addition to providing DFS gameplay advice, Max Staley also participates in DFS contests on FanDuel using his personal account, username mstaley1212. While the strategies and player selections recommended in his articles are his personal views, he may deploy different strategies and player selections when entering contests with his personal account. The views expressed in their articles are the author's alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of FanDuel.