Every NFL MVP Since 1957, From Jim Brown to Matthew Stafford

Who has the most NFL MVP awards

• Peyton Manning, five: four with the Indianapolis Colts, in 2003, 2004, 2008 and 2009, and one with the Denver Broncos in 2013, the only player to win it with two teams.
• Aaron Rodgers, four: all with the Green Bay Packers, in 2011, 2014, 2020 and 2021.
• Three each: Jim Brown of the Cleveland Browns, Johnny Unitas of the Baltimore Colts, Brett Favre of the Packers and Tom Brady of the New England Patriots.
• Two each: Joe Montana, Steve Young, Kurt Warner, Patrick Mahomes and Lamar Jackson.

Those 11 players hold 31 of the 71 awards, and 40 others won once, 51 winners in all. Favre is the only one to win three in a row, from 1995 to 1997; Brown, Montana and Rodgers also won in back-to-back seasons, and Manning did it twice.

NFL MVP winners list by year

The list comes from Wikipedia's table of AP MVPs, and the same winners appear in the AP's own list, as published by Fox Sports, for 1961 to 2023, NFL.com's list for 1961 to 2008, NFL.com's reports on the 2024 and 2025 winners and Sports Illustrated's list for 1957 to 2014. The AP counts its MVPs from 1961, and sources disagree on three of the four earlier awards; Wikipedia and Sports Illustrated include them, and so do we. Without them, Brown would have one award and Unitas two.

NFL MVP by position: quarterbacks since 2013

Quarterbacks have won 50 of the 71 awards, 70 percent, and running backs, fullbacks included, 18. Defensive players have won two, Minnesota Vikings defensive tackle Alan Page in 1971 and New York Giants linebacker Lawrence Taylor in 1986, and a kicker one, Mark Moseley of Washington in 1982. No wide receiver, tight end or offensive lineman has won it.

Peterson, a Vikings running back, was the last non-quarterback, in 2012. The 13 straight seasons of quarterbacks since are more than twice the previous longest runs, five, from 1966 to 1970 and from 2007 to 2011. By decade of the season, quarterbacks won 70 percent of the awards in the 1960s and 1980s, half in the 1970s, 9 of 10 in the 2010s and all six since 2020.

Unanimous and shared NFL MVPs

Two winners got every vote, Brady in 2010 and Jackson in 2019, marked unanimous in the AP's list. Two awards were shared: Favre with Barry Sanders of the Detroit Lions in 1997, and Manning with Steve McNair of the Tennessee Titans in 2003. Both unanimous seasons ended early: Brady's 14-2 Patriots and Jackson's 14-2 Baltimore Ravens lost their first playoff game, at home in the divisional round.

NFL MVPs by team

The Packers have had the most MVP awards, 10, from five players: Paul Hornung, Jim Taylor, Bart Starr, Favre and Rodgers. The Colts have nine, the Rams and the San Francisco 49ers five each, and the Browns four. Six franchises have three: the Buffalo Bills, Broncos, Patriots, Las Vegas Raiders, Vikings and Washington Commanders.

Six have never had one: the Arizona Cardinals, Houston Texans, Jacksonville Jaguars, New Orleans Saints, New York Jets and Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Stafford's award was the Rams' first since Warner's in 2001.

How often the NFL MVP wins the Super Bowl

Of the 60 Super Bowls played so far, the MVP's team won 11 and lost 18: it reached the game in 29 of the 60 seasons and won fewer than two in five of the ones it played. The NBA MVP's team has won the title in 24 of 71 seasons, 34 percent; the NFL's 11 of 60 is 18 percent.

Since the 2000 season it has happened once, with Mahomes and the 2022 Kansas City Chiefs. The nine MVP teams that reached the Super Bowl from 2000 to 2021 all lost it, the run behind talk of an MVP curse, from Warner's St. Louis Rams in Super Bowl XXXVI to Brady's Patriots in LII; Warner's 1999 Rams had been the last to win it. Before the Super Bowl era, the MVP's team won four of the nine NFL Championship Games from 1957 to 1965 and lost four.

MVP team seeds and playoff records since 1990

Every MVP's team since 1990, when the playoffs grew to 12 teams, has made the postseason, and 25 of the 38, counting both teams in the shared seasons, were No. 1 seeds. All six that won the Super Bowl were top seeds: the Dallas Cowboys in 1993, the 49ers in 1994, the Packers in 1996, the Broncos in 1998, the Rams in 1999 and the Chiefs in 2022. The 13 seeded lower never won it.

As No. 1 seeds, MVP teams reached the Super Bowl 15 times in 25, 60 percent, and won it six times, 24 percent, a little above the 51 and 22 percent of all 72 No. 1 seeds in our study of NFL seeds. Overall the MVP's team went 56-32 in the playoffs, and nine of the 38 lost their first game.

Matthew Stafford, the 2025 NFL MVP, and the 2026 season

At 37, Stafford led the league with 4,707 passing yards and 46 touchdown passes for a 12-5 Rams team, NFL.com reported, and beat Drake Maye of the Patriots by 366 points to 361, with 24 first-place votes to 23. He received the award at NFL Honors in San Francisco on Feb. 5, 2026.

As the NFC's No. 5 seed, the Rams won 34-31 at the Carolina Panthers and 20-17 in overtime at the Chicago Bears, then lost the NFC Championship Game 31-27 at the Seattle Seahawks, who went on to win Super Bowl LX. Through Week 6 of 2026, NFL.com's standings have the Rams at 2-4. The NFL schedule has every result, and the Vertize NFL simulator plays out the rest of the season.

NFL MVP winners: frequently asked questions

Who has won the most NFL MVP awards? Peyton Manning, with five: four for the Indianapolis Colts and one for the Denver Broncos. Aaron Rodgers is next with four.

Who won the 2025 NFL MVP? Matthew Stafford, the Los Angeles Rams quarterback, by 366 points to 361 over Drake Maye of the New England Patriots.

Has a wide receiver ever won NFL MVP? No. Quarterbacks have won 50 of the 71 awards, running backs 18, defensive players two and a kicker one.

Who was the last non-quarterback to win NFL MVP? Adrian Peterson, a Minnesota Vikings running back, in 2012. Quarterbacks have won all 13 awards since.

How often does the NFL MVP win the Super Bowl? The MVP's team has won 11 of the 60 Super Bowls, most recently the 2022 Kansas City Chiefs with Patrick Mahomes.

How this was built: the 71 awards of the 69 seasons from 1957 to 2025 come from Wikipedia's table, read on Oct. 21, 2026, and name the same winners as every list above for the years each covers. Super Bowl and NFL Championship Game results come from Wikipedia, with scores since 1999 checked against the nflverse games file; seeds and playoff games for 1990 to 2025 come from nflverse and Wikipedia's playoff pages, as in our No. 1 seed study. Relocated teams count once. A shared award counts for both players, and a shared season once in Super Bowl totals. The 2026 records cover the 93 games of Weeks 1 to 6.