Alright, let me tell you how I figured out this whole NFL MVP voting timeline thing. It wasn’t like I just woke up one day knowing it, you know? It actually started a couple seasons back. My team’s quarterback was having a killer year, I mean, lights out. And folks started talking MVP.
Naturally, I got curious. Not just about if he’d win, but about the process. Like, when do they actually cast the votes? Is it before the playoffs? After? It seemed kinda important, right? Because playoff performance could totally sway things, or at least you’d think it would.
My First Attempts
So, I started poking around. Asked a few buddies who are big football fans. Most shrugged. “Sometime after the season, before the Super Bowl?” Not exactly precise. I checked some sports sites, watched some talking heads on TV. They’d debate the candidates endlessly, especially towards the end of the regular season, but nobody seemed to say, “Okay, pencils down on this date!”
It was a bit frustrating. You’d think such a major award would have a clearly advertised voting deadline. Made me wonder if it was some kind of secret backroom deal. Probably not, but the lack of clear info was weird.
Finding the Voters
I kept digging. Found out the voting isn’t just random fans or coaches. It’s a specific panel put together by the Associated Press. Fifty people, mostly sportswriters and broadcasters who cover the league day in and day out. Okay, that made sense. A dedicated group who hopefully watch everything.
Connecting the Dots: Regular Season is Key
Then I stumbled onto the crucial piece: the award is strictly for the regular season. That was the lightbulb moment. Playoff performance doesn’t count. It can’t count. The voters have to make their decision based only on what happened from Week 1 through Week 18.
This immediately told me the voting had to happen before the playoffs kicked off. Otherwise, how could you guarantee a voter wasn’t influenced by a spectacular Wild Card game performance, or conversely, a terrible one?
The Actual Timing
So, when exactly? My understanding, after piecing it all together, is that it happens fast. Like, really fast. The AP sends out the ballots to those 50 voters basically right as the final whistle blows on the Week 18 games. The deadline is usually just a few days after that, definitely before the first playoff game starts the following weekend.
- Regular season ends (Sunday/Monday of Week 18).
- Ballots go out almost immediately.
- Voters submit their choices very quickly (like, Tuesday or Wednesday of that same week).
That’s it. The votes are cast and counted well before we even get deep into the playoff picture. We, the fans, just don’t hear the results until the NFL Honors show, which they typically schedule a few days before the Super Bowl.
So, yeah, that was my little journey into figuring it out. It wasn’t some big secret, just required connecting the dots that the award is purely a regular-season honor, and the logistics naturally flow from that. They vote right after Week 18 finishes. Done and dusted.
