Talk:AP NFL Most Valuable Player Award

AP NFL Most Valuable Player Award is a featured list, which means it has been identified as one of the best lists produced by the Wikipedia community. If you can update or improve it, please do so.

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Listing the discrepancies

@Giants2008 and PresN: If you guys mind sparing a moment. I waffled over how to list the discrepancies in the first 4 awards for a while and came up with what I have currently, but I'm still not convinced it's the best way to go about it:

Disputed award winners
Season	Player	Position	Team	Ref		Player	Position	Team	Ref
1957	Jim Brown^†	Running back	Cleveland Browns	^[1]^[2]	or	None awarded/different award			^[3]
1958	Jim Brown^† (2)	Running back	Cleveland Browns	^[4]^[5]^[2]	or	Gino Marchetti^†	Defensive end	Baltimore Colts	^[6]
1959	Johnny Unitas^†	Quarterback	Baltimore Colts	^[7]^[2]	or	Charlie Conerly	Quarterback	New York Giants	^[5]^[6]
1960	Norm Van Brocklin^†	Quarterback	Philadelphia Eagles	^[5]^[2]	or	Norm Van Brocklin^† Joe Schmidt^†	Quarterback Linebacker	Philadelphia Eagles Detroit Lions	^[8]^[6]

References

^ "Jim Brown of Cleveland is Grid Laurels Voted Top Pro". The Gettysburg Times. Associated Press. January 8, 1958. Retrieved February 2, 2017.
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d Miller, Sterling (December 8, 2015). The Evolution of Professional Football: An Almanac (1920 to 2015). Hillcrest Publishing Group. pp. 52–56. ISBN 1634137361. Retrieved February 3, 2017.
"AP NFL Most Valuable Player Winners". Pro-Football-Reference.com. Sports Reference LLC. Retrieved August 1, 2016.
"Full list of NFL MVP winners". Sports Illustrated. February 2, 2016. Retrieved February 1, 2017.
^ Pelissero, Tom (December 22, 2016). "Who's the NFL MVP: Our sampling of executives gives Ezekiel Elliott the edge". USA Today. Retrieved February 1, 2017. Fifty media members (I'm one of them) will vote by Jan. 4 for awards given out by The Associated Press, which began awarding the MVP in 1961 and has never given it to a rookie. (Cleveland Browns fullback Jim Brown did win what was then called NFL Player of the Year in his rookie year in 1957.)
^ "Brown Tops Unitas In Most Valuable Player Vote". Park City Daily News. Associated Press. January 12, 1959. p. 7. Retrieved June 24, 2016.
^ ^a ^b ^c Lee, Brenden; Gellerman, Jacob; Marini, Matt, eds. (2016). 2016 Official NFL Record and Fact Book (PDF). National Football League. p. 524. Retrieved May 2, 2017.
Janssen, Sarah (December 6, 2016). The World Almanac and Book of Facts 2017. Simon and Schuster. p. 1,994. ISBN 1600572073. Retrieved February 3, 2017.
^ ^a ^b ^c "National Football League MVPs By The Associated Press". Gadsden Times. Associated Press. January 8, 1991. p. B2. Retrieved January 9, 2017.
"National Football League MVPs". ESPN. Associated Press. January 2, 2009. Retrieved January 9, 2017.
"NFL History: Awards". CBS Sports. Retrieved August 1, 2016.
^ "Unitas Named Player Of Year In Pro Football". The Tuscaloosa News. Associated Press. December 24, 1959. p. 10. Retrieved January 9, 2017.
^ "N.F.L.: In the News; Favre and Sanders Share M.V.P." The New York Times. Associated Press. December 28, 1997. Retrieved February 1, 2017. Philadelphia quarterback Norm Van Brocklin and Detroit linebacker Joe Schmidt shared the award in 1960.

I feel like footnotes aren't an option; it wouldn't give each discrepancy its WP:DUE weight. I tend to hold contemporary sources in higher regard, but in each case there are high-quality modern sources disputing them. In addition, I could find very few sources (basically one) even discussing these discrepancies, so I'm fringing on WP:OR/WP:SYNTH by even calling these winners "disputed". Should I instead just decide on a single source to base the list off of? Lizard (talk) 15:40, 15 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I'd use rowpans to organize it instead of a wide table- it's clearer and better on smaller screens, and avoids that awkward "or" column. If you have high quality sources stating different names, then I don't think it's OR to call it "disputed". --Pres N 21:04, 15 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Disputed award winners
Season	Player	Position	Team	Ref
1957	Jim Brown^†	Running back	Cleveland Browns	refs
1957	None awarded/different award			refz
1958	Jim Brown^† (2)	Running back	Cleveland Browns	refs
1958	Gino Marchetti^†	Defensive end	Baltimore Colts	refz
1959	Johnny Unitas^†	Quarterback	Baltimore Colts	refs
1959	Charlie Conerly	Quarterback	New York Giants	refz
1960	Norm Van Brocklin^†	Quarterback	Philadelphia Eagles	refs
1960	Norm Van Brocklin^† Joe Schmidt^†	Quarterback Linebacker	Philadelphia Eagles Detroit Lions	refz

I was getting ready to say that something about the varying names should be added to the lead, but I see that a section on the topic exists already. Since that is in place, you really don't need footnotes on top of it. Like PresN, I don't like the or column, and it just looks funny to see one table twice as big as the other. My preference, if any, would be for the combined table that Pres recommends. As long as reliable sources support the winners (which appears to be the case), we may as well present the information and let the readers know that there are multiple recognized winners. Giants2008 (Talk) 21:49, 15 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The discrepancies happen because someone screwed the list (wrong winner) somewhere along way and it got copied over and over and over and over and over again. The correct winner is the player who was named the winner at the time....newspaper story from the day ...................also has anyone ever found the AP story from Dec 1960/Jan 61 naming ANYONE either POY or MVP for 1960?— Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.59.70.125 (talk) 04:26, 3 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

FWIW The 2020 NFL Record and Fact Book has finally corrected their list 1959 Johnny Unitas is now listed !!! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 97.127.91.117 (talk) 00:52, 23 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Most Winners

The subject of "Most Overall" and "Most Unique" winners needs to be discussed. At the moment, it currently follows what looks to be a mix of the lists, taking qualities of both of them, but leaving some out. If we are going to put this in, we need to have a true form that it follows.

Do the "Most" sections allow for the disputed winners? What year do they begin at? Do they take into consideration the shared MVP seasons? Let's answer these questions about the list before we put this up.Tapper930 (talk) 23:23, 22 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

[1] "Jim Brown of Cleveland is Grid Laurels Voted Top Pro". The Gettysburg Times. Associated Press. January 8, 1958. Retrieved February 2, 2017.

[BUVB-2] Miller, Sterling (December 8, 2015). The Evolution of Professional Football: An Almanac (1920 to 2015). Hillcrest Publishing Group. pp. 52–56. ISBN 1634137361. Retrieved February 3, 2017.
"AP NFL Most Valuable Player Winners". Pro-Football-Reference.com. Sports Reference LLC. Retrieved August 1, 2016.
"Full list of NFL MVP winners". Sports Illustrated. February 2, 2016. Retrieved February 1, 2017.

[3] Pelissero, Tom (December 22, 2016). "Who's the NFL MVP: Our sampling of executives gives Ezekiel Elliott the edge". USA Today. Retrieved February 1, 2017. Fifty media members (I'm one of them) will vote by Jan. 4 for awards given out by The Associated Press, which began awarding the MVP in 1961 and has never given it to a rookie. (Cleveland Browns fullback Jim Brown did win what was then called NFL Player of the Year in his rookie year in 1957.)

[4] "Brown Tops Unitas In Most Valuable Player Vote". Park City Daily News. Associated Press. January 12, 1959. p. 7. Retrieved June 24, 2016.

[BOFofficial-5] Lee, Brenden; Gellerman, Jacob; Marini, Matt, eds. (2016). 2016 Official NFL Record and Fact Book (PDF). National Football League. p. 524. Retrieved May 2, 2017.
Janssen, Sarah (December 6, 2016). The World Almanac and Book of Facts 2017. Simon and Schuster. p. 1,994. ISBN 1600572073. Retrieved February 3, 2017.

[MCVBS-6] "National Football League MVPs By The Associated Press". Gadsden Times. Associated Press. January 8, 1991. p. B2. Retrieved January 9, 2017.
"National Football League MVPs". ESPN. Associated Press. January 2, 2009. Retrieved January 9, 2017.
"NFL History: Awards". CBS Sports. Retrieved August 1, 2016.

[7] "Unitas Named Player Of Year In Pro Football". The Tuscaloosa News. Associated Press. December 24, 1959. p. 10. Retrieved January 9, 2017.

[8] "N.F.L.: In the News; Favre and Sanders Share M.V.P." The New York Times. Associated Press. December 28, 1997. Retrieved February 1, 2017. Philadelphia quarterback Norm Van Brocklin and Detroit linebacker Joe Schmidt shared the award in 1960.

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