Manning and McNair make it three straight years a quarterback has been selected most valuable player. Oakland's Rich Gannon won last year and Kurt Warner was the 2001 MVP.
The other ties came in 1997 (Brett Favre and Barry Sanders) and in 1960 (Norm Van Brocklin and Joe Schmidt).
Comeback Player
Jon Kitna's comeback in 2003 mirrored the Cincinnati Bengals' resurgence, earning him the AP NFL Comeback Player of the Year award Friday.
For Kitna, who at one point in the 2003 season was on the verge of being benched, it was a reward for his perseverance. The seven-year veteran had his best professional season in his third year in Cincinnati, where the Bengals went 8-24 before he quarterbacked a turnaround to an 8-8 mark this season.
"My whole life, I never had anything handed to me," Kitna said. "Nobody thought I was `the guy.' I was always a pretty good athlete, but I was never one that people clamored about or anything like that. My personality ended up helping me.
"In this league, very few people are going to have things handed to them. The majority of people have to fight for it."
Kitna fought off a huge field of contenders for the award. He edged Dallas quarterback Quincy Carter in wide-open balloting that saw 15 players receive votes from a nationwide panel of 50 sports writers and broadcasters who cover the NFL.
Kitna got eight votes to seven for Carter and six for Baltimore tackle Orlando Brown. Carolina running back Stephen Davis and Kansas City safety Jerome Woods were next with five each.
After struggling in the opening game against Denver and seeing Cincinnati start 0-3 and 1-4, it appeared coach Marvin Lewis was ready to replace Kitna with top overall draft pick Carson Palmer. Lewis elevated Palmer from third string to backup quarterback.
But Kitna responded and the Bengals won six of their next seven games to surge to the top of AFC North. They wound up second in the division to Baltimore.
Kitna was the only quarterback in the league to take every snap this season and threw a career-high 26 TD passes, second in the AFC to Peyton Manning. He had four three-touchdown games.
"Finally people started to see our team as something serious," said Kitna, 31. "You look back and say there's certain things you'd like to have done differently, but it was great for Marvin and his first year and what we're trying to build.''
Success was not something new to Kitna, who started 33 games in Seattle over four seasons and took the Seahawks to the playoffs in 1999. But when the Seahawks didn't re-sign him after the 2000 season, he went job-hunting and wound up in Cincinnati.
Not until this year did things go well again for Kitna, who was not drafted out of college (Central Washington, then an NAIA team).
"Ever since he came out of college, he's overcome the odds," Bengals offensive coordinator Bob Bratkowski said.
Kitna is the first Bengal to win Comeback Player and the third quarterback in the six years the award has been presented.
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