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Wednesday, January 9 Can't argue against Warner winning it By Len Pasquarelli ESPN.com |
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Despite the similarities in subjectivity, there is a murky and fine-line difference between being the best player in the league and the most valuable player, and in selecting St. Louis quarterback Kurt Warner over Rams tailback Marshall Faulk for MVP honors, voters demonstrated they concur with the sketchy delineation between the two.
This year, however, it was Warner's name that came out of the envelope, winning the award by a four-vote margin (21½-17½) over his teammate. It marked the second time in three seasons that the former afterthought quarterback, who played in anonymity in the Arena Football League and NFL Europe and might never have been anything more than a clipboard jockey had Trent Green not torn up his knee in the 1999 exhibition campaign, claimed the honor. Combined with Faulk's most valuable player citation of a year ago, the Rams have a vise-grip monopoly on the award, and perhaps that's how it should be.
It is difficult to parse the importance of the two players to the Rams' offense, a unit comprising a galaxy of stars. And as long as Warner and Faulk continue to post the mind-boggling statistics that we have come to regard as routine output from them, the dilemma will always be the same. Look up at the darkened sky and examine the sparkling lights of the firmament, from Acamar to Zuben Elschemali, and attempt to choose the brightest. Now you might comprehend what it is like to sit, pen poised over the ballot and agonize over whether to write "Warner" or "Faulk." "Asking me to choose one or the other," allowed Rams coach Mike Martz, "would be like asking me which of my children I love the most." True enough. There are no guidelines distributed by the Associated Press, no definition to help the electors galvanize the nebulous term "most valuable," and for years the debate has ranged in all sports as to what MVP really means. And so most voters have settled on a simple question to help discern the most valuable player. To wit: If we take that guy off the roster, is his team as good, or would the club continue to succeed without him? The consensus on Wednesday was that the least expendable player on the St. Louis roster was the quarterback, who won another passing title while leading the league in most aerial categories. It is tough to reduce the voting to pure numbers, even in the case of how the Rams fared in the three years Warner and Faulk have been together. Counting the playoffs, St. Louis is 40-12 in that stretch, 2-3 in games Warner did not start, 2-2 in those Faulk missed because of injury. Faulk this year became the first player in history to post four straight seasons of 2,000 combined yards from scrimmage. Warner posted the second most passing yards in a single season. Truth be told, the voting characteristically goes beyond the pure numbers, and instead to the maddening mathematics of personally attempting to assign some degree of import to every player under consideration.
In the end, it usually comes down to a gut reaction, to a "feeling" about who is the right guy. There is no Solomon on hand, no sage or savant trying to divide one trophy into two, the jury a group of 50 media types, most of whom take seriously the responsibility imposed on them. This year, as in many, the decision is open to debate. At the same time, it's not open to quarrel, since there were two such deserving candidates and either would have been a terrific selection. One can only strongly suggest that Faulk deserved the award. It's far more difficult, though, to argue that Warner didn't. Len Pasquarelli is a senior NFL writer for ESPN.com. |
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