Booger McFarland sounds off on NFL MVP votes: Josh Allen beat Lamar Jackson because 'feelings get involved'

Josh Allen won MVP at the NFL Honors ceremony last night. And not surprisingly, plenty of people were ticked off about the selection on social media. There were many people that were pounding the table, saying that Lamar Jackson should have won the award over Allen. One person who was ticked off that Jackson didn’t win the award was ESPN’s Booger McFarland.

“I thought it was wrong. I think you can make a case that Josh Allen did more with less … but if Lamar Jackson won the MVP last year, this year he’s been probably 1-and-a-half times better than last year,” McFarland said. “When you have humans voting on this award, we’re subjected to feelings. And those feelings are, (Jackson) has won two, we’ve gotta give Josh one.”

“It just goes to show you how us as humans, and I get it, when we vote on awards, our feelings get involved,” McFarland said.

In building the case for Lamar Jackson to win the MVP, OptaSTATS Twitter account came with some heavy ammunition on Friday. Jackson is the first player in NFL history to have more passing yards, more passing touchdowns, fewer interceptions, a higher completion percentage, more rushing yards, and a higher rushing average than the MVP that season.

MVP voting breakdown between Allen and Jackson

Allen received 383 points, including 27 first-place votes. That narrowly beat out Jackson’s 362 points and 23 first-place votes. The Baltimore Ravens QB had the most second-place votes at 26.

Allen was a big reason the Bills reached the AFC Championship for the second time in five seasons. He finished the 2024 regular season with 3,371 passing yards, 531 rushing yards, 41 offensive touchdowns, a 101.4 passer rating and only six interceptions. He earned AFC Offensive Player of the Week honors four different times and became the first player in NFL history to record at least 25 touchdowns, 10 rushing touchdowns and one receiving touchdown in a season.

Jackson, meanwhile, is no stranger to the MVP award, winning it last year and in 2019. During the 2024 season, Jackson set career highs with 4,172 passing yards, 41 touchdown passes, a 119.6 quarterback rating and 316 completions. He also led the league in rushing yards by a quarterback with 915 yards on the ground and became the first player in NFL history with at least 4,000 passing yards and 800 rushing yards. Last month, the Pro Football Writers of America named Jackson the 2024 MVP.

On3’s Nick Schultz also contributed to this article.