Joe Montana Wins Bert Bell Award Handily
The Maxwell Football Club today named San Francisco quarterback Joe Montana winner of the 31st annual Bert Bell award as the year’s outstanding professional football player.
Members of the Maxwell Club, Pro Writers Assn., representatives of the National Football League teams and Philadelphia-area sportswriters gave Montana 1,638 points, far ahead of 234 points for Detroit Lions running back Barry Sanders.
Three points were awarded for each first-place vote, two points for each second and one point for each third.
Montana got 90% or 516 of the 573 first-place votes.
Sanders got nine first-place votes, while Green Bay quarterback Don Majkowski and Seattle wide receiver Steve Largent got eight first-place votes each. Last year’s Bert Bell winner, Randall Cunningham, got seven first-place votes.
The award is based on the regular season, during which Montana completed 70.2% or 271 of his 386 pass attempts. He threw for 3,521 yards or 9.12 yards per completion.
Twenty-six of his passes were for touchdowns and he threw eight interceptions.
Montana is due to receive the award Feb. 20 in Philadelphia.
Get our high school sports newsletter
Prep Rally is devoted to the SoCal high school sports experience, bringing you scores, stories and a behind-the-scenes look at what makes prep sports so popular.
You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.
