30 NFL players you won’t believe never won an award

1. Jim Kelly
Pro Football Hall of Fame: 2002

We’ve come to our top choice. He isn’t necessarily the best player on the list, but he is the most surprising. Jim Kelly was the catalyst to the Buffalo Bills dominating the AFC in the early 1990s. After a saga that kept him from the NFL for a few years, Kelly joined Buffalo in 1986. He was looking for a stable league after the USFL folded, and he was able to turn a franchise with not much to lean on around. 

The impact was pretty immediate. While he didn’t win a ton in his first year, he did throw for more than 3,500 yards and 22 touchdowns. He was trying to make something out of nothing, but the Bills won just four games. The fact that Kelly was 26 years old and that his team was still terrible impacted his Rookie of the Year chances. So, with that off the table, it was time to consider MVP.

We all know that the Bills made the Super Bowl four years in a row. We also know they lost most of those Super Bowls in heartbreaking or embarrassing fashion. Kelly was also great in the regular season, leading the league in touchdowns with 33 in 1991. That season, he was voted as the first-team All-Pro at the QB position. That often leads to an MVP, but that’s not the case for Kelly. 

He finished second to his teammate. Running back Thurman Thomas rushed for 1,400 yards and seven touchdowns, plus five receiving touchdowns. Talk about splitting the vote. Kelly never came as close to the MVP as he did in 1991, and he never got that elusive Super Bowl, so no postseason MVP either.