How many times has the NFL MVP won the Super Bowl?
NFL MVPs and Super Bowl winners rarely mix, especially in recent times. Not only has an NFL MVP not won the Super Bowl this millennium, there have been nine instances where the NFL MVP reached the Super Bowl and then failed to win the final game.
Even the greats of this era, who have won multiple Super Bowls and multiple NFL MVP titles, like Peyton Manning and Tom Brady, have never won both simultaneously.
Kind of surprised no one mentions the MVP Curse more often. No NFL MVP has won the Super Bowl since Kurt Warner. No 21st century MVPs have pulled it off. (Yes I’m aware Warner won the SB in the year 2000, but the award is for ‘99)
This begs the question as to how many NFL MVPs have gone on to win the Super Bowl. We crunched some numbers below.
Super Bowl winners who kept up their NFL MVP form
When the Super Bowl began in 1966, no one had any inkling that a curse was about to fall on the NFL MVPs. In the first instance, Bart Starr was not only the NFL MVP, he went on to be the Super Bowl MVP as well and people would have imagined that it was the start of a trend.
Instead, it would take until 1978 for an NFL MVP to win again when Terry Bradshaw repeated the feat with the Pittsburgh Steelers. He too repeated as NFL MVP and Super Bowl MVP. This sequence carried on for the next couple of decades where every three to four years, the NFL MVP would win the Super Bowl.
Mark Moseley of the Washington Redskins followed in 1982 but unlike the two quarterbacks before him, the placekicker did not win the Super Bowl MVP. Lawrence Taylor, likewise, failed to win the Super Bowl MVP when the New York Giants won the Super Bowl at the end of the 1986 season.
In 1989, Joe Montana won both the NFL MVP and the Super Bowl MVP award, culminating in the San Francisco 49ers winning a Super Bowl. Emitt Smith emulated Montana when, in 1993, he was the MVP in both the NFL and Super Bowl as the Dallas Cowboys won the Super Bowl.
The 18 Week 1993 @NFL season was record-setting for @dallascowboys RB and @ProFootballHOF-er Emmitt Smith, who became the only RB to win the NFL MVP and Super Bowl MVP in the same season. https://t.co/ZCPMGa0LJz
Over the next few years, there was a glut of NFL MVPs winning the Super Bowl. Steve Young did it in 1994 with the San Francisco 49ers, Brett Favre with the Green Bay Packers in 1996, Terrell Davis with the Denver Broncos in 1998 and Kurt Warner with the St. Louis Rams in 1999. Except Favre and Davis were all MVPs in both the league and the championship game.
Since then, no NFL MVP has won a Super Bowl. The list has remained stuck at 10 NFL MVPs who have won the Super Bowl. Six of them won Super Bowl MVP as well. One would assume, looking at previous trends, that it is long past overdue.
Also Checkout: Joe Montana Super Bowl Wins