Lone Voter Who Snubbed Lamar Jackson for NFL MVP Explains His Ballot
Baltimore Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson was this close to winning the AP's MVP award in unanimous fashion.
After a season in which he was his usual dominant self through the air and on the ground, Jackson garnered 49 of 50 first-place votes for the NFL's highest honor—which he won for the second time. However, there was one holdout.
Aaron Schatz of FTN Network voted for Buffalo Bills quarterback Josh Allen to win the award. Allen ultimately finished fifth in the voting behind Jackson, Dallas Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott, San Francisco 49ers running back Christian McCaffrey, and 49ers quarterback Brock Purdy.
In a Thursday night column, Schatz pointed to a Jan. 12 discussion of why he voted for Allen over Jackson for the All-Pro team as a means of explaining his reasoning.
Schatz's argument, driven by statistics, boiled down to the following points:
- Allen was much more valuable running the ball this year than Jackson, based on defense-adjusted yards above replacement (DYAR).
- Allen beat Jackson in nearly every advanced metric, and in some it wasn’t even close (for instance, Allen finished second and Jackson 11th in win probability added).
- Jackson had more mediocre-to-bad games than Allen, i.e. Allen was more consistent from wire-to-wire.
- The Ravens have better wide receivers than the Bills.
Ultimately, Schatz concluded the argument for first team All-Pro quarterback—and implicitly, MVP—was between Allen and Prescott for MVP rather than Allen and Jackson. He opted to vote for the former accordingly.
