The National Football League Most Valuable Player Award (NFL MVP) is an award given by various entities to the American football player who is considered the most valuable in the National Football League (NFL). Organizations which currently give an NFL MVP award or have in the past include the Associated Press (AP), the Newspaper Enterprise Association (NEA), Pro Football Writers of America (PFWA), and United Press International (UPI). The first award described as a most valuable player award was the Joe F. Carr Trophy, awarded by the NFL from 1938 to 1946. Today, the AP award is considered the de facto official NFL MVP award. Since the 2011 season, the NFL has held the annual NFL Honors ceremony to recognize the winner of the Associated Press MVP award.
When Don Hutson won the award back in 1941 & 1942, it was actually called the Joe F. Carr Award, which was named for the first-ever commissioner of the NFL. Since 1957, the main MVP Award has been given by the Associated Press. The MVP Award given by the Pro Football Writers of America actually goes back to 1975. There's also been an MVP Award given out by the Sporting News, which started in 1954. The first player to win that award was Lou Groza from the Cleveland Browns. From 1970 to 1979, the Sporting News chose to select an MVP from each conference and returned to a single winner in 1980. They've also been selecting an Offensive Player of the Year and Defensive Player of the Year since 2012, which may or may not have been whom the Associated Press picked for that award in that year since 2012.
In other words, Todd Gurley and Aaron Donald may have been named Offensive and Defensive Players of the Year, respectively, by the Associated Press. But, that doesn't mean they were named by the Sporting News for those awards. And I don't even have a subscription for the Sporting News. I actually have a subscription to Sports Illustrated that, in 2021, would've been 30 years to the date when I started. I'm just reading what it says on the Wikipedia page.