It’s your last chance to right Pro Bowl wrongs!

| December 20, 2010

Yes, voting for the Pro Bowl ends today at NFL.com, and our Neil Hornsby spent the better part of his weekend working on his final appeal for the right guys to take their trip to Hawaii this season.

Among the most preposterous fan favorites, he takes special exception to the appearance of several Steeler offensive linemen: “I’ve always found Steeler fans to be among the most knowledgeable around … what possessed them to vote for almost every man on probably the second-worst offensive line in the NFL?”

He has praise, too, for underappreciated guys like Jason Witten, two Panther offensive linemen and Bart Scott. He finds room for only three rookies (two on special teams), and neither is named Ndamukong Suh.

Read Neil’s picks in the AFC here.

Read Neil’s picks in the NFC here.

  • http://www.profootballfocus.com Jonathan Comey

    I think I’d put Vick on over Rodgers, but that’s a tough call.

  • John Breitenbach

    Hurray for Asante! After Vick’s performance last night I’m not sure you can leave him out. There’s not a QB alive who could have pulled that off.

  • PaulK

    Interesting how the Patriots offense leads the league with 446 points and the Eagles are second with 412, but in another recent article it wasn’t Brady that was so good, it was the rest of the Patriot team that was so good. So where are all the Patriots on this list? I see Gronkowski in sixth place for tight end and I see McCourty in third place, and that’s it.

    New England fans have grumbled before that they are consistently snubbed every year, starting in 2001 when a Super Bowl commentator said before the game that New England had a lucky horseshoe up their butt. One good year, San Diego had 10 players scheduled for the Pro Bowl and New England had 1. At the beginning of this season your site’s staffers were debating whether New England would even make the playoffs. It’s odd for me to be consistently from no-talent town.

  • http://www.profootballfocus.com Sam Monson

    New England are a perfect example of a team greater than the sum of its parts. Or maybe that’s not strictly accurate, maybe they’re an example of a team where the mean level of play is simply higher than other teams’ mean level, despite fewer extremeties at either end (ie nobody playing amazingly well, and nobody getting killed every week)

    Either way I think the ideas that no one person is responsible for their success and the fact that half the offense isn’t in the Pro-Bowl team aren;t mutually exclusive.

    I think the scheme is huge in New England. I don’t want to convey all the negative connotations of a ‘system’ as in college, but think of some college sides that don’t have a lot of stars on offense, nobody is setting the place alight, but the system means they have success on offense. The Triple Option, June Jones’ run’n'shoot variants, Mike Leach’s Texas Tech offense. New England with their current personnel have perfected an offense for 2010. It’s making the best of its personnel, it’s putting everybody in the best position for them to make plays (as opposed to shoehorning them into the scheme you’ve decided you WILL be running this year).

    It’s not necessarily that there’s no talent on the roster, there certainly is, just that few of them are playing SO well that they’re demanding of a Pro-Bowl spot.

  • http://www.profootballfocus.com Jonathan Comey

    I agree with Sam — Mankins would have been there with a full season, but I wouldn’t kick any of this list off for a Patriot. Maybe McCourty just because of his growth. I’m based in New England and have seen their games, but the fact is that they’ve gotten an incredible amount of good performances that have added up to greatness.

  • harryddunn

    Besides Suh, who was the closest Lion to making the list? Avril, Delmas?

    • http://www.profootballfocus.com Jonathan Comey

      Really no one else was close. Calvin Johnson made it, though.

  • skim172

    This might seem trite, but any consideration for the Ravens’ Billy Cundiff as the AFC kicker? I know, Bironas only has one miss on the season, which is pretty good. But Cundiff might be on the verge of breaking some kickoff records. He’s kicked 38 touchbacks this season, out of 70 attempts. That’s 54.3% of all kicks going into the end zone – more than half his kickoffs. No one else in the league is above 36%. He’s averaging 71.7 yards per kickoff. I have no idea what the standing records are for these stats, but I’m assuming that breaking 50% isn’t usually the norm.

    And he’s done well as a field goal kicker, too – 22 of 25, 88%, tied for 7th in the league.

    I admit, Bironas is putting up some points with remarkable accuracy, but dammit, Cundiff’s rocket leg deserves some sort of recognition.

    Of course, fan voting ended with Scobee as the leader – I guess 59-yard game-winners stick in people’s minds.

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