Buffalo Bills quarterback Josh Allen capped off his impressive 2024 season with his very first NFL MVP award on Thursday evening, beating out Baltimore Ravens signal-caller Lamar Jackson by four first-place votes.

But, one notable insider decided to vote against Allen — Dianna Russini. Speaking on The Herd with Colin Cowherd on Friday, she revealed why Lamar got her vote instead:

“I’m a voter so I had an opportunity to place my vote. I went back and forth on this for weeks. Called GM’s and Coaches, I called players. A lot of players answers, which surprised me was Saquon. I got a lot of Saquon answers,” Russini said.

I get it but I was laying out all the reasons why I was going to go with who I went with, which was Lamar Jackson. I went with Lamar and the way I viewed it was essentially I looked at the pieces around him and you can make an argument that Buffalo had less on offense, but what Buffalo had better than Baltimore was a defense. The times that the defense let Lamar down in Baltimore, he’s the one that raised the level and got them wins.”

That’s a respectable point. What’s no surprise however is that a lot of players wanted Saquon Barkley to win MVP. He would’ve been the first running back to take home the honor since Adrian Peterson in 2012.

Photo: Dianna Russini looking at Josh Allen, Lamar Jackson in action
In fairness to Josh Allen, Neither the Bills nor the Ravens had great defenses, so both QBs had to do a lot of work on their own. That is the reality of the situation.

Allen finished the ’24 campaign with a 63.6 completion percentage, 3,731 yards passing, and 28 touchdowns against just six picks. He also added 12 TDs and 531 yards on the ground. As for Jackson, he completed 66.7% of his throws for 4,172 yards and 41 scores against four interceptions. Lamar ran for 915 yards and four touchdowns, too.

There’s an argument to be had both ways, but Josh Allen undoubtedly did more than enough to be named MVP.