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OL Kelvin Beachum is Cardinals' chocie for Walter Payton NFL Man of the Year
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- OL Kelvin Beachum is Cardinals' chocie for Walter Payton NFL Man of the Year
All NFL teams announced on Thursday their nominee for the Walter Payton NFL Man of the Year award for 2025, including the Arizona Cardinals . For the second time since he joined the Cardinals in 2020, it is tackle Kelvin Beachum.
It is the third time in his career that he has been named a team's Man of the Year. He was also a nominee in 2021 with the Cardinals and in 2018 with the New York Jets.
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"While so many players on our team and throughout the league do amazing work in the community, the level of passion and commitment that Kelvin has exhibited during his six seasons in Arizona and throughout his 14-year NFL career is extraordinary," said Cardinals owner Michael Bidwill in the team's press release making the announcement. "He truly pours his heart into everything he undertakes – eliminating food insecurity, increasing access to technology and educational opportunities, leading on social justice initiatives. It is remarkable, commendable and illustrates exactly why he is so deserving of this honor."
What the Walter Payton NFL Man of the Year mean?
The award is the most prestigious off-field award a player can receive. Former Cardinals legend Larry Fitzgerald won it. The award recognizes "players who excel on the field and demonstrate a commitment to making a positive impact beyond the game."
Being the team's selection for the award, Beachum will receive a donation up to $40,000 to the charity of his choice. He also gets to wear a helmet decal through the rest of the season as a nominee.
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The winner of the award for the league will receive up to a $250,000 donation to the charity of his choice. He also will be able to wear a uniform patch of the award for thr rest of his playing days.
When will the Walter Payton NFL Man of the Year be announced?
All 32 club winners will be highlighted as finalists and recognized for their important work during the week leading up to Super Bowl LX in San Francisco. The 2025 "Walter Payton NFL Man of the Year" will be announced during NFL Honors, an awards special to air on NBC on Thursday, February 5.
What work has Kelvin Beachum done?
This comes from the team's press release. Beachum's community work is extensive.
In his sixth season with the Cardinals, Beachum has been an integral part of the Cardinals offensive line and has embraced the opportunity to make a positive impact on the Arizona community just as he has done throughout his 14-year NFL career. He is the only five-time NFLPA Community MVP winner (2016-2019, 2022), was named the 2018 United Way Hometown Hero and was honored with the 2023 "In the Arena" award from the McCain Institute at the prestigious Sedona Forum for his humanitarian work worldwide. He currently serves as a task force member for the Players Coalition where he focuses on education equity and serves as an Advisory Board member for Donors Choose, an organization that allows individuals to donate directly to public school classroom projects. His alma mater, Southern Methodist, honored him last year by establishing the "Kelvin Beachum Outstanding Athlete Award," given to a Black student-athlete who exemplifies excellence both on and off the field.
In October, Beachum released a children's book titled "Kelvin's Big Adventure Map" based on his life story that details how his career on the field opened opportunities to travel the world, explore new cultures, and find ways to give back. All proceeds from the book sales go towards supporting literacy programs through Donors Choose.
Ending hunger and providing access to clean water has long been an important cause to Beachum. Since joining the Cardinals, Beachum has helped serve over 1.5 million meals in seven different food banks across the country through a donation of $360,000. A monthly volunteer at the United Food Bank, Beachum and fellow offensive lineman Paris Johnson Jr. hosted a Thanksgiving food distribution event at the Eisenhower Center for Innovation last month where they led the Cardinals 2025 rookie class in handing out turkeys, fresh produce and other food items to over 250 Mesa Public School families. He also volunteered at the Cardinals yearly "Feed the Hungry" event in November and helped serve a Thanksgiving meal to those in need at the Phoenix Rescue Mission.
In each of the last two seasons, Beachum has participated in the "Feeding Families" fundraiser competition with former MLB All-Star Curtis Granderson to see who could raise the most money to feed families in their respective homes of Arizona and Chicago. This year, he partnered with Raising Canes who generously donated 15% of its net sales from five different Valley locations in the month of November towards United Food Bank in support of Beachum. He visited each of the locations throughout the month to help serve food and promote the cause.
Through the NFL's My Cause My Cleats initiative, Beachum has supported World Vision and the organization's goal to ensure access to clean water. The collaboration was especially meaningful as the cleats in each of the last two seasons were designed by a student at the Mesa Youth Creative Agency, a nonprofit organization that provides teens with part-time employment and helps fuel their passion for the arts.
Outspoken about his climate change activism, Beachum was named a "Team Ocean Captain" for the Ocean Conservancy's "Protect Where We Play" initiative that seeks to leverage the reach of athletes, artists, hometown teams and events to mobilize millions of fans worldwide and unite them in support of ocean conservation. Launched in February 2025, the initiative won in the category of "Purpose-led Partnership with a Non-profit" at the Sport Positive Awards in London for its partnership with GOAL. For the last three seasons, he has also participated as a judge for the Impact League, a sustainability competition that tracks the positive actions that SailGP teams make to reduce their carbon footprints and accelerate inclusivity in sailing.
During the 2024 offseason, Beachum personally donated $30,000 and fundraised another $15,000 to build three water wells in Africa through World Vision to provide clean water access with 8,400 gallons of clean water generated daily through the wells. In March of the same year, he and his wife traveled to Zambia to see the functioning water wells and their impact in the community.
In 2020, the Beachum family hosted a food and Christmas tree donation for 100 families at Sirrine Elementary School in Chandler, AZ through a partnership with Lowe's and the United Food Bank. The year prior, he donated $10,000 to the United Way of Newark to provide 125,000 water bottles to residents in need following the Newark Water Crisis in 2019. He celebrated World Food Day 2018 with a fan match initiative that raised $75,000 for several food banks, which helped serve more than 327,000 meals.
Working with the Central Texas Food Bank, Beachum created a monthly mobile food pantry to feed families in his hometown of Mexia, and in 2017, he was named Ambassador at Large for the Central Texas Food Bank, helping raise $100,000 and matching that contribution. Beachum continues to contribute his time and financial resources to the Houston Food Bank, Pittsburgh Food Bank, Feeding Northeast Florida Food Bank and the Food Bank of New York City (Harlem). In 2015, he also partnered with the Bread for the World organization with the goal of ending hunger in the U.S. and around the world by lobbying Congress to improve summer food programs for school children and pass the Global Food Security Act in 2016.
Closing the "digital divide" is another cause of particular significance to Beachum and was the topic of an NFL.com op-ed that he penned in December of 2021 in which he expressed concern for children of color and students for underserved communities lacking access to internet and technology. During the 2021 season, he donated over 40 laptops and tablets to Arizona schools to address those concerns and help bridge that divide. Since then, he has personally donated more than $55,000 in personal education scholarships. In October of 2021, Beachum announced the NFL's Player Coalition's donation of $50,000 to help install new internet access points for 25 school campuses in the Ector County Independent School District in West Texas, and in 2020, he made a $15,000 donation through Donors Choose to fund 34 projects across Arizona school districts to support STEAM education resources, diverse books for classroom libraries and clean water access.
In 2016, Beachum created "Kelvin Konnects," a STEAM initiative and program designed to increase minority access to careers within the Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics disciplines. As part of that program, "Kelvin Konnects" works with students of the Barack Obama Male Leadership Academy in Dallas and pairs them with industry leaders, local and federal elected officials and offers the opportunity for the students to immerse themselves in the world of STEAM. Each year, he also provides a backpack full of school supplies for each of the 500 children who participant in his annual football camp in Mexia.
Get more Cardinals and NFL coverage from Cards Wire's Jess Root and others by listening to the latest on the Rise Up, See Red podcast. Subscribe on Spotify , YouTube or Apple podcasts .
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This article originally appeared on Cards Wire: OL Kelvin Beachum is Cardinals' chocie for Walter Payton NFL Man of the Year
