In a surprising turn of events, Buffalo Bills quarterback Josh Allen secured his first NFL MVP title, outperforming Baltimore Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson during Thursday night’s NFL awards show. The following morning, Dan Orlovsky’s justification for voting for Allen didn’t sit well with his ESPN colleague Domonique Foxworth.
The debate between Allen and Jackson persisted throughout the season. By the end of the 2024 campaign, Jackson had the upper hand in nearly every statistical category. The question remains whether voters favored Allen for achieving more with less or if they were hesitant to award Jackson a third MVP given his lack of postseason success.
On Friday’s episode of Get Up, Orlovsky acknowledged voting for Josh Allen as NFL MVP but selected Lamar Jackson as his first-team All-Pro quarterback. While he struggled to clarify the definition of “valuable,” it was apparent that he was losing the support of Foxworth and Jeff Saturday. When Mike Greenberg directed a question to Foxworth, he criticized Orlovsky for “splitting the baby.”
.@danorlovsky7 explains why he voted for Josh Allen as the MVP and Lamar Jackson as the first-team All-Pro QB 👀 pic.twitter.com/cIAGHUH8rd
— Get Up (@GetUpESPN) February 7, 2025
Foxworth remarked, “I’m glad we have Dan here to defend him and those who made this choice, but it feels like you’re trying to split the baby. You lack the courage to say what you genuinely believe. Both players had MVP-caliber seasons, yet you seem to be searching for a semantic loophole, trying to assign this award to one and that one to the other without stating your true opinion.” He further critiqued the trophy’s semantics, highlighting how voters can interpret “valuable” according to their own criteria.
“This semantic nonsense is what we encounter. You use ‘value’ as a catch-all argument, twisting and turning it however you please. Normally, MVP denotes ‘who is the best damn dude in the league,’ and while Josh Allen certainly had an MVP-caliber season, the best dude in the league this year was the first-team All-Pro,” Foxworth concluded.
The vote was tight, with Josh Allen earning 383 points compared to Lamar Jackson’s 362 points. Allen secured 27 first-place votes, including Orlovsky’s, while Jackson received 23. Considering Foxworth’s reaction to Orlovsky trying to balance the distinction between best and most valuable, one wonders what he would think of former Chicago Bears quarterback Jim Miller, who voted Jackson 4th on his MVP ballot.
