Aaron Rodgers is the favorite to win the NFL’s MVP award this year, but there’s at least one vote he won’t be getting.
Sports writer Hub Arkush said Tuesday on 670 The Score in Chicago that the 38-year-old Rodgers won’t have his vote because he’s a “bad guy” and a “jerk.”
According to Pro Football Talk, Arkus is one of 50 media members the Associated Press gives a vote to for the MVP award that the NFL treats as its official MVP and awards at the league’s annual NFL Honors event.
Rodgers, who said last week that he wouldn’t rule out retiring after the season, became embroiled in controversy after it was revealed he contracted COVID-19 after not being vaccinated while saying in August during the preseason that he was “immunized.” Since that discovery, Rodgers has continued to defend his decision not to be vaccinated.
“I don’t think you can be the biggest jerk in the league and punish your team, and your organization and your fan base the way he did and be the Most Valuable Player,” Arkush, a Chicago-based sportswriter, told The Score. “Has he been the most valuable on the field? Yeah, you could make that argument, but I don’t think he is clearly that much more valuable than Jonathan Taylor or Cooper Kupp or maybe even Tom Brady.
“So from where I sit, the rest of it is why he’s not gonna be my choice. Do I think he’s gonna win it? Probably. A lot of voters don’t approach it the way I do, but others do, who I’ve spoken to.”
MVP voters aren’t allowed to say who they’re voting for until the award is announced, and Arkush said he knows he may have put his voting privileges in danger in the future.
“One of the ways we get to keep being voters is we’re not allowed to say who we are voting for until after the award has been announced,” he told The Score. “I’m probably pushing the envelope by saying who I’m not voting for. But we’re not really supposed to reveal our votes.”
Arkush said there are no guidelines for MVP voting to be limited to play on the field.
“There’s no guidelines,” he said. “We are told to pick the guy who we think is most valuable to his team. And I don’t think it says anywhere, ‘strictly on the field,’ although I do think he hurt his team on the field by the way he acted off the field. They’re gonna get the No. 1 seed anyway, but what if the difference had come down to the Chiefs game, where he lied about being vaccinated, and they ended up getting beat?”
Arkush said some may think he’s “a Packers hater” because he’s a Chicago writer while adding that he won’t be the only one to vote against the veteran quarterback.
“I can guarantee you I will not be the only one not voting for him,” Arkush said, while acknowledging Rodgers likely will win the award anyway.
Arkush said he’s voting against Rodgers because of how he acted as a person, not his play as a quarterback.
“I just think that the way he’s carried himself is inappropriate,” Arkush said. “I think he’s a bad guy, and I don’t think a bad guy can be the most valuable guy at the same time.”
Arkush’s decision could receive some backlash from fans who believe an athlete’s on-field performance should be the only metric in measuring what is or isn’t an MVP performance.
