For most of the 2025 NFL season, debates about who should win the Most Valuable Player Award often came down to two names: Los Angeles Rams quarterback Matthew Stafford and New England Patriots signal-caller Drake Maye. Justin Herbert? He was a long shot. Yet, somehow, Herbert got a first-place vote.
Stafford got 24 of the first-place votes, while Maye had 23.
Josh Allen of the Buffalo Bills got two first-place votes. So where did the other vote go?
It went to Herbert, for some reason.
And that reason was provided by the Herbert voter himself, NFL analyst Sam Monson.
“I was the Justin Herbert vote. The guy had the worst offensive line in the NFL all season and despite that he was working miracles in almost every single game. Stafford’s OL became 2/5ths as bad as Herbert’s for 5 minutes and he became a turnover howitzer. He embodied ‘value,’” wrote Monson in a post on X, formerly Twitter.
Meanwhile, Monson’s revelation has sparked a lot of passionate reactions from football fans online.
“Respect to you for owning it and giving a detailed reason,” commented a fan.
“Kudos to you for admitting it, but, holy s**, that vote was a poor decision. Overthought the whole f**king thing,” another social media user said.
“I respect you for coming publicly with your vote. But this might be the worst take of all time,”a different reaction read.
“I don’t know if I would have had the stones to do it, but you aren’t wrong about Stafford and the OL.,” shared an X user.
“You should be stripped of your vote,” another commenter shared.
Had Monson’s vote gone to Maye, who had better numbers than the Los Angeles QB and whose team defeated Justin Herbert and the Chargers in the AFC Wild Card Round and is about to play at Super Bowl LX, Maye would have taken the award over Stafford.
To each his own, and since the NFL MVP Award, like most other honors, is interpreted in different ways by different voters, controversial results are simply unavoidable from time to time.
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