On the Sundays that Peter King is not reporting at a football stadium, he watches television from home in Brooklyn, switching between the most important afternoon game and NFL RedZone, a channel that showcases various games during their most dramatic moments.
By 3 a.m. Monday morning, when he files his widely read “Football Morning in America” column, King has seen dozens of touchdowns and hundreds of tackles. Even so, he must then spend time throughout the week watching YouTube highlights of the games he missed.
The N.F.L. is television’s most popular product, with its games accounting for 83 of the top 100 most-watched telecasts in 2022, according to the ratings firm Nielsen. But it is not easy to keep up, even for the 50 journalists, including King, who vote for the Associated Press’s All-Pro team and eight key awards for players and coaches.
Although there are far fewer N.F.L. games than in other major professional sports, it can be a challenge for voters to fully survey the field before submitting their ballots, which were due this week. Traditional statistics and advanced metrics have their limits.
“I just don’t think there is any substitute for watching the games and making a value judgment based on what your eyes tell you,” said King, who works for NBC Sports.
As the influence of beat reporters at local newspapers has dwindled, the voting committee of The Associated Press has shifted toward national reporters, including former players, who cover the entire league. Voters rank their top five M.V.P. candidates and the top three candidates for the other awards, with the winners announced in a gala-like ceremony the week before the Super Bowl. The All-Pro teams will be announced on Friday.
The honors are often leveraged by agents to negotiate eight-figure contract extensions and are important for Pro Football Hall of Fame résumés.
“It’s something that you have to take very seriously and be very dedicated to getting the right answers,” said Bob Glauber, a retired N.F.L. columnist for Newsday who was a voter for two decades.
There is a lot of tape to watch.
N.F.L. teams collectively play 272 regular-season games across 18 weeks. In addition to Sunday afternoons, there are prime-time games on Sundays, Mondays and Thursdays.
After seven Thanksgivings covering Dallas Cowboys games from AT&T Stadium, Jori Epstein, an N.F.L. reporter for Yahoo! Sports and a first-time awards voter, ate dinner with her family in Dallas on the holiday this season. But she covered the night’s prime-time game remotely and was up until 3 a.m. transcribing interviews.
“There are people in my life who have made it clear that they will be happy when football season ends so we can spend more time together,” Epstein said.
Mike Tirico, the play-by-play commentator for NBC’s “Sunday Night Football,” said he called games for more than two-thirds of the league’s 32 teams this season. As part of his preparation, he watches previous games involving the teams that will be on the broadcast.
“It makes for a pretty wide view of anyone who is having a good year in the league,” Tirico, an awards voter, said in an email through an NBC spokesman.
Tom Silverstein, who covers the Green Bay Packers for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and has been an awards voter for about 20 years, said in an email that talking to veteran Packers players about their positional peers helped inform his All-Pro decisions.
Sports talk shows start debating awards in September, but opinions can change quickly late in the season. The San Francisco 49ers quarterback Brock Purdy was considered the leading M.V.P. candidate before throwing four interceptions during a prime-time Christmas game. The current betting favorite is Lamar Jackson, the quarterback who led the Baltimore Ravens to a league-best 13-4 record.
King said that as the season progresses, he spends less time watching games between teams that will miss the playoffs, which could limit his familiarity with potential All-Pro candidates.
“I know that if you don’t watch every play of every game, that you’re open to criticism that you don’t do a thorough enough job,” he said. “But unfortunately, that’s the way I do it.”
One of this season’s toughest choices is for defensive player of the year, considered a tight race between three pass rushers: the Cleveland Browns’ Myles Garrett, the Pittsburgh Steelers’ T.J. Watt and the Cowboys’ Micah Parsons.
King said he begins to seriously consider the awards in December. After the regular season ends, he looks at advanced metrics from analytical websites, including Pro Football Focus and the N.F.L.’s Next Gen Stats.
But he also rewatches how players performed in key moments and pivotal games, noting a highlight from October when Garrett blocked a field goal by leaping over the offensive line.
“Everybody has a busy life, but these awards are forever,” King said. He added, “I want to make absolutely sure that if anybody said, ‘Why did you vote for Player X,’ that I can give them a cogent, logical answer.”
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