As the 2023 NFL season winds down, there are lots of questions that still need to be answered. What team secures top seed in the AFC? What about the NFC? Will someone finally win the NFC South? These and more questions will be answered over the final four weeks of the season.
NFL MVP’s switch to ranked voting, and how it could determine the winner
Diving deep into the recent change to MVP voting rules
Photo by Ezra Shaw/Getty Images
Mark Schofield is a former college quarterback and attorney covering the NFL and F1.
Another outstanding question?
Who takes home MVP honors.
The MVP race has taken various twists and turns throughout this season. Jalen Hurts was perhaps an early front-runner, along with Christian McCaffrey. But recent weeks have seen Dak Prescott, Lamar Jackson, and Brock Purdy make their own cases. And what about Miami Dolphins WR Tyreek Hill? His importance to the Miami offense was put in a new light when he was sidelined for a period of time in their loss to the Tennessee Titans.
This MVP race could potentially come down to the wire, and be one of the closest in history.
Which makes a change to the voting rules instituted by the Associated Press last year worth revisiting.
MVP voting is conducted by a group of 50 national media members. In previous years, the voters would simply vote for a single player and that was it. However last year the AP changed the voting process, switching to a ranked-voting format. Voters listed their top five choices, and players were given points based on the vote on a 10-5-3-2-1 basis, with 10 points going to each first-place vote, and a single point for fifth-place votes.
Last year, that did not matter. Patrick Mahomes was picked first on 48 of the 50 ballots, and the other two voters had him second. He finished with 490 points, well ahead of Hurts, who finished second with 193 points after receiving a single first-place vote.
Why might this matter this season? In what looks to be a closely-fought race, it might come down to third-, fourth-, and even fifth-place votes. For example, right now Prescott is listed as a slim favorite over Purdy at DraftKings, with the Dallas passer at +150, and Purdy at +185. Jackson checks in third at +475. But if, hypothetically, the Baltimore Ravens beat the Miami Dolphins in a few weeks to lock up top spot in the AFC, that could see Jackson close the gap.
However, if enough voters were to put a particular player down on their ballots, or leave them off the ballot altogether, it could sway the voting enough in a year like this. Just imagine what the conversation would be if, again hypothetically, Purdy were to lose MVP because a number of voters put him fifth, or left him off the ballot altogether.
Again, this might not matter. We could see a true favorite emerge over the next few weeks, rendering this entire conversation moot.
Or, we could see the NFL’s version of a contested election.
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