FedEx Air & Ground NFL Players of the Week

• 1. Introduction

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  The FedEx Air and Ground NFL Players of the Week award has handed out recognition to the league's best performers every week since 2003, named directly after FedEx's two core business divisions: FedEx Express, the cargo airline, and FedEx Ground, the land delivery service. What began as a simple quarterback-versus-running-back contest has, over two decades, become one of the most complete statistical records of individual NFL excellence that exists. The award raises a few questions worth sitting with. Who keeps winning it? Does the same name show up again and again, or does greatness rotate? And when the rules changed in 2024 to open the door to wide receivers and tight ends, did it reshape the whole conversation about offensive dominance in the modern game?

• 2. Two Categories, One Concept

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  The original design was clean: Air for quarterbacks, Ground for running backs. One winner per category, per week, chosen by fans voting in an online poll at NFL.com, with results typically announced on Wednesday. Nominees were drawn from standout individual statistical performances spanning Thursday through Monday games each week of the regular season. At the end of the year, the weekly winners fed into a season-long vote for the Air and Ground Players of the Year.

  The categories held that shape from 2003 all the way through the 2023 season. Then, starting in 2024, eligibility expanded to include wide receivers and tight ends. The format shifted alongside: instead of two separate category winners, six nominees were presented without position labels, and the top two overall vote-getters claimed the Air and Ground titles regardless of where they lined up. Ja'Marr Chase of the Cincinnati Bengals made immediate history under this new system, becoming the first wide receiver ever to win the award, doing so in 2024 after catching 127 passes for 1,708 yards and 17 touchdowns.

• 3. The Quarterbacks Who Dominated

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  Drew Brees finished his career as the most decorated Air Player of the Week in the award's history. He claimed his 30th weekly Air award in 2018, the same season he passed Brett Favre for most career pass completions. A year earlier, in 2013, Brees was named Air Player of the Week for a record 21st time in a single ceremony. His Air Player of the Year titles came in 2006, 2008, 2009, and 2011. In 2011 alone he threw for 5,476 yards, 46 touchdowns, and 14 interceptions, earning Offensive Player of the Year honors that season.

  Peyton Manning holds the most Air and Ground Player of the Year titles combined. He won the Air Player of the Year award in 2003, 2004, 2012, and 2013. His 2013 season was the one that broke the record books: 5,477 yards, 55 touchdowns, and only 10 interceptions. In Week 16 of that season, he threw his 51st touchdown pass, surpassing the previous single-season touchdown record. Aaron Rodgers and Brett Favre both rank among the top career weekly award winners as well; Favre earned his 20th and final career Air Player of the Week award in Week 9 of the 2010 season, throwing for a career-high 446 yards in that game.

  Patrick Mahomes joined the elite tier quickly. His 2018 season produced 5,097 yards, 50 touchdowns, and 12 interceptions, earning him the NFL MVP and Offensive Player of the Year. Tom Brady collected the Air Player of the Year award in 2021 with 5,316 yards and 43 touchdowns for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. The 2007 season produced one of the award's more dramatic closing chapters: in Week 17, Brady set the single-season touchdown record at 50, and New England finished the regular season at 16-0.

• 4. The Running Backs Who Defined the Ground Game

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  Derrick Henry leads all players in career Ground Player of the Week awards, counting his weekly wins from 2024 and 2025 alongside the earlier categorized era. His 2020 season with the Tennessee Titans stands as one of the great rushing performances in the award's history: 378 carries, 2,027 yards, and 17 touchdowns, earning him Offensive Player of the Year. Henry won the Ground Player of the Year award in both 2019 and 2020, and by 2025 he had returned from injury to win Comeback Player of the Year while rushing for 1,202 yards and 17 touchdowns for the Baltimore Ravens.

  LaDainian Tomlinson set pace-setting milestones during the mid-2000s. In Week 14 of the 2006 season, he broke the single-season touchdown record, reaching 29 on the season. The following week he became the first player ever named Ground Player of the Week eight times in a single season. His 2006 campaign ended with 348 carries, 1,815 yards, and 28 touchdowns, earning him NFL MVP and Offensive Player of the Year. He won his 18th and final Ground Player of the Week award in Week 4 of the 2010 season.

  Adrian Peterson produced two of the award's most statistically exceptional rushing seasons. In 2012, while winning NFL MVP and Offensive Player of the Year, he totaled 348 carries, 2,097 yards, and 12 touchdowns for the Minnesota Vikings. In 2009, a single-game performance helped define the weekly award's ceiling: in Week 9, Peterson carried 30 times for 296 yards and 3 touchdowns. Christian McCaffrey became one of the most versatile Ground award winners; his 2023 season with San Francisco produced 272 carries, 1,459 yards, and 21 touchdowns, earning him his first Ground Player of the Year. He returned in 2025 to win it again after his Comeback Player of the Year season.

• 5. Firsts and Milestones

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  The weekly award has functioned as a kind of unofficial hall of early achievement. In Week 13 of the 2004 season, Julius Jones of the Dallas Cowboys became the first rookie named Ground Player of the Week. Robert Griffin III matched that category in 2012, becoming both the first rookie and the first player in his NFL debut to win Air Player of the Week, after throwing for 320 yards and 2 touchdowns in Week 1. In Week 9 of that same season, Andrew Luck set a single-game passing record for most yards by a rookie, throwing for 433.

  LaDainian Tomlinson's 2005 counterpart in the Air category was Carson Palmer. In Week 12 of the 2005 season, Palmer became the first quarterback named Air Player of the Week five times in a single season. That same season, in Week 11, Reuben Droughns became the first player to win Ground Player of the Week for two different teams. Kerry Collins had done something similar a year earlier: in 2004, he became the first player to earn Air Player of the Week honors while playing for two different franchises.

  Brett Favre crossed a different kind of line in Week 4 of the 2009 season. Playing for the Minnesota Vikings, he became the first quarterback to defeat all 32 NFL teams, and simultaneously the first player to be named Air Player of the Week while wearing the uniform of three different franchises. The entire 2009 season also marked a quiet statistical anomaly: it was the first year since the award's 2003 launch in which no first-time winners emerged in the Air Player of the Week category.

• 6. The Award Evolves

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  The 2024 format change did more than expand eligibility. It fundamentally altered how dominance gets measured. Without fixed categories, voters choose the two most impressive performers from any offensive skill position, which means a wide receiver with a historic game can outpoll a quarterback. Ja'Marr Chase's 2024 Air and Ground Player of the Year season demonstrated exactly that: 127 receptions, 1,708 yards, and 17 touchdowns placed him alongside Josh Allen, who won the other 2024 Player of the Year slot with 3,731 yards, 28 touchdowns, and 6 interceptions while earning NFL MVP honors.

  The 2025 season produced the first three-player Player of the Year split. Josh Allen won one slot again. Christian McCaffrey and Jaxon Smith-Njigba of the Seattle Seahawks shared the other recognition, with Smith-Njigba posting 119 receptions, 1,793 yards, and 10 touchdowns on his way to Offensive Player of the Year. The award's structure now accommodates that kind of split, because the top two vote-getters overall earn the designation regardless of position. Smith-Njigba's win shows what the expanded format can surface: a receiver who might never have qualified under the original quarterback-only Air rules is now an official FedEx Player of the Year.