It sure looked like Jacksonville Jaguars quarterback Trevor Lawrence was about to get a head full of Nickelodeon slime this week. Instead, the Baltimore Ravens’ Lamar Jackson got the honor of NFL Slimetime NVP and doused his teammates in slime Wednesday.
Lawrence appeared to earn the award with a landslide victory, but did he really? Let’s investigate:
Lawrence won Nickelodeon’s Twitter poll by a mile
On Wednesday, Nickelodeon tweeted a poll with three candidates for this week’s NVP (Nickelodeon Valuable Player): Lawrence, Jackson, and Philadelphia Eagles receiver DeVonta Smith.
There wasn’t much voting happening until Jaguars fans caught wind of the poll and stuffed the ballot box with votes for Lawrence in the final hour before it closed. With less than 10 minutes left, Lawrence had close to 90 percent of the vote.
Then the poll vanished, the tweet was deleted, and Jackson was abruptly named the winner.
— Bethheartsfootball (@B_Wilks320) September 29, 2022
Jaguars fans were angry about what sure looks like a case of highway robbery, right? Well … not so fast.
It seems there was never a vote in the first place
First, let’s rewind. The NVP was created when Nickelodeon broadcast a playoff game between the Chicago Bears and New Orleans Saints in January 2021. During the game, there was a poll held on NFLNickPlay.com to decide the NVP.
Bears quarterback Mitchell Trubisky won the vote by a sizable margin, despite throwing his only touchdown pass of the game as time expired in the 21-9 loss. He even got a trophy for what was clearly fans voting for a joke winner.
It was a similar story during the playoffs earlier this year when Dak Prescott was named NVP after the Dallas Cowboys’ 23-17 loss to the San Francisco 49ers.
While a public vote decided those single-game NVPs, that hasn’t appeared to be the case for NFL Slimetime’s weekly NVP, though. The list of winners last year — which included the Jaguars’ Josh Allen — was actually pretty reasonable. And that’s because there isn’t a vote at all. Nickelodeon picks a winner, tells the team, and a video is filmed before the award is announced.
When Nickelodeon tweeted the poll Wednesday, it seems they were just asking Twitter”s opinion on who would win. They’ve done similar tweets in the past without a workable poll.
Who will win NVP this week?! #NFLSlimetime
🐬 @Tua Tagovailoa #FinsUp
🦁 @amonra_stbrown #OnePride
💪 @stefondiggs #BillsMafia pic.twitter.com/jJCiG29hVU— Nickelodeon (@Nickelodeon) September 21, 2022
So no, it wasn’t quite the travesty that it initially appeared to be. It’s hard to argue that Jackson, who threw four touchdown passes and one rushing touchdown in a 37-26 win against the New England Patriots, wasn’t a deserving winner.
Lawrence will just have to settle for being the AFC Offensive Player of the Week and keep fighting for a future sliming.
