Tom Brady no longer has a vote for AP NFL awards

When it comes to the inherent conflict of interest that Tom Brady faces in his dual roles as a part-owner of the Las Vegas Raiders and game analyst for Fox, both the NFL and his employer have been making it up as they go.

But while the 7-time Super Bowl champion has largely been permitted to handle his overlapping responsibilities without much hindrance, it appears the Associated Press has drawn a line.

As noted by ProFootballTalk’s Mike Florio, Brady no longer has a vote for the AP’s NFL awards. The 3-time NFL MVP previously possessed a vote for the awards for the 2024 season, which marked his first as Fox’s top game analyst.

Brady’s status as an awards voter while also being a part-owner — and a heavily involved one at that — of a team drew no shortage of scrutiny due to the obvious conflicts he could face. Nevertheless, the AP defended his voting privileges at the time, stating that he met the organization’s qualifying criteria.

“As a credentialed media member who covers the NFL regularly, Tom Brady meets the requirement to vote for the AP NFL awards,” the AP said at the time, per Florio. “We are confident that the integrity of the voting process will be respected by all voters.”

While there is natural turnover on the AP voting panel each year — for example, NBC’s Mike Tirico also didn’t vote this season after voting the previous year — it’s unclear what circumstances led to Brady no longer having a ballot. Florio speculates that perhaps the AP merely missed that his Raiders ownership stake had been approved before it was too late to pull his vote a year ago and has since corrected course.

Regardless of the reason, it appears that Brady was unable to make his voice heard at this year’s NFL Honors. As a result, we may never know whether he would have favored his friend, Matthew Stafford, or the quarterback of his former franchise, Drake Maye, in a closely contested MVP race.