SAN FRANCISCO — At Thursday’s NFL Honors, Matthew Stafford was named the NFL MVP in one of the tightest votes in recent memory, edging out Drake Maye by a razor-thin margin.
Heading into December, the MVP conversation had largely narrowed to Stafford and Maye. When the ballots were tallied, the two quarterbacks together held 47 of the 50 first-place votes, but Stafford finished just ahead: he received 24 first-place votes to Maye’s 23. That left three first-place ballots that went to other players — and those three selections ultimately decided the outcome.
Here’s how the Associated Press voting works: a 50-member panel ranks their top five players on each ballot. The points are allocated 10 for a first-place vote, 5 for second, 3 for third, 2 for fourth and 1 for fifth. The final totals were:
– Matthew Stafford — 366 points (24 first-place votes)
– Drake Maye — 361 points (23)
– Josh Allen — 91 (2)
– Christian McCaffrey — 71 (0)
– Trevor Lawrence — 49 (0)
Of the three first-place votes that didn’t go to Stafford or Maye, two were cast for Josh Allen and one went to Justin Herbert. Voters who gave Herbert the top spot explained their choices on Thursday night. Because the margin between Stafford and Maye was so small, those three ballots had outsized influence: if any one of the Allen or Herbert first-place votes had instead been a first-place vote for Maye, the outcome would have been different — potentially resulting in a tie or a Maye victory.
Put another way: a single change on one or more of those three ballots would have flipped the result. The identity of all voters and their full ballots won’t be released by the AP this year (last year’s full ballots were made public), so unless individual voters disclose their ballots, we won’t know every placement for Stafford and Maye.
There’s also an interesting historical footnote for Maye: winning MVP in the same season as a Super Bowl victory is rare. Tom Brady reached the Super Bowl in two MVP seasons (2007 and 2017) and lost both, and since 2000 MVP winners have gone 1–9 in Super Bowl games — a quirk that suggests MVP honors don’t guarantee postseason glory.
Fan Take: This vote highlights how every single ballot can matter in award races — a reminder that voter choices, not just stats, shape NFL legacies. For fans, the close result keeps the debate alive about how to value individual achievement versus team context, and it could fuel broader conversations about transparency in award voting.
