What is the AP NFL MVP?
The Associated Press Most Valuable Player award is professional American football's headline individual honour. Presented since 1957, it is voted by a panel of national football writers and broadcasters and announced at NFL Honors, the league's awards show on the eve of the Super Bowl. The same panel decides Offensive and Defensive Player of the Year, the two Rookie of the Year awards, Coach of the Year and Comeback Player of the Year.[1] [2]
Why is it the Associated Press award?
Because the NFL does not confer an MVP of its own. Several MVP awards have existed over the league's history — from the Newspaper Enterprise Association, the Pro Football Writers of America and the players' union among others — but the AP award, with its stable fifty-voter panel and its place at NFL Honors, is the one treated as definitive. The distinction matters when a season produces different winners on different ballots.[2] [3]
Who won it most recently?
Los Angeles Rams quarterback Matthew Stafford won the AP MVP for the 2025 season, announced at NFL Honors in February 2026. It was the first MVP of his seventeen-year career, and one of the closest votes on record: 366 points to 361 for New England's Drake Maye. Stafford threw for 4,707 yards and 46 touchdowns against 8 interceptions.[3] [4]
Why does it matter?
Because the pool is the roughly 1,700 players under contract in the world's richest football league, and the award names one of them per season on a ballot that has run since the 1950s. It is the closest equivalent in American football to a world championship in an individual sport: one name, one year, published and permanent.[1] [2]
References
- NFL — NFL Honors. Accessed August 2026.
- NFL — List of NFL Honors award winners from the 2025 season. Accessed August 2026.
- Los Angeles Rams — Matthew Stafford wins AP 2025 NFL MVP. Accessed August 2026.
- Pro Football Reference — NFL MVP award winners. Accessed August 2026.