AP Changes MVP, All-Pro Voting Rules
NFL Week 11 - Exciting news from the world of NFL awards, where there will now be ranked choice voting and real second-team All-Pros. The Associated Press is going to be installing a weighted point system for the first time, similar to what they have in baseball. No more "unanimous All-Pro means there's no second-team All-Pro." No more "Russell Wilson has never gotten an MVP vote because voters can only choose one player per year."
For MVP, we'll vote for five players with spots worth 10-5-3-2-1 points. For other awards, there will be three players at 5-3-1. And for All-Pro spots, we'll vote for two players per position who will get 3 points for first place and 1 point for second place. Yes, this means I can make more mistakes on my ballot because there are more spots to choose. Yes, this means I have to come up with two All-Pro long-snappers. It's still a really cool change!
Comments
18 comments, Last at 19 Nov 2022, 7:33pm
#2 by rpwong // Nov 18, 2022 - 2:53pm
Definitely an improvement, but I'd still wish for something better for MVP. I don't know what that something is, though. Most likely this will still lead to QBs getting the MVP awards, and voters feeling better that they can give lesser votes to non-QBs.
It just kind of sucks that the only way a non-QB can even sniff an MVP award is to be so otherworldly that they cancel out the overwhelming stats put up by QBs. Otherwise, it's just too hard to argue that the MVP isn't "the guy who touches the ball on every single play".
I think that's probably why a generic MVP award is fine for basketball and hockey, where outsized contributions can come from any position in any given year. Baseball is somewhere in-between, and the current MVP tension between "Shohei Ohtani" and "everyone else" bears simularities to NFL QBs dominating MVP discussions. No baseball player has as much opportunity as Ohtani to make a difference.
#12 by rpwong // Nov 18, 2022 - 9:45pm
Well yes, that's the point. It's unquestionable that the QB position impacts football more than any other position in football, and perhaps in any team sport. If that's what you want, then just have a separate QB of the Year award and remove them from consideration for Offensive Player of the Year. That would be more realistic.