Winning the Super Bowl is the ultimate achievement in the NFL. But behind every success is an architect who plays a pivotal role at the biggest moment. This year’s Super Bowl MVP was Jalen Hurts for his game-defining performance against the Chiefs.
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Unlike the NFL MVP award, the Super Bowl MVP selection process is dynamic—thanks to the involvement of fans.
The Super Bowl MVP is chosen by a voting system that considers both fan’s and expert’s opinions. The catch however is that both opinions don’t carry the same importance.
While fans’ online vote has a 20% weightage on the total vote, the rest 80% is decided by a group of 16 specialized journalists.
So when are these votes cast? As per the rules, the NFL receives all MVP votes from the respective stakeholders by the last two minutes of the fourth quarter of the game.
Members of the media panel have the right to pick a player from each team if needed. The ballot however prioritizes the player from the winning team.
Additionally, there is also a provision that allows the journalist jury to change their votes should something monumental happen in the final 2 minutes of the game. Luckily for the jury, their work this time was made easy thanks to the Eagles’ one-sided dominance.
The winner of the Super Bowl MVP title is awarded a football-shaped trophy. The title is also called the Pete Rozelle Trophy in honor of the legendary NFL commissioner. The benefits of the title end here though as no additional cash awards are bestowed to the winner. It’s just the trophy and the public recognition of balling out in the Super Bowl that the MVP gets.
Historically, the recipients of this honor have been QBs. Stats show us that 33 of the 58 winners so far have been playmakers with receivers [8] and running backs [7] being the next best.
Unsurprisingly, this trend continued this year as well with Jalen Hurts winning the Super Bowl MVP.
While LB Josh Sweat definitely made a compelling case for himself with 6 TOT, 3 QB hits, and 2.5 Sacks, the inherent QB bias of the league and Jalen Hurts’ mercurial performance [17/22, 293 TOT yards, 3 TDs] must have tipped the scales in his favor.
