Bills assistant athletic trainer Denny Kellington, who performed life-saving CPR on Damar Hamlin, received a fifth-place vote for NFL Most Valuable Player, the Associated Press' Rob Maadi tweeted Sunday.
The MVP and the full voting will be released after the Associated Press NFL awards are presented at NFL Honors on Feb. 9 in Arizona.
According to Maadi, the lead NFL writer for the AP, the vote came from ESPN's Suzy Kolber, who told the AP it was a “symbolic gesture representing ‘everyone’ who carries the weight of that job, every week. They rarely get the recognition they deserve.”
Under a new voting system instituted this year, the 50 members of a nationwide panel of reporters and broadcasters vote for their top five selections for MVP. This is the same panel that votes for the AP All-Pro team and other awards. The AP MVP has been awarded since 1957.
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Denny Kellington, the @BuffaloBills assistant athletic trainer who performed CPR on Damar Hamlin on the field, received a fifth-place MVP vote. The official voting breakdown will be released after The Associated Press NFL awards are presented at NFL Honors on Feb. 9.
— Rob Maaddi (@RobMaaddi) January 15, 2023
Kellington has been with the Bills since 2017 after a long career at Syracuse University and was part of an extensive team of athletic trainers and medical professionals to tend to Hamlin, whose heart needed to be restarted after he collapsed on the field in Cincinnati on Jan. 2.
"To put in context, for an assistant to find himself at that position and needed to take the action that he did, and step up, and take charge like he did was nothing short of amazing and the courage that it took," Bills coach Sean McDermott said of Kellington in the aftermath of the incident. "You talk about a real leader and a real hero saving Damar’s life. I just admire his strength."
