Bad Measure Or Overhyped?
May 16th, 2020
Fair form of measurement?
Look, Joe is not a huge fan of the Pro Bowl. And in recent years, Joe hasn’t watched the Pro Bowl because it often conflicts with Joe’s travel schedule to the Super Bowl.
The last time the Joe typing here watched the Pro Bowl was when Mr. Entertainment, America’s Quarterback, Jameis Winston, played in it. Joe found a sports bar atop a San Francisco hill near Union Square to watch the game. There was no audio of the Pro Bowl as the bar was packed with people watching some non-basketball association game featuring a local team (blech!).
Some NFL fans want the game abolished. The NFL is unlikely to do that because enough people watch it that TV networks are willing to cut a fat check for broadcast rights.
The NFL is all about money. Never forget that.
Now Joe has railed in recent years about the Pro Bowl, not so much the game but the way players are selected. Lavonte David annually gets shafted. So Joe isn’t sure a Pro Bowl selection is a quality gauge to determine this following list.
Mike Sando of The Athletic decided cobbled together a list of what teams surround their quarterbacks with the best offensive talent.
Now it is believed the Bucs have rare talent around Tom Brady with Mike Evans and Chris Godwin and Cam Brate and O.J. Howard and Rob Gronkowski.
By Sando’s account, it is just the opposite.
Sando calculates the number of starts the team had with Pro Bowl players on offense the past four years. So Gronk doesn’t count because he was with the Belicheats.
So per Sando’s calculations, he has the Bucs ranked at No. 21 in terms of support for park-violating, home-invading quarterback Tom Brady.
21. Tampa Bay Buccaneers
Non-qualifying Pro Bowl starts (16): Evans 16
Ranking if non-qualifying starts were included: 21st
Offensive PPG rank: 13th
QB with most starts: Jameis Winston with 54 (22-32, .407)The Buccaneers rank lower on this list than the quality of their weaponry would suggest, mainly because they have lacked quality along the line and in the backfield. If Rob Gronkowski plays enough, he could become the second Pro Bowl tight end in franchise history, joining four-time choice Jimmie Giles, who last played for the team in 1986.
The recent history of David getting stiffed year after year suggests folks just didn’t pay attention to the Bucs and believed they were irrelevant. So unless a player was at the top of his game (Evans and Godwin), where they couldn’t be ignored, it seemed as if a Bucs player making the Pro Bowl was a lost cause.
Joe sees where Sando is coming from. Still, every half-baked and fully-baked NFL analyst believes with the weapons Brady has now, his career could and likely will be rekindled.
Pro Bowl players or not.
May 16th, 2020 at 12:12 am
Anything that relies on Pro Bowl stats is bound to be BS because Pro Bowl voting is BS. There needs to be a separate category for fans. Head coaches, players, and one media rep per NFL city should vote on the actual Pro Bowl. It’s utter BS that great players will be passed over for the HoF simply because fans don’t know who they are.
May 16th, 2020 at 12:33 am
I used to enjoy the Pro Bowl before it became more like tag football and many of the top talents of the NFL would decline so much so that the mid-level talents were getting in because of the lack of interest from the top talents..
The Bucs former turnover Machine is a great example… 2-3 QBs declined before they had to settle for him…
It has lost a lot of its value over the past 5-10 years!
May 16th, 2020 at 12:37 am
Unless your team has a winning record, plays for Dallas, or is in the Northeast, it’s players will never get fair treatment in pro bowl voting or all pro voting. The process is rigged, just like the HOF is rigged with all of the morons in the Northeast voting for each other’s guys (Hello Brian freaking Dawkins). As much as I think that every one of our offensive linemen are overrated, it’s a gosh darn crime that Ali has not been to a single pro bowl. Another travesty is T.J. Watt earning DPOY despite being a lesser player than Shaq and Chandler Jones this past year. Even though the Steelers did not have a winning record, the buddy network up there got their boy in. Life’s not fair, but damn, this sh!t should be regulated better and with some integrity.
May 16th, 2020 at 12:57 am
National spotlight this year will garner multiple probowlers on offense and defense.
It’s a popularity contest coupled with good play. We will be popular this year.
Watch and weep little bo peep!
In BA I Trust!
May 16th, 2020 at 12:59 am
****My bad on T.J. winning DPOY, it was actually actually Stephon Gilmore. Nonetheless, I remember reading some articles leading up to the voting and Shaq was given no respect. Chandler came in second, so outside of Shaq being screwed over, I was wrong in that last example.
May 16th, 2020 at 3:08 am
Lavonte David, the only player in NFL history to make the all-pro team yet not make the pro-bowl — in a year where Luke Kuechly won the MVP, yet David put up better numbers… In any case the pro-bowl is a joke, then add on top of it that it has fan voting. Anything with fan voting is a complete waste of time.
May 16th, 2020 at 4:05 am
I watched the pro bowl once when I was 10yo.
Went to play chess with my brother before halftime.
May 16th, 2020 at 6:20 am
I will say this….if Gronk has a Pro Bowl year……we will be in fantastic shape in the win column…..
I don’t have much faith in the Pro Bowl selection process…..
May 16th, 2020 at 6:21 am
Turn voting over to the advance scouts, pro-personnel directors and GMs, and let the coaches keep their vote! Or just give out a new award with these voters and we can put the PFF tribe out of business for good.
May 16th, 2020 at 6:43 am
Any ranking system where the outcome determines that we have the 21st best offense surrounding Tom Brady, is a flawed ranking system.
May 16th, 2020 at 7:17 am
Pro Bowl is just a popularity contest. Dont see how it can be used to measure talent on a team when a lot of players decline to go and the best teams dont go because they are in the SB.
No sports means that the sports media outlets are just reaching for any content. I dont put any stock into this. I dont put any stock into the pro bowl in general.
May 16th, 2020 at 9:26 am
At the end of the day it is a popularity contest not a gauge of talent much less production.
If I’m not in the wrong sport doesn’t the NFL use the old 1/3 method…coaches…players..fans?
All three of the groups have their own biases for their own reasons and letting fans vote more than once leaves players in the 13th largest market at a significant disadvantage.
“The NFL is all about money. Never forget that.”
I absolutely agree and I understand the touch of snark with never forget that.
I also understand those who feel the NFL is beyond greedy…getting citizens to pay for their factories and places of business…getting “Universities” to support their talent development system…so no doubt about having a mean squeeze on the dollar.
Gordon Gecko said greed is good and I ask would your statement be just as true if typed.
“The USA is all about money. Never forget that.”
May 16th, 2020 at 9:41 am
Where’s Shaw on that list?
May 16th, 2020 at 11:03 am
If Bucs make the playoffs none of them them care about the pro now then would much rather have a chance to win the super bowl. Pro bow is irrelevant and has been to me for a very long time
May 16th, 2020 at 11:39 am
The Pro Bowl is a complete joke. Until production is included in the choosing process, it really is not any kid of honor, and allowing fans to vote was the worst move ever. They vote over and over, rigging the process.
May 16th, 2020 at 12:47 pm
The NFL should make the p-bowl a virutal game of Madden.