Thursday night, the football world as NFL Honors took center stage. The New England Patriots had multiple individuals up for some hardware; most notably, Mike Vrabel and Drake Maye.
While Vrabel took home the NFL's Coach of the Year award, Maye was up for both the MVP and Offensive Player of the Year. In the end, Maye didn't win either category, as Matthew Stafford snagged MVP and Jaxon Smith-Njigba took the latter.
It wasn't necessarily a surprise to see Stafford beat out Maye for the MVP, but when it was revealed how Maye was beaten, Patriots fans had questions.
Oh, boy, did they have questions.
Maye missed out on the MVP by one first-place vote. Stafford finished with 366 points and 24 first-place votes while Maye totaled 361 on 23 first-place votes.
The one voter who didn't give Maye a first-place vote didn't, in fact, vote for Stafford.
NFL analyst Sam Monson publicly announced himself as the one who didn't vote for Maye, but instead, told the world he voted for ... Justin Herbert?
Herbert wasn't even on the ballot.
The voter responsible for Drake Maye's MVP snub wouldn't have made a difference anyway
When talking about placing Herbert at number one, Monson said he was truly trying to make this about "value," noting how Herbert had the worst offensive line in football this past season.
He's right on that one, and it wasn't even close. At one point, it seemed like the Chargers were tossing in any warm body up front, to protect their quarterback.
But, even if it wasn't Herbert ... it still wasn't going to be Maye, from Monson's point of view.
Monson went on a show, the morning after the awards, and explained that his ballot had Herbert first, Stafford second and Maye third.
Therefore, if it wasn't Herbert at the top, it would have been Stafford. Maye was going to be number three, no matter what, in this scenario. Even if Herbert was off the table, Stafford's total would have just grown and the results would stay the same.
It's hard to tell if this makes things better, worse, or if it all just makes more sense now. I think it's a mixture of all three, but it's hard to split up the emotions inside of a Patriots fan's head.
It makes things better knowing that, even if it wasn't Herbert, it wasn't going to be Maye. So, in a way, you coudn't blame it on "just one vote."
On the other hand, it makes it even worse when you consider the vote went to someone who wasn't even on the ballot.
At the very least, we understand a little more about why things ended up the way they did.