The NFL Honors wrapped up Thursday night with a dramatic finish, as Los Angeles Rams quarterback Matthew Stafford edged out New England Patriots rookie Drake Maye for the league’s Most Valuable Player award. And when we say “edged out,” we mean it - this was one of the tightest MVP races in league history.
Stafford secured the honor with 24 of the 50 first-place votes, narrowly beating Maye, who received 23. The final tally?
Stafford with 366 points, Maye with 361. That’s a five-point margin - the kind of razor-thin difference that turns every single ballot into a potential legacy-changer.
But here’s where things get interesting.
Three first-place votes went elsewhere. Two voters backed Buffalo’s Josh Allen.
The third vote? That went to Justin Herbert of the Chargers - a pick that raised plenty of eyebrows across the football world.
The person behind that lone Herbert vote has since come forward: Sam Monson, an analyst and podcast host. Monson defended his choice with a strong take on what “value” really means in the MVP conversation.
“I was the Justin Herbert vote,” Monson wrote. “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’.”
Now, Monson’s argument hinges on context - that Herbert’s situation was so dire, his performance should be viewed through a different lens. It’s the classic “most valuable to his team” interpretation of the award, rather than just “best player in the league.”
But the numbers tell a different story.
Herbert threw the fourth-most interceptions in the league and finished with 1,000 fewer passing yards than Stafford. And while Stafford had his own share of ups and downs, he led a Rams team that surged late in the season and made a deep playoff run. Maye, meanwhile, was the heartbeat of a Patriots squad that shocked the league by flipping a 4-13 record into a Super Bowl appearance.
If we’re talking about elevating a franchise, Maye’s case is as compelling as they come. He didn’t have a Hall of Fame-caliber wideout.
He didn’t have two receivers taken in the top 35 of the draft. He didn’t have a first-round running back.
He had grit, poise, and an uncanny ability to make big plays in big moments - and he nearly pulled off one of the greatest rookie seasons in NFL history.
Monson acknowledged the complexity of the MVP vote, saying, “MVP is the single hardest award to ‘correctly’ determine, because the focus is on ‘value’, which is basically impossible to objectively evaluate with so many dependencies.”
That’s fair. MVP voting has always been subjective.
Different voters weigh different criteria - stats, team success, supporting cast, narrative. There’s no universal formula.
But when the outcome is this close, every vote matters. And when one of those votes goes to a quarterback who didn’t crack the top tier in production or wins, it’s going to spark debate - especially when it might have swung the award.
Monson pushed back on the idea that his vote "altered a guy’s legacy," arguing that the split vote reflected a year without a clear-cut MVP. “More people than not thought each candidate did NOT deserve to win MVP this year, according to the votes.
There was not one clear MVP who was robbed of the award. Most people were torn between 2 deserving candidates.
I thought a third deserved it as well, because the value he brought to his situation was immense.”
It’s a reasonable defense, but it doesn’t change the fact that Maye - a 23-year-old rookie - came within a single vote of being crowned MVP in his first season. That kind of performance, in that kind of context, is rare. And for many fans and analysts, it’s hard to look past that when one outlier vote helped tip the scales.
At the end of the day, Stafford walks away with the trophy, and deservedly so. He had a phenomenal season, leading the Rams with precision and poise. But the conversation around this MVP race is far from over - and it underscores just how subjective, and sometimes controversial, “value” can be in the NFL.
One thing’s for sure: this year’s MVP vote will be talked about for a long time.