After Kenneth Walker III trampled the New England Patriots defense en route to a well-deserved Super Bowl MVP, there have now been 20 unique MVPs of the Super Bowl since the turn of the millenium, if we include Kurt Warner on the list with the 1999 season’s Super Bowl between the St. Louis Rams and Tennessee Titans coming in the year 2000.
It is unbelievably difficult to rank Super Bowl MVPs, and it is downright impossible to rank them on the basis of comparing one singular game since there are too many variables to consider such as stats, impact of the performance, difficulty of the opponent, aura, and more.
So instead, let’s rank each of the Super Bowl MVPs based on how their careers went. That is difficult enough, but at least it gives years of a sample size, along with the context of the Super Bowl MVP triumph (or multiple triumphs, as with the likes of Tom Brady and Patrick Mahomes).
Here are the 20 Super Bowl MVPs since Warner’s win over the Titans, ranked in order from worst to best. In parentheses is the year of the Super Bowl MVP win.
20. Tampa Bay Buccaneers SS Dexter Jackson (2003)
Dexter Jackson was the definition of a one-hit wonder. A little-known role player on a Tampa Bay Buccaneers defense loaded with some of the biggest names in the history of the game like Warren Sapp, Simeon Rice, John Lynch, Ronde Barber, and Derrick Brooks, it was the overlooked strong safety who put the exclamation point on the Buccaneers humiliation of the Oakland Raiders.
Rich Gannon looked hopeless despite being the MVP and best quarterback of the 2002 regular season, as Jon Gruden knew exactly how to cook his former pupil after leaving the Raiders for the Bucs the previous offseason.
Jackson had two interceptions in the 48-21 win, becoming just the third defensive back ever to win the Super Bowl MVP award. What’s wild is that after parlaying his performance into a contract with the Arizona Cardinals and intercepting a career high six passes in 2023, Jackson would never intercept more than two passes in a single season thereafter.
He never even made a Pro Bowl in his career and was a solid, above average starter but nowhere near a star before falling off the map almost completely after his first season in Arizona. He had a solid three-year stretch, including 2002 with the Bucs, he was a mere footnote outside of that Super Bowl MVP display.
19. Seattle Seahawks MLB Malcolm Smith (2014)
The Seattle Seahawks so thoroughly dominated the Denver Broncos, who were the greatest offense in NFL history in the 2013 season, that there was no way a single MVP candidate could truly be picked out.
Because he had the best statistics, Malcolm Smith won it by default, but there were many who felt he was one of the most undeserving Super Bowl MVPs in history, as Kam Chancellor and Cliff Avril both had even better games.
But Smith had a fantastic game, no doubt, and it felt good for Seahawks fans to see their backup linebacker get some love. The 2011 seventh-round pick out of USC had only started 11 games in three seasons to that point in his career, but he showed up when it mattered most with a pick six and a fumble recovery in the 43-8 evisceration of Peyton Manning and the Four Horsemen.
Smith would join the Oakland Raiders a couple of seasons later for back-to-back 100-tackle seasons, but he was mostly racking up empty-calorie statistics. After that, Smith would not be heard from again, as he became a journeyman backup linebacker and was out of the NFL by 2022.
18. Pittsburgh Steelers WR Santonio Holmes (2009)
Although Santonio Holmes never even made the Pro Bowl and only had a single 1,000-yard season, for a literal two-minute drill at the end of the 2008 season’s Super Bowl against the Arizona Cardinals, the former Ohio State Buckeye transcended the game.
It took only those two minutes for Holmes to fully repay the first-round pick the Steelers invested in him. He played like a man possessed, and though he was only in his third season in the league and on the same team as a literal Super Bowl MVP wide receiver and a legend of the locker room in Hines Ward, Holmes was the one who boldly yelled at Ben Roethlisberger on the sideline to keep feeding him the ball.
Big Ben wisely obliged, and the Cardinals defense could not contend with the electrifying Holmes. On that drive alone, he caught four passes for 73 yards, outdoing Dwight Clark with the greatest catch in Super Bowl history, tapping his toes in the back of the end zone so as to not waste a gorgeous Roethlisberger ball into the tightest of windows to sink Kurt Warner’s fairytale hopes in one fell swoop.
Holmes’s skill in getting open throughout the drive and in making that final catch forever etched him in the NFL history books, yet they will also always haunt him as a player who never quite lived up to his raw talent over a decent but unspectacular nine-year NFL career.
17. Philadelphia Eagles QB Nick Foles (2018)
Before Jalen Hurts brought the Super Bowl title back to Broad Street, Nick Foles and the Philly Special shocked prime Tom Brady and made Bill Belichick’s vaunted defense look like a bunch of overpaid amateurs in the Super Bowl for the 2017 season.
Foles stepped in for Carson Wentz, an MVP candidate that year, in Week 14 following the sophomore signal caller’s devastating torn ACL, and he made sure the Eagles didn’t miss a beat.
The former Arizona product decimatd the Minnesota Vikings in a 38-7 Eagles win in the NFC Championship Game, and then he memorably became the first player in NFL history to catch and throw a touchdown pass in the same Super Bowl, soaking up MVP honors with a whopping 373 passing yards and four touchdowns in a domination of Brady that even Eli would be envious of.
Of course, Foles would go on to do little else in his NFL career, but even years before that fairytale Super Bowl run, Foles had a season for the ages in 2013 for the Eagles in which he went 8-2 and shockingly led the league with a 119.2 QB Rating at a time when Tom Brady, Peyton Manning, Aaron Rodgers, Drew Brees, Tony Romo, Ben Roethlisberger, Philip Rivers, Eli Manning, and Matt Ryan were all in the NFL. It looks like he wasn’t such a one-hit wonder after all.
16. New England Patriots WR Deion Branch (2005)
Deion Branch’s reputation took an irrecoverable turn after the New England Patriots traded him to the Seattle Seahawks for a first-round pick after Branch forced Bill Belichick’s hand into making one of many infamous roster decisions with key veteran players.
But Branch ended up being a generational flop for the Hawks, never even reaching 800 receiving yards in the Pacific Northwest before being sent back to New England to finish up his career with a respectable bow on it.
Before the trade to Seattle, though, Branch was a highly underappreciated No. 1 receiver for the Pats, and until they traded for Randy Moss, the offense actually suffered a lot without their main target with the 2006 season being a letdown and a lost cause years for the Pats without his sure hands.
An elite route-runner who rarely made mistakes in Foxboro, Branch was never a 1,000-yard receiver, but he always managed to show up when it mattered, including in the 2004 Super Bowl when he outshone Terrell Owens when he caught 11 of 12 targets for 133 yards.
15. Seattle Seahawks RB Kenneth Walker III (2026)
Splitting carries with Zach Charbonnet was not a decision Seattle Seahawks fans or fantasy football owners necessarily loved, but, from a pure footballing perspective, it made sense since Kenneth Walker III was so poor on passing downs that the Hawks were forced to mix things up to keep defenses honest with the run vs. pass balance.
But everyone knew that Walker was the real rushing talent in the backfield for Seattle. Despite sharing the rock, Walker registered 1,000 rushing yards for the second time in four seasons in 2025, averaging 4.6 yards per attempt with a swashbuckling smashmouth rushing style that has been the hallmark of the best Seattle teams of the millenium.
Walker saved his best work for the postseason, especially after Charbonnet’s rather timely injury, and he ran all over the New England Patriots in the most defensive Super Bowl we’ve seen since arguably the Rams vs. Patriots in 2018. He finished the game with 161 yards from scrimmage, picking up well-deserved MVP honors.
14. Philadelphia Eagles QB Jalen Hurts (2025)
An enigma, Jalen Hurts is either overrated and called an elite, top-five quarterback in the NFL when the Philadelphia Eagles are flying high, or he is severely underrated and picked apart as if he were the second coming of Kevin Kolb whenever the Eagles implode.
It is hard to get a read on if Hurts is elevating the Eagles or holding back their uber-talented skill position players, but the reality is that Hurts is a solid quarterback and an effective game manager who is among the best quarterbacks in the league with the ball in his hands as a rusher and a pretty decent slinger of the football, too.
The MVP of the 2024 season’s Super Bowl over Patrick Mahomes and the Kansas City Chiefs, Hurts did, in all honesty, win this award by default since the Eagles defense was so overwhelmingly good that no single player could be pinpointed as the MVP (though Cooper DeJean probably should have won it).
Hurts was an MVP runner-up in the 2022 season and lost a couple of Super Bowls before putting it all togther in 2024, and there’s a feeling in Philly that with better coaching, Hurts will bounce back from a subpar 2025 season.
13. Baltimore Ravens QB Joe Flacco (2013)
Is Joe Flacco elite? That was one of the great memes of the 2013 NFL offseason after the former Pittsburgh and Delaware signal caller caught lightning in a bottle and beat both Peyton Manning and Tom Brady in the AFC playoffs before conquering the San Francisco 49ers (and the supernatural) in the Superdome in February.
Flacco has since become a cult hero for Cleveland Browns fans, too, leading them to an unlikely playoff bid in the 2023 season, but his magnum opus was undoubtedly the 2012 NFL season.
While Flacco only ever threw for 4,000 yards once and never even reached 30 touchdowns in a single season, making him closer to an average starting quarterback of the time than anything resembling elite, he was a good player who knew how to take his game to greatness when it mattered most. And as time showed, Flacco is a natural leader of men.
12. New York Giants QB Eli Manning (2008, 2012)
Eli Manning was the definition of mediocrity throughout his career in the NFL regular season, leading the league in interceptions three distinct times, including in the 2007 season when he first won the Super Bowl, slaying the greatest regular season of all time (and the greatest offense in NFL history to that point).
Maybe beating Tom Brady off a David Tyree miracle catch in a gritty defensive game could be written off as a fluke, but when Manning conquered Brady a second time in a shootout to cap off the 2011 NFL regular season, he punched his debatable ticket to Canton despite an underwhelming regular-season resume.
That year in 2011, Manning’s regular-season numbers were actually quite spectacular. He was a throw or two away from 5,000 yards and also on the doorstep of 30 touchdowns, capping off a stretch of three straight 4,000-yard passing seasons – a feat he would replicate a couple of years later.
More of a gunslinger than game manager, Eli’s mistakes often held the Giants back, but when he locked in and got on a hot streak, he could throw the ball prettier than anyone else in the NFL and outduel the very best the game has ever seen.
11. Los Angeles Rams WR Cooper Kupp (2022)
With all due respect to Calvin Johnson, when combining the regular season and the postseason, Cooper Kupp’s 2021 campaign with the Los Angeles Rams has to be considered the greatest ever single season by a wide receiver in NFL history – and it came out of nowhere.
To that point, Kupp was a solid but unheralded secondary receiving option for the Rams, hauling in 94 and 92 passes in the preceding seasons. Kupp became an overnight sensation in 2021 en route to a Super Bowl ring and Super Bowl MVP, flourishing in an even more dangerous Rams offense with the stronger-armed Matthew Stafford reviving his career under center under Sean McVay’s guidance.
Kupp had 145 receptions for 1,947 receiving yards and 13 touchdowns to reach the rarified air of the Triple Crown of receiving. And bizarrely enough, Kupp would never have 900 receiving yards in a season again – not even half of his total output in the 2021 regular season.
Even so, Kupp’s career has still been quite excellent despite all that, as he was the main receiving threat down the stretch of the Seattle Seahawks Super Bowl triumph, helping Sam Darnold weather an elite New England Patriots defense in the big game with Jaxson Smith-Njigba struggling through injury and Christian Gonzalez’s blanket coverage.
10. New England Patriots WR Julian Edelman (2019)
Mostly a returner and the backup slot wide receiver to top guy Wes Welker, Julian Edelman didn’t actually play a major role in the New England Patriots offense until his fifth season in the NFL.
That was the year after Welker walked in free agency and joined the Denver Broncos to break records with Peyton Manning, and his free agent replacement, Danny Amendola, wasn’t really healthy enough in 2013 to fully settle into the role.
Edelman, meanwhile, caught 105 passes to shatter his previous career high of 37 as a rookie, and he would go on to have four seasons with 90 receptions and three total seasons with 1,000 yards as one of the best chain-movers in the NFL of the 2010s.
Tough as nails and blessed with that same Welkerian ability to find the soft spot in any defense, Edelman developed as close of a bond with legendary quarterback Tom Brady as his superstar tight end Rob Gronkowski.
Edelman won three total Super Bowls with the Patriots and would win the Super Bowl MVP in the last of them against the Los Angeles Rams, but, honestly, the Super Bowl play that epitomizes his Patriots career best was the miracle catch of his own against the Atlanta Falcons to truly help the historic 28-3 comeback come to life.
9. Pittsburgh Steelers WR Hines Ward (2006)
It almost seemed like a backhanded compliment that Hines Ward was often dubbed the best blocking wide receiver in the NFL, but the Pittsburgh Steelers star wide receiver of the 2000s was also quite the talented possession wideout, with that same toughness that made him a terror for defensive backs to deal with lending itself to serious YAC potential.
Ward won the Super Bowl MVP in 2005 against the Seattle Seahawks, hauling in 5 passes for 123 yards including the fabled trick play catch from Antwaan Randle El, and he finished his Steelers career with two Super Bowl rings.
Individually, Ward had four straight 1,000-yard seasons and six in total. He had some of the best hands in the NFL at the time and was a perfect security blanket for young gunslinger Ben Roethlisberger.
8. Denver Broncos OLB Von Miller (2016)
Von Miller and the Denver Broncos completely overwhelmed the Carolina Panthers offense in the 2015 NFL season’s Super Bowl, with Miller running rampant over Cam Newton to the tune of 2.5 sacks and 2 forced fumbles.
Newton was the clear MVP of the regular season and performed an all-time carryjob in even taking that Panthers offense to 15-1 and the Super Bowl, but he definitely met his match against the Broncos.
Miller would win another Super Bowl six years later with the Los Angeles Rams, and the three-time First Team All-Pro edge rusher was a perennial standard bearer for the position during the 2010s decade, bleeding into the 2020s.
7. St. Louis Rams QB Kurt Warner (2000)
Everyone knows the story of how Kurt Warner went from bagging groceries to leading the greatest offense in NFL history, having a bit of a Tom Brady storyline of his own after taking over for an injured Trent Green.
When Warner took the reins for the St. Louis Rams at first, people wrote him off thinking the Rams would be done without Green. Instead, they were way better, and Warner helped elevate Isaac Bruce and Torry Holt to Hall of Fame status while forming perhaps the most electrifying quarterback and running back duo of all time with Marshall Faulk – once undervalued by the Indianapolis Colts.
Warner was agonizingly close to two more Super Bowl crowns – having proved the world wrong a decade later with the Arizona Cardinals when he was written off as finished – but his work in the 1999 NFL season and the 2000 Super Bowl with the Rams will forever etch him in NFL lore.
6. Baltimore Ravens MLB Ray Lewis (2001)
The quarterback of the defense, Ray Lewis was the defensive equivalent of Tom Brady and Peyton Manning in their days in the 2000s and early 2010s when it came to dissecting opponents and knowing exactly what they were going to do before they were going to do it.
His Super Bowl MVP occurred towards the beginning of his career when he was wild, controlled chaos, and in his final season, he outsmarted Jim Harbaugh, Colin Kaepernick, and the San Francisco 49ers en route to a fairytale finish to his career with a second Super Bowl ring.
Lewis won two Defensive Player of the Year awards and made it to a jaw-dropping seven First Team All Pros at a time when the NFL was loaded with inside linebacker talent.
5. New Orleans Saints QB Drew Brees (2010)
In his first season with the New Orleans Saints, Drew Brees nearly pulled off a miracle and took the Hurricane Katrina-stricken city to the NFC Championship Game. It would take another five years for him to lead them to the Super Bowl, where he and the former Aints dominated the Indianapolis Colts behind offensive firepower and Sean Payton’s moxie.
Brees is one of the finest passers of all time, and future generations will likely underrate him because he was in the shadow of the likes of Brady, Manning, and Rodgers over the years.
But his accuracy, longevity, and ability to make any wide receiver, tight end, or even running back look like an absolute stud will stand the test of time. Brees clearly outplayed Peyton in his first and only taste of Super Bowl glory, and he finished his NFL career with an outrageous five seasons with 5,000 passing yards, leading the league in passing yards a stunning seven times, passing touchdowns four times, and pass completion percentage for three straight seasons from 2009 t 2011.
A two-time Offensive Player of the Year, Brees never actually won the NFL MVP award, but what he means to the city of New Orleans will trump any single individual honor the NFL voters could have ever handed out.
4. Indianapolis Colts QB Peyton Manning (2007)
In both of Peyton Manning’s Super Bowl conquests, the defense, ironically enough, was the bigger story. The first time he got the proverbial monkey off his back and won Super Bowl MVP over an overmatched Chicago Bears team in the 2006 season, Peyton actually played second fiddle to Bob Sanders in that postseason.
Then the second time, the Denver Broncos defense in 2015, which may be the greatest unit of all time, pulled a retiring and massively hobbled Peyton over the finish line to help him become the worst-performing NFL regular season quarterback to win that year’s Super Bowl.
Take nothing away from Manning, though. He outgunned Brady year after year in the 2000s to be the decade’s greatest statistical passer, lighting up scoreboards with Reggie Wayne, Marvin Harrison, Dallas Clark, Brandon Stokely, and Edgerrin James as part of one of the best offenses in NFL history.
Crazily enough, with the Broncos a few years after leaving Indy, Manning resurrected himself and broke Brady’s records for most passing yards and touchdowns in a single season, cementing his status as the best quarterback at sheerly overwhelming defenses.
3. Green Bay Packers QB Aaron Rodgers (2011)
Although Dan Marino was the first to pass for 5,000 yards, if you ask even quarterbacks, including Tom Brady himself, Aaron Rodgers is the best pure passer in NFL history.
He never was able to replicate his breakout postseason success in the 2010 NFL season when he dominated the Pittsburgh Steelers to win another Super Bowl, and the story of his career will always be shrouded in accusations of ego and an inability to be on the same page as his teammates for a common cause.
But amidst all that conjecture, there were a lot of egos and underachievers on the Packers beyond Rodgers. And his regular-season output was truly unique, including four seasons in which he led the league in QB Rating and seasons with 48:5 and 45:6 touchdown-to-interception ratios.
Rodgers’s ability to go for high-risk passes downfield, hit receivers in the tightest of windows on the sideline with downfield precision, and yet avoid just about any mistakes was uncanny and may never be replicated year over year in NFL history.
2. Kansas City Chiefs QB Patrick Mahomes (2020, 2023, 2024)
Although Patrick Mahomes’s reputation has taken a hit in recent years due to some really mediocre performances and a narrative that he cannot succeed without elite pass-catching talent, there is no questioning his resume, particularly at the beginning of his career.
Mahomes only recently turned 30 and was a Super Bowl MVP in all three of his Super Bowl triumphs with the Chiefs, winning two MVP awards and leading the league in passing touchdowns twice and passing yards once.
Weirdly enough, Mahomes was actually better to start his career in 2018 when he first took over after being sat behind Alex Smith, as his penchant for the spectacular and improv skills were more readily apparent.
Mahomes has settled into almost a game manager role, and while he did make the Super Bowl in the previous season, the Chiefs missed the playoffs entirely in 2025, with Mahomes managing a sub-90.0 QB Rating for the first time in his career.
1. New England Patriots (and Tampa Bay Buccaneers) QB Tom Brady (2002, 2004, 2015, 2017, 2021)
What more can be said about the GOAT? Tom Brady took home Super Bowl MVP honors for both the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and New England Patriots (multiple times) and is, by far, the greatest player and the greatest Super Bowl competitor in NFL history.
The resume is too gaudy to repeat, but the seven rings themselves, the five Super Bowl MVP honors, as well as the Atlanta Falcons comeback win, are the only testaments that are needed to sum up his greatness.
At this point, anyone who tries to tell you that Brady isn’t the goat of football, let alone quarterbacking, is severely deluded. His ability to elevate his game and his teammates, as well as his mental preparation, epitomize what it means to be a great football player.
Joe Soriano is the editor of The Trivela Effect and a FanSided Hall of Famer who has covered world football since 2010. He’s led top digital communities like The Real Champs (Real Madrid) and has run sites covering Tottenham, Liverpool, Juventus, and Schalke. He also helped manage NFL Spin Zone and Daily DDT, covering the NFL and pro wrestling.