In NFL history, there’s never been a wide receiver named Most Valuable Player.
Since the league created the MVP award in 1957, a quarterback was given the top honor 44 times, a running back or fullback was named league MVP 18 times and a defensive player won the award twice (defensive tackle Alan Page of the Minnesota Vikings in 1971 and linebacker Lawrence Taylor in 1986 for the New York Giants).
Mark Moseley of the Washington Redskins won the award in a strike-shortened 1982 season and was the only placekicker in NFL history to win MVP. The last non-quarterback winner was Vikings running back Adrian Peterson, who took the award home in 2012, along with Offensive Player of the Year that season.
In 28 seasons, the same player won both the league MVP and Offensive Player of the Year awards, and the last to do so was Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes in 2018. Segueing nicely from Mahomes and his next opponent, the Miami Dolphins are in the middle of a potential historical run for a pair of players.
Tua Tagovailoa is playing remarkable football and is arguably the league leader in the MVP race thus far. While others like Mahomes himself, Jalen Hurts, Lamar Jackson and Josh Allen have their candidacy as well, a non-quarterback is having a season for the ages and could shatter records come season’s end.
Dolphins wide receiver Tyreek Hill is currently on pace to exceed 2,000 receiving yards, something never done in the history of football. The closest anyone ever got was Calvin Johnson in 2012 when he was painfully close with 1,964 yards. As good of a season Johnson had, he was awardless and didn’t even take home the OPOY, as Peterson took home both top awards. A wide receiver has taken home the OPOY just five times, and only four individuals have won it, as Jerry Rice won the award twice in 1987 and 1993.
Recently, Cooper Kupp made a run for 2,000 in 2021 and fell short of breaking Johnson’s mark by just 18 yards. Kupp did receive the OPOY that season, and last season, Justin Jefferson was given the prestigious honor. Michael Thomas won the award in 2019 and was the first receiver since Rice to claim the title.
Hill is on pace for 2,152 receiving yards, heading into Week 9, ironically against Mahomes and his other former Chiefs teammates. Hill is leading the NFL in yards and touchdown receptions, and he’s just four receptions from overtaking Stefon Diggs as the league’s leader in receptions, so a huge effort on Sunday in Germany could place Hill in the “triple-crown” at the receiver position.
There’s an exclusive fraternity of “triple-crown” receivers that have finished a season leading the NFL in catches, receiving yards and touchdown receptions.
The fictitious yet formidable frat was started in 1932 when New York Giant Ray Flaherty ran off a season unseen at that point in pro football. He led the league in all main categories, recording 21 catches, 350 receptions, and five touchdowns.
The next five times the “triple-crown” was won it was by the same man – Don Hutson. The Green Bay Packers legend first accomplished the feat in 1936, then rattled off four straight seasons from 1941-44 as the game’s top-receiving thoroughbred.
The following decade was the next time the crown was placed on the metaphorical helmet of a wideout when Los Angeles Ram Elroy Hirsch ran the receiver’s table in stats in 1951. That was followed by Philadephia Eagle Pete Pihos in 1953 and in 1959 by Baltimore Colt Raymond Berry.
Entering the dawn of the Super Bowl era, a pair of receivers in Chicago Bear Johnny Morris and San Fransisco 49er Dave Parks punched their ticket to this “frat” in 1964 and 1965 respectively. In 1966 Lance Alworth led the NFL in receptions (73), yards (1,383) and receiving touchdowns (13).
To put into scale how difficult this task has become, the first person in this Super Bowl era to claim this was, in fact, Rice in 1990; in a non-OPOY season for him. In that season, Warren Moon was the Offensive Player of the Year, and the MVP was Rice’s quarterback, Joe Montana.
Three other receivers have made this club since Rice – they’re Sterling Sharpe (1992), Steve Smith Sr. (2005) and Kupp (2021). That makes 12 men in the history of football who can say they’ve won the NFL’s “triple crown.”
Hill is looking to be the league’s 13th to do so, and if this comes with a 2,000-yard campaign, it’d be extremely hard to not call him the MVP. If history is any guide, it’d take the most prolific year in all of history to potentially break that seal.
As impressive as the stat line is for Hill, and when one looks at his games from last season without Tagovailoa, it’s the combo of these two that’s creating this remarkable dual campaign for another potential first in NFL history.
No quarterback-wide receiver tandem has ever won the MVP and OPOY as teammates in the same season. The only teammates to do so, did the feat twice, in 1999 and 2001. They were “The Greatest Show of Turf’s” quarterback Kurt Warner and running back Marshall Faulk. Faulk took both awards in the middle of this in 2000.
Yet, what’s more coincidental is the fact that “The Greatest Show on Surf” could produce the next pair of teammates and the first-ever passer-receiver duo to claim this dual honor.
One last thing: in 1999 as well as 2001, the Rams went to the Super Bowl.
