By BOB KRAVITZ
The Indianapolis Star

Let's get this straight right off the bat: Marvin Harrison will not win anybody's MVP. As great as he has been, as many records as he has shattered, he is not going to win it, much less get consideration.

If Jerry Rice never won an MVP with the San Francisco 49ers, no wide receiver, not Harrison, not Randy Moss, not a Sharpie-carrying Terrell Owens, will win an MVP, not in this lifetime.

In the end, this isn't about Midwest bias, or small-market bias, or any of those silly conspiracies fans love to roll out when their local heroes don't get their due.

This is about wide receiver bias. Pure and simple.

Check it out: Since the Associated Press started giving out an MVP award, it has gone to 28 quarterbacks, 14 running backs, two linebackers, one defensive end, one defensive tackle and yes, one kicker, Washington's Mark Moseley in 1982.

Wide receivers? Exactly the same numbers as left guards and long snappers. Zilch.

The reason? My suspicion is the rules. Few rules have done more to change the way a professional sport is played, or the way statistics are altered, than the NFL's decision in 1978 to let receivers roam freely beyond five yards of the line of scrimmage.

Rules changes in other sports changed those games dramatically. The addition of basketball's 24-second clock. The three-point hoop. The lowering of the pitcher's mound in baseball. But those rules essentially affected everybody involved in the game.

The rule change in 1978 specifically was designed to change the lives of receivers and quarterbacks, to open up a passing game that had become stilted by hyper-physical cornerbacks and safeties who turned receivers into processed meat.

In the bad old days, a wide receiver could be mugged from the moment he left the line of scrimmage until the time the ball was thrown. He got bumped at the line. He got pillaged 10 yards down the field. He got pummeled, or worse, as he came across the middle. And pass interference? No autopsy, no foul.

"I'd have liked to have seen guys like Paul Warfield play in this era," head coach Tony Dungy said.

In the year before the NFL chose to open up the passing game - it began in 1977 with a rule allowing just one bump on a receiver, then was amended in 1978 to no bumping past five yards - the leading receivers were Kansas City's MacArthur Lane (66 catches) and Dallas' Drew Pearson (58).

These days, 100-catch seasons are the rule with the game's top wide receivers. The number has become devalued, like 1,000 yards rushing or 60 home runs. So Marvin broke the record in 14 games? It's enough to make USA TODAY and Sports Illustrated show up for a couple of days, but little more.

Ask anybody about MVP candidates, the conversation begins and ends with Rich Gannon, Brett Favre and Ricky Williams.

Harrison?

"He won't win it," Dungy said. "But he'd get my vote."

Here's my question, though: If the rules changes most dramatically affected only quarterbacks and wide receivers, why is it that 14 of the last 23 MVPs have been quarterbacks? While none, as we mentioned, have been wide receivers?

Today's quarterback numbers are skewed all out of proportion beyond those produced by Y.A. Tittle, John Brodie and Bart Starr back in the bump-and-bruise days. But that doesn't seem to make a difference with today's voters. With wide receivers, though, it does.

If I had a vote, I don't know if I'd vote for Harrison, but I certainly wouldn't take him out of the equation for being a wide receiver. In my mind, he's part of the conversation, along with Williams, Favre and Gannon.

Anyway, it would be a wasted vote. Wide receivers don't win these things. Exactly why, I'm still not quite sure.

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Bob Kravitz is a columnist for The Indianapolis Star. Contact him at 1-317-444-6643 or via e-mail at bob.kravitz@indystar.com

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