Who's voting on the 2025 AP awards? We won't know until the winners are announced

6 days ago 2

The 2025 regular season ends on Sunday. The ballots for the various Associated Press awards are due on Monday. The 50 voters will have plenty of decisions to make, quickly.

So who are the 50 voters for 2026? No one knows.

Well, the 50 voters know. And they individually have the ability to disclose that they hold a vote. The AP will not publish the full list until the awards are announced, at the annual NFL Honors event on February 5.

I've got one. Simms has one. It's a safe guess that Fox broadcaster and Raiders minority owner Tom Brady won't have one.

His ownership bid was approved during the 2024 season, after he was added to the panel. When it comes to voting on the awards and the All-Pro team, anyone with an ownership interest in any team has an obvious and incurable conflict of interest.

Then again, the AP didn't acknowledge that Brady slipped through the cracks in 2024. Said the AP in December of that year: "As a credentialed media member who covers the NFL regularly, Tom Brady meets the requirement to vote for the AP NFL awards."

So maybe he still has a vote. We won't know until the awards are out — and when all ballots are released.

That's one change from a year ago. For 2024, the AP released all ballots without first telling the voters that their votes would be revealed. This year, the AP included that information in the communications to the voters.

Also, the AP is no longer counting the ballots by hand. The accounting firm of Lutz and Carr has been hired to handle the tabulation process.

Lutz and Carr undoubtedly will be compensated for its work. The AP gets paid by the NFL for performing the task of crafting the awards, although the AP has declined in the past to disclose what it receives. The voters, however, get nothing.

Which, as I said last time around, technically makes each of the voters suckers. No one has kept a job because they're a voter, and no one has gotten a job because they're a voter. It's a vanity play and/or a status symbol, at best, for the voters.

The fact that the major sportsbooks take bets on the various awards adds to the importance of the assignment. And, in turn, the value of it to the AP and, in turn, to the NFL.

But I decided to do it again, for some reason. I wanted to quit, but I didn't. (Mainly because I get the feeling they wanted me to.)

And they probably wanted to fire me, but they didn't. (Mainly because they probably got the feeling I wanted them to.)

So, next week, with the playoffs looming and the coaching carousel spinning at full speed, the 50 voters will carve out however many hours it takes on Monday morning/afternoon to come up with an All-Pro ballot and a five-deep selection of candidates for offensive rookie of the year, defensive rookie of the year, offensive player of the year, defensive player of the year, assistant coach of the year, comeback player of the year, and MVP.

All ballots are due at 3:00 p.m. ET on Monday. Which I can say with full confidence is way too early and way too much of an imposition on the volunteer workforce.

Maybe they'll double our pay.

Read Entire Article