The Associated Press doesn’t want the 50 awards voters to vote for Vikings quarterback Sam Darnold as comeback player of the year. That hasn’t stopped sports books from taking bets on Darnold — or bettors from making Darnold one of the favorites to win it.
At DraftKings, Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow is the current favorite, at -200. Darnold’s odds are +175. There’s a steep drop to the next player: Chargers running back J.K. Dobbins, at +2000.
As the Associated Press explained to voters in October, as Darnold was starting to get comeback player buzz, “The spirit of the AP Comeback Player of the Year Award is to honor a player who has demonstrated resilience in the face of adversity by overcoming illness, physical injury or other circumstances that led him to miss playing time the previous season.” A tweet from Rob Maaddi of the AP made it clear that, under this guidance, Darnold isn’t eligible.
The phrase “other circumstances” creates enough wiggle room to vote for Darnold, who has overcome the circumstances of being ruined by a bad franchise that drafted him in 2018 and traded to another bad franchise before being relegated to backup status because of it before landing in Minnesota as a 14-win starter. When we asked the AP four specific questions in October — (1) will votes for Sam Darnold be rejected?; (2) will any votes that don’t mesh with the new guidelines be rejected?; (3) who will decide the players that are and aren’t within the new guidelines?; and (4) when will those decisions be made? — we received this answer: “We have given voters the criteria and will follow up regularly to make sure the guidelines are clear. We expect voters will follow the criteria, and the award recipient will meet the criteria.”
I’ll make my decision on comeback player of the year after Week 18. Chances are both Burrow and Darnold will be on my ballot. Will Darnold be rejected? It’s still not completely clear.
When I tried to put Commanders running back Brian Robinson on the comeback player ballot two years ago (he’d been shot during training camp), it was rejected because rookies aren’t eligible for the award. We’ll see whether votes for Darnold are rejected.
If they are, there might be plenty of pissed-off gamblers.
UPDATE 1:52 p.m. ET: The AP has confirmed that votes for Darnold will not be rejected, even if they don’t meet the revised criteria.
