Fifteen of 50 AP voters ignored the effort to keep Sam Darnold off the comeback player ballot

For 15 of the 50 AP voters, the effort to keep Sam Darnold off the comeback player of the year ballot didn't take.

Last summer, the Associated Press clarified the standard for the award, ostensibly to keep it from going to a player who had a good year after having one or more not-good seasons for reasons other than injury or illness. “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,” the revised standard explains.

But the language of the clarification didn't slam the door entirely on a player like Darnold. By including the phrase "other circumstances," voters could have reasoned that Darnold's early-career misadventures — fueled by being drafted by the Jets and traded to the Panthers — set the stage for his 2023 experience as the No. 2 quarterback in San Francisco, behind starter Brock Purdy. After Darnold signed with Minnesota for 2024, won the starting job (thanks in part to a preseason season-ending knee injury to first-round rookie J.J. McCarthy), and became the first quarterback ever to win 14 games in his first season with a team, some decided to call it a comeback of the kind that made him eligible for comeback player of the year.

I made him third on my own ballot. Fourteen more did the same. Here's the breakdown of the other voters who parted ways with the intent of the clarification, by ballot placement.

First place: Mike Jones, Adam Schein, Jonathan Jones, Tony Dungy, Ben Volin, Diante Lee, Jim Miller, Dianna Russini.

Second place: Pat Kirwan, Chris Simms.

Third place: Mike Tirico, Aditi Kinkhabwala.

Fourth place: Tom Curran.

Fifth place: Doug Farrar.

Although Rob Maaddi of the AP explained during the season that Darnold wouldn’t be eligible, the AP eventually confirmed that votes for Darnold would not be rejected. In the end, he received eight first-place votes — more than any player except the winner of the award. Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow received 31.

It's unknown, obviously, whether Darnold would have generated enough votes to win, but for the clarification. Burrow had a phenomenal statistical season for a team that failed to make the playoffs, after suffering a season-ending wrist injury in November 2023.

And it remains to be seen whether the AP will further clarify the standard in 2025. Simply removing the "other circumstances" catch-all would prevent a player like, say, Broncos quarterback Zach Wilson from overcoming another Jets-influenced early-career slump that caused him to be buried on the Denver depth chart in 2024 before potentially winning a starting job in 2025 and playing at a high level. Likewise, former Giants starter Daniel Jones, who was cut during the 2024 season before landing on the Minnesota practice squad could, in theory, win a starting job and resurrect his career in 2025.

The easy fix would be to limit the award to players overcoming injury or illness. Until that happens, "comeback" will continue to be in the eye of the beholder. This year, 30 percent of the voters believed that Darnold's comeback was good enough to be one of the five players receiving official votes for comeback player of the year.