Every NFL MVP Winner in League History

The Associated Press has named an NFL Most Valuable Player every season since 1957, starting with Cleveland running back Jim Brown. Peyton Manning has won it a record five times. Quarterbacks have taken 50 of the 72 awards handed out, and the current holder is Rams quarterback Matthew Stafford, who won his first MVP for the 2025 season at age 37.

The full list is below, along with the reason it starts in 1957 and not earlier — the NFL has had several MVP awards, and only one of them is the one people mean.

The Short Answer

Which MVP Award Are We Talking About?

When someone says "NFL MVP," they mean the Associated Press award. It is the one announced at NFL Honors on the night before the Super Bowl, the one the league treats as its headline individual honor, and the one that shows up on Hall of Fame plaques. A panel of 50 sportswriters and broadcasters votes at the end of the regular season, and postseason play is not considered.

It is not the only MVP award the sport has had, which is why lists disagree about who "the" 1950 or 1965 MVP was:

• Joe F. Carr Trophy — the NFL's own MVP award, presented from 1938 to 1946.
• United Press International — named an NFL MVP from 1948 through 1969, then switched to separate NFC and AFC player of the year awards after the AFL merger.
• Newspaper Enterprise Association (Jim Thorpe Trophy) — awarded from 1955 to 2008 and the only MVP chosen by a poll of NFL players, later joined by coaches and Hall of Famers.
• Bert Bell Award — first given by Philadelphia's Maxwell Football Club in 1959 and still awarded today.
• Pro Football Writers of America and The Sporting News have also named MVPs.

The AP's award began in 1957, which is why any honest "NFL MVP winners list" starts there. The AP itself treats 1961 as the first year of its modern MVP, adding a wrinkle to the earliest entries. Everything before 1957 belongs to the other trophies above.

Every AP NFL MVP, 1957 to 2025

This page is refreshed every February, after NFL Honors names the new winner.

Most MVP Awards: Peyton Manning's Five

Peyton Manning won five MVPs — 2003, 2004, 2008, 2009 and 2013 — and the last of those came with Denver, making him the only player to win the award for two different franchises. His 2013 season, 55 touchdown passes and 5,477 yards, is the highest-scoring MVP campaign the league has produced.

Brett Favre's three came in a row, the only three-peat in the award's history, and the third was shared with Barry Sanders. Manning went back-to-back twice, in 2003-04 and 2008-09; Aaron Rodgers did it in 2020-21. Green Bay has more MVP winners than any other franchise with ten, spread across Hornung, Taylor, Starr, Favre and Rodgers.

Quarterbacks Own the Award

Of the 72 MVP awards through the 2025 season, 50 have gone to quarterbacks. The share is climbing, not holding steady: the last non-quarterback to win was Adrian Peterson after the 2012 season, so quarterbacks have swept all 13 seasons since.

The league's other honors spread across more positions — the 2025 Offensive Rookie of the Year, for instance, was Panthers receiver Tetairoa McMillan, and the full rookie list mixes in backs and receivers every few years. MVP voting does not.

Only two winners have been unanimous: Tom Brady in 2010 and Lamar Jackson in 2019. Every other MVP has had at least one voter go somewhere else, including winners who looked untouchable at the time.

Winning the MVP does not mean winning the title. Vikings, Bills and Falcons quarterbacks and running backs have all won the award without the franchise ever lifting a Lombardi Trophy — see which NFL teams have never won a Super Bowl for the full list of franchises still waiting.

The Running Backs

Eighteen MVP awards have gone to running backs, and they are front-loaded. Jim Brown won three of the first nine. Between 1972 and 1985 a running back won six times. Then the position thinned out: Adrian Peterson's 2012 award, off a 2,097-yard season a year after tearing his ACL, is the only one in the last two decades.

Terrell Davis won in 1998 on the way to Denver's second straight title; Marshall Faulk won in 2000, the season after St. Louis had already won one. Emmitt Smith won in 1993 and then took Super Bowl MVP the same season, one of the rare doubles in the sport — the Super Bowl MVP list shows how seldom the two awards land on the same player.

The Two Defensive Winners

Only two defensive players have ever been named AP MVP.

Alan Page, DT, Minnesota Vikings (1971). Page anchored the Purple People Eaters and became the first defensive player to win, in a season where Minnesota allowed the fewest points in the league.

Lawrence Taylor, LB, New York Giants (1986). Taylor had 20.5 sacks and dragged the Giants to their first Super Bowl. He remains the last defensive player to win MVP, a stretch of 39 seasons and counting.

There is a third name with an asterisk. The 1960 award is murky in the AP's own records: Norm Van Brocklin is listed everywhere as the winner after leading Philadelphia to the NFL title, and some record books show Detroit linebacker Joe Schmidt sharing it. Take that one as contested rather than settled.

Defensive dominance now gets recognized through a separate trophy, which is where players like Myles Garrett end up. The Defensive Player of the Year list has become the de facto MVP for that side of the ball.

The Kicker Who Won MVP

Washington placekicker Mark Moseley won the 1982 MVP, the only special teams player ever to do it. The season was shortened to nine games by a players' strike, Moseley made 20 of 21 field goals, and voters in a scattered year gave the award to the most reliable scorer on the board. It has never come close to happening again.

Shared Awards

The AP has produced three split votes:

• 1960 — Norm Van Brocklin, with Joe Schmidt often listed as co-winner (disputed).
• 1997 — Brett Favre and Barry Sanders. Sanders ran for 2,053 yards; Favre was chasing a third straight title.
• 2003 — Peyton Manning and Steve McNair, decided by a single ballot's worth of separation.

Matthew Stafford's 2025 Win

Stafford took the 2025 award in the closest MVP vote since 2003, edging New England's Drake Maye 366 points to 361, with 24 first-place votes to Maye's 23. He led the league in passing yards (4,707) and touchdown passes (46) with eight interceptions, and the Rams scored more points than any team in the league at 30.5 per game.

It was his first MVP in a 17th NFL season, at 37, after a career that started in Detroit and produced a Super Bowl LVI title in Los Angeles. Maye's runner-up finish came in the same season New England reached Super Bowl LX and lost to Seattle — a game that made Mike Macdonald one of the head coaches with a Super Bowl win and left the Patriots with a sixth Super Bowl defeat, more than any franchise in the full history of Super Bowl results.

FAQ

Who has won the most NFL MVP awards? Peyton Manning, with five: 2003, 2004, 2008, 2009 and 2013. Aaron Rodgers is second with four.

When did the NFL MVP award start? The Associated Press has given its MVP since 1957, when Jim Brown won it as a rookie. Earlier awards existed under other names, including the NFL's own Joe F. Carr Trophy from 1938 to 1946.

Who won NFL MVP in 2025? Rams quarterback Matthew Stafford, announced at NFL Honors on February 5, 2026. He beat out Patriots quarterback Drake Maye by five points, the closest vote in more than two decades.

Has a defensive player ever won NFL MVP? Twice, cleanly: Alan Page in 1971 and Lawrence Taylor in 1986. Detroit linebacker Joe Schmidt is listed by some sources as sharing the 1960 award, but that one is disputed.

Has a kicker won NFL MVP? Yes, once. Mark Moseley of Washington won it in the strike-shortened 1982 season after making 20 of 21 field goals.

When was the last time a non-quarterback won MVP? Adrian Peterson, for the 2012 season. Quarterbacks have won every MVP since.

Who votes for NFL MVP? A panel of 50 media members chosen by the Associated Press. They vote after the regular season, and the winner is revealed at NFL Honors the night before the Super Bowl.

Have any players shared the MVP? Three times: 1997 (Brett Favre and Barry Sanders), 2003 (Peyton Manning and Steve McNair), and the disputed 1960 award.