The 2024 NFL MVP race won’t go down as the closest ever, because it’s impossible to beat an actual tie like we saw between Peyton Manning and Steve McNair back in 2003 when the two quarterbacks were awarded Co-MVPs. But the 2024 NFL MVP race, won by Josh Allen despite Lamar Jackson taking home First-Team All-Pro recognition.
Only three times in NFL history has the player who was named the All-Pro quarterback failed to win the NFL MVP outright. The last was McNair in 2003 and before that John Elway in 1987.
To be clear: this NEVER happens. Prior to the announcement of the All-Pro teams, Allen was a massive favorite to win MVP. He had been for a few weeks after some of the best football you’ll ever see played. Lamar closed the gap enough where it was a discussion, but Jackson was still somewhere north of the +200 range (I have friends who bet him) up until the All-Pro announcement.
The market flipped completely at that point and it looked like Lamar winning was a fait accompli. And then Thursday night happened, with Allen himself “surprised” to win.
“I was pretty surprised, given what we know about how the voting goes,” Allen said. “Lamar was very deserving of this as well.”
So what the hell happened? All 50 MVP voting ballots were made public by the AP, apparently without the voters knowing they would be made public, which led to some interesting revelations: Lamar received a fourth-place vote (lol), Allen received a third-place vote and Tom Brady voted for Ja’Marr Chase over Joe Burrow.
Just wild, wild stuff.
The voting process for the All-Pro and NFL MVP awards are similar but different and it’s an important distinction here. The voters are the same. But the respective points systems are different: you get five points for a first-place MVP vote and one point for a fifth-place MVP vote. You get two points for a First-Team All-Pro vote and one point for a Second-Team All-Pro vote.
As we detailed in the wake of Allen’s shocking victory last night, there weren’t enough points moved around by the various MVP switches to account for the difference here. Allen getting a third-place vote and Lamar getting a fourth-place vote were really surprising (and questionable) decisions, but they didn’t move the needle points-wise enough to completely change the outcome.
It certainly affected the points total for the race, but it appears the primary reason for the massive shift from Lamar to Allen was several voters decision to “split the baby” and vote for BOTH Lamar and Allen.
I asked the Associated Press about the specific voters selections for the All-Pro teams and was told “we didn’t release All-Pro votes” so it’s possible we may never fully know exactly how many voters decided to vote for both Allen and Lamar.
However, we have a pretty good indication that’s what happened based on several accounts in the media. For starters, we have a written account from Lindsay Jones of The Ringer, who wrote about how she “agonized” over the decision to vote Allen for MVP and Lamar for All Pro.
“I’ve been on the AP’s voting panel for NFL awards for at least 10 years, and never have I agonized over my MVP ballot more than I did this season,”Jones wrote after noting she was one of the voters who split the vote. “I spent hours rewatching games and the All 22, pouring over advanced metrics and talking to people I trust on football matters. My poor, patient husband listened to me talk myself in circles as I paced around the house, working my way through my decision during that first week of January.”
I don’t agree with Lindsay’s decision here, but I’m not going to get up in arms over it, either. One, because I know Lindsay personally, would happily vouch for her as an excellent football analyst and think she does a fantastic job covering the league and has for a long time, and two, because I felt she did a pretty good job explaining her process for making the decision.
ESPN’s Dan Orlovsky is another AP voter who publicly acknowledge the decision to vote for both quarterbacks. And maybe this is a result of his explanation occurring on live television — with fellow panelists Dominique Foxworth and Jeff Saturday, along with host Mike Greenberg — there to rebuke him during a Friday morning “Get Up” segment, but Orlovsky’s rationale didn’t convey quite the same gravitas.
Orlovsky got, if we’re being honest, roasted when he tried to explain his process. Here’s the (roughly, there’s a lot of interjecting “yeah”‘s and whatnot) ffull transcript of the clip below:
ORLOVSKY: “I voted for Lamar First Team All-Pro.”
GREENBERG: “And you voted for Josh MVP.”
ORLOVSKY: “Yeah.”
GREENBERG: “So explain that to me. How do you differentiate those things?”
ORLOVSKY: “The value that the player brought to their football team. The Bills were the No. 2 seed. Josh had a 40 touchdown, eight turnover, 14 sack season. The Bills did not have an elite defense. The Bills had a very good run game, not a great run game. They didn’t have elite perimeter players in any regard. The way that Josh played this season and the different style that he played brought tremendous value to his football team.
“Lamar’s season was absolutely sensational. He was probably the best player in football. Or Ja’Marr Chase. Or Saquon Barkley. But value. And how much you impact your team, who you do it with and who you do it against, that’s where I thought Josh Allen had the upper hand.”
*WHOLE PANEL GROANS AND GRUMBLES*
SATURDAY: “Did he say most valuable player for his team? Is this MVP of the league? Or MVP of the Bills?”
FOXWORTH: “I’m glad we have Dan here to defend him and the people who did this. But it feels like you want to split the baby and you don’t have the heart to say what you actually want to say. I think both of them had MVP caliber seasons but it feels like you’re trying to find some kind of semantics trapdoor so you can give this to him and that to him because you don’t want to say what you actually want to say.
“This is the semantics foolishness you do. This is what you do, you say ‘value.’ And the cool things about value is you can twist it and turn it anyway you want. Normally, MVP means who is the best damn dude in the league. And to me, Josh Allen had an MVP caliber season. But the best damn dude in the league this year was the guy who was first team All Pro.”
Shew. That’s the difference between a written piece you can absorb and live television with people who, uh, slightly disagree with your stance.
The semantics dance isn’t THAT crazy, honestly. Both Lamar and Allen were insanely good and you can make the case Lamar was the best player in football this year. But you can easily make the same case for Allen while noting that Allen had a lot less help than Lamar, who won MVP last year and then got Prime Derrick Henry added to his roster along with what turned out to be an elite-level defense and a much better offensive line than anyone though early in the year.
Allen lost Stefon Diggs and still managed to produce an incredibly efficient and elite season, even if the volume wasn’t quite as high as Lamar. His defense was good, but not as good as Lamar’s.
My issue more than anything is voters simply not taking a stance on which quarterback they thought had the better season. If you thought Lamar had the better year, just vote for him on both counts. Same thing with Allen.
The AP has shown a willingness to adjust the voting process in the past when oddities occur, so I wouldn’t be surprised at all if we saw something new pop up for next year’s voting to avoid this type of controversy moving forward.
Although given the attention it’s drawing to the NFL in what are usually two quiet days before the Super Bowl, we might just see everyone involved embrace the process moving forward.