The AP miscounted votes, but it didn’t change the outcome.
Buffalo Bills quarterback Josh Allen was named the NFL’s MVP in February. That month, the Associated Press noted that Allen earned 27 first-place votes to Lamar Jackson’s 23 first-place votes. It turns out it wasn’t that close.
At some point after February prior to this past week, the AP changed the vote counts without an announcement. There is a new note on their original announcement with the following update.
“This story has been corrected to remove an invalid ballot that was inadvertently included in the tabulation. The AP has adjusted its point totals to reflect 49 voters instead of 50. This correction does not impact the winners or the list of finalists distributed by AP.”
Mike Florio at Pro Football Talk was the first to notice and reached out to the Associated Press, who had this to say.
“AP removed an invalid ballot that was inadvertently included in its NFL Awards tabulation and adjusted its point totals to reflect 49 voters instead of 50. The correction does not impact the winners or the list of finalists distributed by AP, and the change to the vote total was communicated to AP customers and readers.”
So Josh Allen is still the MVP, but what about the missing vote? According to Florio, NBC Sports’ colleague Tony Dungy’s vote was not counted and Diante Lee of The Ringer was counted twice.
The Associated Press noted that Dungy had voted for Lamar Jackson for MVP, but Dungy denied that to Florio.
As it turns out, Josh Allen received 28 votes for NFL MVP to Lamar Jackson’s 22.
It’s a good thing none of the outcomes were changed. A Josh Allen MVP incentive was paid out because he won. Legacies and Hall of Fame resumes are built on these types of awards, and Allen notching one before Jackson gets to three is a pretty big deal. Not to mention that sports bettors are allowed to wager on the awards (but not in New York State).