Before the start of the playoffs every year, 50 media members vote on the Associated Press NFL Most Valuable Player award. Of the league’s five 2024 finalists, two seemed like obvious favorites to top the ranked-choice ballots: Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson and Buffalo Bills quarterback Josh Allen.

They were the betting favorites. They’d accounted for all but two of the AP All-Pro panel’s 50 votes at quarterback. And they were on playoff teams.

But surprise abounded Thursday night. Allen, a second-team All-Pro, was named MVP, beating out Jackson, the reigning MVP and a first-team All-Pro. Perhaps no ballot captured the messiness of the process — how could Allen catch Jackson in MVP voting after a decisive loss in All-Pro voting? — more than Jim Miller’s.

The former NFL quarterback, a co-host on SiriusXM NFL Radio’s “Movin’ The Chains” show, had voted for Allen for MVP and Jackson for Offensive Player of the Year. But he didn’t have Jackson second on his MVP ballot. Or third.

Miller was the only MVP voter to have Jackson lower than second, ranking him fourth overall, behind Allen, Philadelphia Eagles running back Saquon Barkley and Cincinnati Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow.

“A lot of people loved Lamar,” Miller said on his show Friday, acknowledging that he’d received several “not kind” tweets on X since his ballot was published. “Certainly I voted a certain way. A lot of people didn’t like their take on that. And I had my five.”

Miller had Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes fifth on his ballot but said that he seriously considered casting a first-place vote for him, because, “at the end of the day, this is a team sport, and he has won more than anybody. He’s 15-2 on the year, and I had to refrain myself, but I would’ve slept very nicely with him being the MVP for my vote.”

Miller otherwise did not spend much time explaining his ballot. He praised Burrow, whose Bengals missed the playoffs, “for how he ended the season.” He said Barkley “meant a lot to his team because of injuries” to its offense and said the Eagles’ offense “went through” him every game. Jackson, he said, is a “unicorn.” Miller also pointed to his two previous MVP votes for Jackson.

“So I sleep very good with how I voted,” he said. “A lot of people didn’t like it because Lamar is quite a player.”

Co-host Pat Kirwan, a former NFL assistant coach, told Miller: “You don’t have to answer to anybody, and anybody who thinks you should answer to them, I can’t even describe — I don’t want to get fired for what I want to say about them. But we have too many unqualified people with big, fat opinions, and the internet’s a place for cowards. They can come on there and threaten you and all the things they do. Don’t worry about it, Jim. Josh Allen won it. I don’t think anyone should have a problem with that."

Added Miller: “Even if I voted for Lamar, Josh still would’ve won it.”

Other MVP voters have been more forthcoming with their Allen-over-Jackson explanations. ESPN analyst Dan Orlovsky, a former NFL quarterback, voted for Jackson for All-Pro honors but Allen for the MVP award.

“Lamar’s season was absolutely sensational,” Orlovsky said Friday on “Get Up.” “He was probably the best player in football this year. ... But value, and how much you impact your team, who you do it with and who you do it against — that’s where I thought Josh Allen had the upper hand.”

The Ringer’s Lindsay Jones also split her All-Pro and MVP ballots, calling it her way of “acknowledging that Jackson played quarterback better than anyone this season, while Allen was the defining, and yes, most valuable, football character of the regular season."

She added: “I understand that plenty of people will not agree with this decision-making process, including many of my peers and fellow voters. Maybe some of them felt voting for Jackson was an easy call, and I get it: He was electrifying, and took his already incredible game to a new level. His stats are undeniable. I’m not sure there would have been an entirely satisfying outcome, though I suppose it feels fitting that an MVP race that felt so tight during the season remained so until the very (surprising) end.”