Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers is the favorite to win the league’s MVP award. But one voter has already ruled out Rodgers for consideration.
That voter is Hub Arkush, who is one of the 50 members of the media the Associated Press gives a vote for the MVP award that the NFL treats as its official MVP and awards at the annual NFL Honors event. Arkush called Rodgers a “jerk” and a “bad guy” and said today on 670 The Score in Chicago that Rodgers won’t have his vote.
“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 said. “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. But 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. 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 he is free to vote how he chooses without any rules about whether he can consider off-field issues like Rodgers being unvaccinated and spending 10 days on the COVID-19 reserve list.
“There’s no guidelines,” Arkush 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 is a longtime Chicago sports writer who acknowledged that some people will “just think I’m a Packer hater,” but he said he knows for a fact that he’s not the only person who won’t vote for Rodgers.
“I can guarantee you I will not be the only one not voting for him,” Arkush said.
For Arkush, it comes down to who Rodgers is as a person, not who Rodgers is 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.”
Frankly, Arkush’s reasoning is ridiculous, and calls into question whether the Associated Press should even be the arbiter of the NFL’s MVP award. If the AP can’t find 50 voters who will consider players based on their on-field performance and not for the voters’ subjective assessments of whether the players are “bad guys,” then the NFL should stop using the AP for its official awards, and instead find a panel of voters who will carefully consider players’ on-field performance and vote without personal bias.