Talk:NFL Most Valuable Player Award

1959 MVP and 1960 MVP
Joe Schmidt was not an MVP in 1960. There is no proof that he was, otehr that the error i nthe Ap release year after year. In 1959 Johnny Unitas was teh AP MVP, not Conerly. Conerly was the NEA MVP. For years teh AP has released the same old list. . . They still say GIno Marchetti was the 1958, he was not. Jim Brown was. Marchetti and Schmidt were teh AP linemen of the year those years. Conerly is a flot-out mistake.12.41.183.194 (talk) 22:03, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

This site is a very helpful resource:

http://football.about.com/od/nflhistory/l/bl_awardsmvp.htm

&mdash;The preceding unsigned comment was added by Bill shannon (talk &bull; contribs).

Future year hoaxes
This page was recently vandalized by hoax entries with awards ten years in the future. This page could do with a verification for accuracy due to the vandalism.  Q  Q 15:12, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

1958 MVP
Let's try to remain civil and figure this out. I gave you the link: Here's some more Marchetti at databasefootball: Jim Brown at databasefootball: Let's not turn this into a competition, if you're right great if I am great. In the end it doesn't matter anyway. Quadzilla99 01:31, 28 April 2007 (UTC)
 * There was nothing in the NYT archives here's one more saying Marchetti won it: Quadzilla99 02:07, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

Marchetti-Brown 1958 award confusion
It is a common misconception that Gino Marchetti was the Associated Press Most Valuable Player in 1958. In fact, sources such as NFL.com and others list him as such. The actual winner was Jim Brown who received 22 votes. The runner-up was Johnny Unitas. Marchetti was the AP NFL Lineman of the Year, an award that existed from 1956 through 1960. Most current newspapers reprint the annual Associated Press release, which at some point, apparantly confused the awards for the 1958 season.



Images of an Associated Press articles, appearing nationwide, on Jan. 12 and Jan 13, 1959. These are from the Oakland Tribune which reprinted the AP article.

Originally posted in main article by Quadzilla99


 * I moved it back in there, my belief is that this is an interesting encyclopedic addition that adds to the article. It also corrects many erors prevalent online and makes it more of an article than just a list. Incidentally I didn't add it User:Jturney did, we did discuss it at length though. Quadzilla99 20:13, 28 April 2007 (UTC)
 * See the discussions on our talk pages. Quadzilla99 20:19, 28 April 2007 (UTC)
 * How about if we put it in a footnote instead? I feel that it detracts from the article, which is a list of winners. Sorry I attributed it wrong, I didn't examine the history enough. -- Sprkee 00:51, 29 April 2007 (UTC)
 * I moved it to a footnote. Quadzilla99 01:11, 29 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Looks good, I just made the font smaller. Thanks! --Sprkee 03:08, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

Article reorganization suggestion
I am thinking we can reorganize the information here to make it much easier to follow. Additionally, I think we can expand on the text of the article. What I would like to do is combine the awards into one table. Thus, years stay down the left hand side and the top lists the awards (perhaps alphabetically left to right). I would start with 2k6 at the top and go in descending order. The only down side to this that I can see is that we might want to remove the team information from the table for usability. What are your thoughts? Jmfangio| ►Chat 04:02, 26 July 2007 (UTC)
 * I think that would be great. It would clarify that there is often a big difference in opinion between the various awarding entities. How about a single column for each award, with player/team/position in each entry?--BillFlis 12:10, 26 July 2007 (UTC)
 * This page has what I think is a nice way of organizing such a master table.--BillFlis 12:15, 26 July 2007 (UTC)


 * That's an interesting way of doing it. You like that better than doing one column for each award? Jmfangio| ►Chat  21:45, 26 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Hey, you volunteered to do it :), so it's up to you. I'm just afraid that the column-per-award format won't fit, especially if we have 8 or 10 MVP awards (current and defunct).--BillFlis 23:15, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

Some MVP awards are missing
This page lists ten NFL MVP awards received by Barry Sanders in 1997: Associated Press, Miller Lite, Maxwell Award (which should certainly read "Bert Bell Award"), Sporting News, Pro Football Weekly, Football Digest, Sports Illustrated, College & Pro Football Weekly, ESPN “Espy” Award, and Touchdown Club of Columbus. This page says "The NFL/Miller Lite Player of the Year was introduced in 1997 as the official, league-sanctioned MVP award." BTW, Sanders's wikiarticle used to mention that he won the Bert Bell Award (twice), but now no longer does; not notable or vandalized?--BillFlis 12:10, 26 July 2007 (UTC)


 * The Bert Bell Award seems notable enough. I'm not sure I'd call the Miller Lite award very notable.   What are your thoughts Jmfangio| ►Chat  21:46, 26 July 2007 (UTC)


 * The Miller Lite MVP is very strange. That ref I mentioned says it's endorsed by the NFL as "official", but I can find hardly anything on the web, even on Miller Brewing's site. Just an occasional mention of a winner, that's all.--BillFlis 23:13, 26 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Okay so a couple of quick questions. A) Do you understand how they associate the individual with the award?  I am unable to tell who actually won what award?  B) Regardless of format, I can rework what is already in the article into the new version and then we can always add and remove "sections".  What do you think of that? Jmfangio| ►Chat  23:18, 26 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Do you mean, how do they vote? This is where I think this article needs work. I have added that for the Bert Bell Award into its article (it's spelled out pretty clearly at Maxwell Club's web site). Also, if an award is now defunct, that should be mentioned, otherwise someone might just think the table is incomplete.--BillFlis 10:17, 27 July 2007 (UTC)


 * No, sorry about that. I meant something else, but i answered my own question moments later, i just forgot to "adjust" this for that.  Are you okay with my suggestion for format of the table? Jmfangio| ►Chat  10:40, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

This one is not missing, just somewhere else: Best NFL Player ESPY Award. Also, the Football Digest article (which seems rather incomplete) suggests that it had an MVP Award until 1973, when it began giving instead separate awards by player position (RB, QB, WR, DL, DB, etc.).--BillFlis 17:36, 27 July 2007 (UTC)


 * So I think we should do two tables if we use the format I propose (one for defunct and one for current)./ We should probably then just use this article to explain all the various awards as I can't imagine that it would be so long as to necessitate separate articles.  What do you think?  If it does get too long then we can move the table(s) that house the information to List article. Juan Miguel Fangio| ►Chat  17:41, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

2002 ap mvp
Rich Gannon was the 2002 mvp, not Ray Lewis. Johnnyt471 (talk) 18:27, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

Bert Bell
I see that elsewhere in this discussion, the Bert Bell Award was brought up, but no action was really taken. It strikes me that this article ought to feature it more; a list of winners, or at least a prominent mention to get people to link over to it. Thoughts? MrArticleOne (talk) 18:11, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

Tom Brady
I rolled back the page, someone had listed Tom Brady as winning the past 5 MVPs. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 131.247.244.236 (talk) 02:14, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

2009 NEA/Jim Thorpe Trophy
Press Release

Jim Thorpe Association P.O. Box 270716								( Oklahoma City, OK 73137

2008 NFL MVP - Arizona Cardinals quarterback Kurt Warner has been named the Jim Thorpe Association/Newspaper Enterprise Association /NFL Players Association 2008 NFL “Most Valuable Player”. —Preceding unsigned comment added by McDanny74 (talk • contribs) 22:15, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

Bogus awards
What's with all these bogus awards? The Miller Lite award? Seriously? When people refer to the MVP award no one ever means anything other than the AP award. Some of these awards look like pure trivia. Aaron Bowen (talk) 17:46, 25 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Still waiting for an answer... Aaron Bowen (talk) 16:24, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

If you played football and won the NFL MVP award by say Ford motors and not AP. Would you consider yourself an MVP?. Other organizations give out awards. I think most people take the AP as the most important one, but people pay attention to the others especially if their favorite player or player from their faviorite team wins one. Don't know if this answer the question you were askingSmith03 (talk) 22:59, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

NFL.com link to MVP
Just to further discuss the early years of the AP award, NFL.com released a PDF link that lists the NFL MVPs right here. Some of the previous links posted in this discussion are no longer valid and I can't link to the Pro Football Weekly website to dispute the AP's award. For 1959, they list Charley Conerly as the MVP. For 1960, Norm Van Brocklin is listed as a separate winner. Considering this is listed on the NFL website, I believe the page should be updated to reflect this. Spriggins (talk) 22:49, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

For what it is worth I sent them a copy of the AP story from Dec 1959 (after the 2009 season) showing Johnny U beening name the AP 1959 POY. They did not fix it for the 2010 book.Smith03 (talk) 17:56, 24 November 2010 (UTC)

AP 1960 award
So has it ever been confirmed that AP did give an award this year or not? Smith03 (talk) 22:59, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

in case anyone is monitoring this page i will re post the question. Smith03 (talk) 16:10, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

can not find any newspaper articles from 1960 showing anyone was named AP POY or MVP, are we sure they gave out an award that year? Skippypeanuts (talk) 06:02, 31 January 2015 (UTC)


 * There were no AP awards in 1960, only an All-Pro team24.49.143.140 (talk) 19:11, 29 June 2016 (UTC)

the story is from the AP it does not say it was the AP, but if it was AP then this would explain the confusion Van Brocklin was Offensive MVP and Schmidt was Defensive MVP — Preceding unsigned comment added by 97.127.22.85 (talk) 23:28, 1 September 2016 (UTC)

Tom Brady, two time MVP
Currently, the opening paragraph contains the following copy:
 * Peyton Manning has won the award four times in his career, the most of any NFL player. Jim Brown, Johnny Unitas, and Brett Favre all were named MVP three times, while Joe Montana, Steve Young, Kurt Warner, and Tom Brady each won the award twice.

In this edit, it correctly uses the present perfect tense to describe Manning's four wins. This lets us know that he has already won but is still active and may continue to accumulate more such awards. However, there is a problem with the two-time winner's sentence. In this sentence, the simple past tense is used for all four winners. However, this is not the best way to phrase it, because Tom Brady, as an active player, may yet win it again (unlikely as it may seem).

I am going to once again correct this, to reflect Brady's active status, and I would appreciate not being reverted without someone first coming here to explain themselves. Cheers. 98.82.34.127 (talk) 23:42, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

Sort table
"To sort table, click on heading." The main table is not sortable. Probably this is one article in a collection that should make every such table sortable, or not. --P64 (talk) 21:14, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

1959 newspaper article about 1959 winner

 * Unitas named Player of the Year By AP Skippypeanuts (talk) 06:01, 31 January 2015 (UTC)

Article restructure
Per the discussion here, the article should be arranged somehow to eliminate its recentism bias toward the AP award. While it's definitely the most recognized today (and as of 2011 with the NFL Honors it's arguably official), in the past there was no award that was more recognized than another, and there is no clear cut-off point for when the AP became most recognized. To start, I think we should move the subsections that are currently under the AP award (multiple winners, teams with most awards, positions with most awards) and then use the awards listed at Pro-Football-Reference to determine these. Of course, a player who received the award from multiple selectors in a given year will only be counted once. Then we should have an "other selectors" section for awards not listed at PFR (Miller Lite, Football Digest, etc). Lizard (talk) 18:53, 15 June 2016 (UTC)


 * If you rearrange, fine, but don't delete things and mess it up like you did. When I saw it today, the Joe Carr awards were merged with the PFWA Awards and everything else was gone. I think article is fine, and your point about  recentism bias toward the AP award is correct, but edit in a way that does not mess the page up24.49.143.140 (talk) 19:13, 29 June 2016 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure what you mean about the Carr award and PFWA award being merged, but the article was re-written to include awards that were/are both a.) strictly defined as MVP awards (not player of the year awards) and b.) receive coverage in multiple independent sources. If you believe everything else belongs the way it was before, please include independent references for each individual award winner, as I have, to provide proof that the award is both an MVP award, and is sufficiently notable. Lizard  (talk) 19:26, 29 June 2016 (UTC)
 * Also, the only thing I removed that can't currently be found elsewhere on Wikipedia is the Miller Lite award. Everything else is already listed on its own separate page, as you can see by the "See also" section. Lizard  (talk) 19:28, 29 June 2016 (UTC)
 * It takes a consensus for such a radical change. The burden of proof is on you to provide evidence that MVP does not interchange with POY. You are taking recentism bias in saying they are different. When looked at by historians, they are synonymous. They are on same pages in PFR and in Total Football: The official Encyclopedia of the NFL and in the NFl Record and Fact book. No article exists that offers independent evidence that they are different. So, if you think your changes should stand please include independent references for each individual award winner, as I have, to provide proof that the award is both an MVP award, and is sufficiently notable. As I said there is no proof that anyone considered the awards differently, or one being superior over the other AT THE TIME. Onlt recent bias, like the AP-Only bias results in edits like this. shoe Pro Football Reference, a recognized expert, as being the same.


 * This book also treats them the same ,as does the Awards Committee for the Pro Football Researchers Association. Certainly, some can disagree, but to make major change to wiki article a consensus is needed here is another source  that treats the awards equally. So, there are several sources that show the words have distinction without difference24.49.143.140 (talk) 20:40, 29 June 2016 (UTC)


 * If the article is to be restructured, fine, one way is alphabetical. Another is when they began. Joe Carr was first, then UP, then NEA then AP. Or there could be other ways. Also, when we worked on this, the NFL/NFLPA CBA Agreement listed the organizations that are used for bonuses for players, currently it's AP, SN, and PFWA. In the pre-2011 one others were in there, including Sports Illustrated, which is NOT lsited here. Anyway. We need to get consensus and there article CAN be inproved, but nto by an arbitrary standard of one editor.24.49.143.140 (talk) 23:02, 29 June 2016 (UTC)

Table by position
I was thinking of maybe adding a table to show how many times whatever position has won the award. Thoughts? Zdawg1029 (talk) 02:46, 4 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Which award? Lizard  (talk) 02:54, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

Ken Stabler is incorrectly shown as a member of the Hall of Fame
See the color coded shading. He is incorrectly shown as a member of the Hall of Fame. pzambitoPzambito (talk) 06:43, 9 January 2017 (UTC)
 * That's because he is a member of the hall of fame. Lizard  (talk) 07:00, 9 January 2017 (UTC)

Sporting News
SN is part of the NFL history of MVP Awards, it is recognized on Total Football II: The Official Encyclopedia of the NFL, it is Also offocial in the 2011 NFLPA CBA and is used to determine bonuses and is also used in the Official NFL Record and Fact Book.

This article is about the NFL MVPS, all of them. No one can just play favorites just because they errantly think the AP is official. The AP MVP has it's own article and is here. So, SN stays69.130.16.203 (talk) 20:50, 17 January 2018 (UTC)

Awards split out articles
Please see Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_National_Football_League for discussion AngusW🐶🐶F  ( bark  •  sniff ) 15:58, 20 June 2021 (UTC)

Adding Bert Bell Award recipients to the list
I'm curious why the Bert Bell Award entries aren't included as part of the list on this page for National Football League Most Valuable Player Award. Is it due solely to the nomenclature used? On the Bert Bell Award page, it describes the recipient as the "player of the year" and does not make mention of "most valuable player", but those two terms seem fairly interchangeable. In the lead of the Wikipedia article for Most valuable player, it says, "The term is most common in the United States and Canada. In most other countries around the world, "player of the year" is used for a season-spanning award and "player of the match" for individual games", while on the page for Player of the year award, "In the United States, this type of award is usually called a Most Valuable Player award". Based on this, I would argue that the Bert Bell Award recipients should be included in the table, though if anyone is opposed, I'm open to discussion. JJonahJackalope (talk) 04:11, 6 January 2023 (UTC)