On Friday it was announced that Baltimore Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson was the Associated Press’s first-team All-Pro quarterback. Congrats, he’s played incredibly well in 2024.

For Buffalo Bills QB Josh Allen, who was named to the second team, it hinders his MVP case. Not by changing any of the stats or wins and losses, but historically, the MVP is a first-team All-Pro.

Both the MVP and All-Pro teams are voted on by the same 50-member panel os national sportswriters, so there is bound to be overlap. We don’t know the makeup of the panel yet, though we usually find out after the awards are announced. We do not find out who voted for who.

When is the last time the first-team quarterback wasn’t the NFL MVP?

You have to go back to the 2012 season for the last time the first-team All-Pro quarterback wasn’t also named MVP. In 2012, Minnesota Vikings RB Adrian Peterson rushed for 2097 yards while adding 217 yards through the air, a truly remarkable accomplishment.

Voting was different back then, but Peterson received 36 votes to Peyton Manning’s eight with Tom Brady, Calvin Johnson, and Aaron Rodgers all nabbing two each.

Peterson was the first-team All-Pro running back that year.

When is the last time the MVP wasn’t first-team All-Pro?

In 2003, Tennessee Titans quarterback Steve McNair was named second-team All-Pro and MVP in the same season. He tied in MVP voting with Peyton Manning, so one of the MVPS was the first-team quarterback, but the other was not.

You have to go all the way back to 1987 to find the last time the league’s MVP wasn’t also voted first-team All-Pro. Denver Broncos quarterback John Elway received 36 MVP votes, beating out San Francisco 49ers’ receiver Jerry Rice (30) and 49ers’ quarterback Joe Montana (18). Montana and Rice canceled each other out.

Elway was the second-team quarterback.

What does this mean for the 2024 MVP race between Josh Allen and Lamar Jackson?

It’s hard to tell. The league voted away from one vote per voter a few years ago to rank-choice voting, where points are awarded for a ballot of five different players. The first-place votes receive more points than the second-place votes.

If Jackson gets 30 first-place votes to Allen’s 18, Jackson is going to win. (That was the voting for All-Pro QB first team.)

The crux of this conversation is going to come down to the word “Valuable” in the definition of the award. The Associated Press does not define that term for voters, so it’s up to them to figure it out.

You can see a world where Jackson may be the best quarterback in a season while Allen is the “Most Valuable Player” to his team or in the league, especially with Jackson having both a first-team (Patrick Ricard) and a second-team player (Derrick Henry) on his offense while Allen had zero.

The other thing to consider is that historically, wins and losses have played a pretty big role in the MVP voting. No MVP has had five losses since 2016, but Matt Ryan’s Falcons were the two seed in the NFC postseason.

It’s been even longer since the MVP came from a team that wasn’t in the top two seeds. The Indianapolis Colts were the four seed in 2014 when Peyton Manning won, one game behind the first-place Patriots and tied with the Steelers for third.

We shall see what voters decided at the NFL Honrs on Super Bowl weekend.