This year’s regular-season MVP race between Matthew Stafford and Drake Maye couldn’t have been any closer, and it seems as if Tom Brady has had an equally hard time choosing the winners of his year-end LFG awards. Nevertheless, the former New England Patriot did his best to remain unbiased, and in the end, he felt as if he had no choice but to acknowledge the future NFL Hall of Famer.
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In prefacing that he “covered him a bunch this year” via his broadcasting role with Fox Sports, Brady named the Los Angeles Rams’ veteran quarterback as the first ever recipient of his personal LFG Player of the Year award. “I was so impressed by what he did throughout the entire season,” he explained.
“I think his consistency was incredible. He showed up in the biggest moments for his teammates. He made throws that so few guys in the NFL can make. He did it in tough conditions and look, they play in a dome out there in SoFi all the time. He went out there on the road and they were great on the road… He always found ways to produce an incredible touchdown to interception ratio. He was absurd.”
While you may be hard-pressed to find someone who’s willing to argue against the seven-time Super Bowl champion, it was a bit surprising to hear that Maye didn’t even make Brady’s list of honorable mentions. No, those spots belonged to Jaxson Smith-Njigba and James Cook.
Thankfully, for Maye at least, the sophomore sensation still has a chance at being named the regular season MVP during the NFL Honors award ceremony this coming Thursday. The UNC product was able to finish the 2025 campaign as the second-most favored player to win the award, so for better or worse, there’s still plenty of recognition that has yet to come his way.
Despite Stafford taking home this year’s grand prize, the real winner of Brady’s end-of-season award session appeared to be the aforementioned Smith-Njigba. Not only was Seattle’s star wide receiver an honorable mention for the POY trophy, he was also named as a co-winner of Brady’s Offensive Player of the Year award along with the Rams’ Puka Nacua.
“I can’t just break this into one vote,” he admitted. “I’m breaking it in half and I’m going two. I got Puka and I got JSN. I know it’s too hard to pick between the two of them, they are both phenomenal. When you’re a quarterback, you love having two of your guys, not just one.”
For the sake of comparison, it will be interesting to see how Brady’s full slate of winners matches up with the actual recipients that will be named at this year’s NFL Honors ceremony, which fans can tune into on February 5th at 5 pm EST.
