There's one game left in the 2017 season but the night before the Eagles and Patriots duke it out for the Lombardi Trophy, NFL Honors, the annual awards event, will be broadcast from the Cyrus Northrop Memorial Auditorium at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis. Rob Riggle is this year's host and he'll be tasked with, among other things, announcing the Most Valuable Player for the 2017 season.

But if you can't wait until Saturday night -- and you haven't paid attention at all these past five months -- here's our best guess at the likely winner.

(There's not even a need for a drumroll because the suspense was sucked out of this award more than a month ago. And with that) ... Tom Brady

Tom Brady

The Patriots' quarterback might be among the NFL's slowest and oldest players, but he remains its best. He'll cement his latest MVP award despite a pedestrian effort in a nearly meaningless Week 17 game against a Jets team with nothing to play for. Put another way: Brady was so good over the first four months of the season that a bad outing in the meaningless regular-season finale had no effect on his stranglehold on the award.

Over the course of his 18th season, Brady was the league's top passer in terms of total value and value per play, according to Football Outsiders' metrics, and he was also the leader in passing yards (4,577), third in touchdowns (32) and third in passer rating (102.8). And now he's poised to add MVP award No. 3 to a trophy case that includes five Lombardi Trophies and four Super Bowl MVP awards to go with his 13 Pro Bowl selections.

Of course, Brady ratchets up the awesomeness in the postseason where in two games this month he's completed 67 percent of his throws for 627 yards with 5 touchdowns, no turnovers and a passer rating of 105.0. For his career, Brady is 27-9 in the postseason with 68 touchdowns, 31 interceptions and a 90.1 passer rating. And in the Super Bowl, he is 5-2 with 15 touchdowns, five interceptions and a 95.3 passer rating.

This will mark the third time Brady has been named NFL MVP. He earned the honor in 2007 and 2010. He's also a four-time Super Bowl MVP and a 13-time Pro Bowler. And there's a good chance he'll add more awards to the trophy case next year because even though he's 40 years old, he shows no signs of slowing down.

"If it was up to my wife, she would have me retire today," Brady told Sirius XM Radio last February after the Patriots beat the Falcons in Super Bowl LI. "She told me that last night three times. And I said, 'Too bad, babe, I'm having too much fun right now.' You know, I feel like I can still do it. If you love what you do and you're capable of doing it, then I might be so bored if I wasn't going out there knowing that I could still do it. So I'm going to work hard to be ready to go, and I still plan on playing for a long time."

While you contemplate the idea of the Patriots winning Super Bowls with a 50-year-old quarterback, here are the players earning honorable mention for the 2017 MVP award:

Todd Gurley

The 10th overall pick in 2015 rushed for 1,106 yards (4.2 YPC) and 10 touchdowns as a rookie but regressed last season when he managed just 885 yards (3.2 YPC) and six touchdowns. But he was a completely different player in new coach Sean McVay's system; when the 2017 season was over, he rushed for 1,05 yards (4.7 YPC) with 13 touchdowns and more than doubled his receiving yards from a season ago (788 yards along with six touchdowns). He scored six touchdowns in his final two regular-season games (Gurley sat out Week 17 while the Rams rested their starters) but it wasn't enough to overtake Brady.

Antonio Brown

Perhaps Brady's biggest competition through mid-December, Brown suffered a partially torn calf muscle in the Steelers' Week 15 matchup against -- you guessed it, the Patriots. Until that point, he was unstoppable, always beating single coverage and often doing the same to double teams. Through 13 and-a-half games, Brown hauled in 101 passes for 1,533 yards and 9 touchdowns. He averaged 15.2 yards per catch , his best mark since 2011 when he was Ben Roethlisberger's second favorite deep threat behind Mike Wallace. Brown returned for the Steelers' lone playoff game and picked up right where he left off, hauling in seven passes for 132 yards and two touchdowns.

Carson Wentz

Definitely Brady's biggest competition through early December, Wentz was lost for the season in Week 14 when he tore his ACL against the Rams. Still, what he accomplished through 13 games still qualified him as one of the league's most valuable players. In his second season, the second-overall pick threw a team record 33 touchdowns against seven interceptions, and he was 10-2 before the knee injury cut his season short.

Rob Gronkowski

While Brady is unquestionably New England's (and the NFL's) most valuable player, you can make a convincing case that Gronkowski is No. 2 on that list. He can beat single coverage in his sleep, and he's quite capable of beating double teams too. In 14 games he had 1,084 receiving yards (his fourth 1,000-plus-yard receiving season) to go with eight touchdowns. Gronkowski also led the league in total value among all tight ends, according to Football Outsiders, and he ranked No. 2 in value per play. He's one of Brady's favorite targets but perhaps it's a testament to Brady's greatness that he consistently finds ways to win even with Gronk isn't on the field.

Remember, you can watch NFL Honors on Saturday at 9 p.m. ET on NBC. And be sure to check out the red-carpet pre-show coverage at 8 p.m. ET on NFL Network.