Who is Aaron Schatz? Meet NFL reporter whose vote denied Lamar Jackson a second unanimous MVP

The NFL MVP award for the 2023 season was recently handed out during the annual NFL Honors show on February 8. To just about nobody's surprise, Lamar Jackson won it by a wide margin. In fact, he received 49 of the 50 first-place votes from the collection of media members who received an official vote.

This obviously begs the question of who that one person was that didn't vote for Jackson. That was Aaron Schatz, who currently serves as the chief analytics officer for FTN Fantasy, according to his X account. He put Jackson in third place on his ballot, which is shocking considering all of the other 49 voters had Jackson in first place.

Aaron Schatz has been a pioneer in football analytics, including his revolutionary website Football Outsiders, which he founded and launched. He has worked for many popular publications, such as ESPN and the New York Times, which is how he earned his credentials to be an official voter for the awards.

After such a controversial ballot, many around the NFL are questioning his knowledge.

In his explanation of why he voted for Josh Allen and Dak Prescott ahead of Lamar Jackson for the award, he referenced the All-Pro voting results.

Jackson was not named a first-team All-Pro this year, so Schatz used that to justify his perceived snub of the Baltimore Ravens quarterback. Schatz questioned:

"I will admit I’m confused about other voters who had Prescott and Purdy as first team all pro but not MVP. If you are MVP, don’t you have to be first-team All-Pro?"

While it's a valid question, the voting criteria for the two honors are not necessarily the same thing. The MVP has always been explained as a non-statistical award, but rather who is the most crucial contributor to their team's success. This is why they call it the most "valuable" player and not the most "productive" player.

This explains how Purdy and Prescott can be All-Pro's, but not top Jackson for the MVP.

2023 NFL MVP vote breakdown

Lamar Jackson

The MVP award is officially selected by a panel of 50 assigned media members that cover the NFL. They each receive a ballot that allows them to list their top five choices, in order, to receive the award. A weighted point system is then used to determine the winner, using a 10-5-3-2-1 scale for where a player ranks on each ballot.

Here's how the voting broke down:

1. Lamar Jackson 49-0-1-0-0 = 493
2. Dak Prescott 0-17-13-11-6 = 152
3. Christian McCaffrey 0-17-12-11-4 = 147
4. Brock Purdy 0-9-5-12-13 = 97
5. Josh Allen 1-5-11-3-6 = 80
6. Tyreek Hill 0-2-6-9-14 = 60
7. Patrick Mahomes 0-0-2-2-2 = 12
8. C.J. Stroud 0-0-0-0-4 = 4
9. Matthew Stafford 0-0-0-2-0 = 4
10. Myles Garrett 0-0-0-0-1 = 1

Josh Allen finished in fifth place in the final tally, but thanks to Aaron Schatz, he received the lone first-place vote that wasn't Lamar Jackson. It's a bit of a shame too, as Jackson could have become the first player in NFL history to unanimously be named the MVP multiple times.

Tom Brady is the only other player ever to be a unanimous selection, but he only did it once, as Jackson also did in 2019.