Four Vikings Make the Pro Bowl Roster

[J. Kapp 11]

Saturday over Sullivan is a JOKE.

Aaron Rodgers has been sacked the second-most times for the second-most yards, and Green Bay has no running game whatsoever.

I feel bad for Greenway, but there are a lot of great linebackers in the NFC.

Winfield is good, but I get it. He's a nickel corner now, for the most part. I'm sure glad we have him, though.

In the AFC, Matt Schaub getting in over Andrew Luck is as much a joke as Saturday over Sullivan. Schaub is a very limited quarterback who absolutely disappears in the clutch. Luck has seven comeback wins as a ROOKIE and is, without a doubt, the reason the Colts have 10 wins and a playoff berth after a 2-win season in '11.

I hate Pro Bowl voting.

[PurpleHalo]

I care. Yes, the game is crap and I won't be watching it, but that really doesn't matter. IMO, they should eliminate the fan voting aspect of the selection process, even though it only counts for 1/3 of the vote.

Maybe an NFL test before you vote.

[Hunter Morrow]

Jeff Saturday? He's a villain in Wisconsin, nearly as bad as Mason Crosby or all their receivers when they drop the balls all game long.

Aaron Rodgers got sacked 8 times...IN A HALF.

He gets sacked on average 3 times a game. Second most in the league! For a net loss of 261 yards!

20th in the league in rushing yards! 20th! The leading rusher doesn't even have 500 yards on the season!

[Cliff]

For fan voting they should change it so a person doesn't have to vote for every position in both conferences. I think that is part of the reason stuff like that happens. Many people are only fans of one or two teams and don't know much about how other players on other teams are doing. Especially in the case of positions along the offensive line where there really aren't stats a person can go by.

[glg]

The one upside of Saturday making it is that he probably has a bonus in his contract for it that the Pack now has to pay. For a guy they benched. Thompson's going to love writing that check...

[Hunter Morrow]

Oh right, I forgot to mention that Saturday got benched.

[9man]

Pro Bowl game is a JOKE. Pro Bowl recognition though, is not.

That said, Allen definitely should not have made it. Greenway should've made it. A case could be made for Harrison Smith. Saturday over Sullivan is...I don't even know how to explain that one. The one that ticks me off the most is Kalil. I think Kalil has been a top 7 LT this year.

This

Greenway always gets snubbed
Kalil should definitely be in, solid all season

[S197]

Saturday over Sullivan is a JOKE.

Agreed. It's a case of name recognition like when John Lynch kept making the Pro Bowl well after his prime.

I feel bad for Greenway, but there are a lot of great linebackers in the NFC.

Yeah Greenway gets the tackles but you look at the guys who made the roster and it's hard to say Greenway got snubbed.

Winfield is good, but I get it. He's a nickel corner now, for the most part. I'm sure glad we have him, though.

Yup, and not to mention there's other guys like Richard Sherman who probably deserve to be in the game before Winfield.

In the AFC, Matt Schaub getting in over Andrew Luck is as much a joke as Saturday over Sullivan. Schaub is a very limited quarterback who absolutely disappears in the clutch. Luck has seven comeback wins as a ROOKIE and is, without a doubt, the reason the Colts have 10 wins and a playoff berth after a 2-win season in '11.

I hate Pro Bowl voting.

Yeah I really don't get Schaub other than due to the Texans record. Heck not only Luck, I'd put Roethlisberger and Dalton ahead of Schaub too.

[TheCoolerOne]

Agreed. It's a case of name recognition like when John Lynch kept making the Pro Bowl well after his prime.
Yeah Greenway gets the tackles but you look at the guys who made the roster and it's hard to say Greenway got snubbed.
Yup, and not to mention there's other guys like Richard Sherman who probably deserve to be in the game before Winfield.
Yeah I really don't get Schaub other than due to the Texans record. Heck not only Luck, I'd put Roethlisberger and Dalton ahead of Schaub too.

Probably not worth sparking this debate in this thread, but I don't think that Luck is a Pro Bowl QB this season. Yes, he's got the rookie record for passing yards, but he's also thrown a slew of picks. True, too, that he is one of, if not the biggest, reason for the Colts turnaround, but really all his success has done is highlight just how bad the QB situation was last year in Indianappolis. The Colts have a few different pieces here and there, but they aren't THAT different of a team than they were last year.

[VikingLord]

The votes from the players/coaches should be separate from the popularity contest voted on by the fans. Peers should vote exceptional performances, while fans vote names, because quite honestly a lot of the guys going are going based solely on reputation and name recognition.

[J. Kapp 11]

The Colts have a few different pieces here and there, but they aren't THAT different of a team than they were last year.

But doesn't that highlight the job Luck has done this year?

If the team isn't that different, and they go from 2 wins to 10 wins, that says something about Luck's play.

And yes, he has a lot of picks. But he also leads the entire NFL with seven comeback wins.

Schaub is just not an upper-echilon QB. He plays for a great team, but they're not great because of him.

[Cliff]

I would argue that the Colts weren't that bad of a team last year either. They're just built around having great QB play (and yeah, a part of me feels like once they started losing they tanked the rest of the way on purpose ... no proof of that, mind you). They were 10-6 with Manning in 2010 before going to last place in 2011. They got another 1st overall QB and look at that ... a 10 win team again.

As far as a team going from 2 wins to 10 wins ... I don't think that necessarily says a lot about a team's QB. Otherwise everyone should be satisfied with Ponder at this point.

[TheCoolerOne]

I would argue that the Colts weren't that bad of a team last year either. They're just built around having great QB play (and yeah, a part of me feels like once they started losing they tanked the rest of the way on purpose ... no proof of that, mind you). They were 10-6 with Manning in 2010 before going to last place in 2011. They got another 1st overall QB and look at that ... a 10 win team again.

As far as a team going from 2 wins to 10 wins ... I don't think that necessarily says a lot about a team's QB. Otherwise everyone should be satisfied with Ponder at this point.

I totally agree. For better or worse, they never planned for a day that Manning might start, and I guess quite frankly, why would they seriously have ever considered it?

Luck's good, and he's probably going to be great, but I think the fact that he is simply just a far superior quarterback than anyone the Colts started last year, but by that same thought process, so were probably 70% of all backup QBs on anyone's team last year. The guys the Colts had starting last year were never ever being groomed as potential starters, nor will they ever be.

If you put Schaub on last year's Colts team, guarantee that they don't have the no.1 pick in the draft.

[Mothman]

There's an understandable tendency to look at last year's Colts team and say "Wow, look at how much difference Peyton Manning made" and there's a similar tendency to look at this year's team and think "Wow, look at how much difference Andrew Luck made". I hear comments like that in the media all the time and those players are serious difference-makers but the 2011 Colts suffered a number of injuries beyond losing Manning that really hurt them. They lost LB Gary Brackett in the first game of the season. Dallas Clark, Joseph Addai, DT Eric Foster and starting safety Melvin Bullitt all missed significant time due to injuries too, as did the Colts top 3 picks in the 2011 draft. That team lacked quality depth and they were hit hard by injuries. Manning was definitely the most significant loss but I think their record probably would have been better without so many additional injuries on top of that loss. I doubt they would have been a winning team but I also doubt they would have ended up with the top pick in the draft.

[J. Kapp 11]

I would argue that the Colts weren't that bad of a team last year either. They're just built around having great QB play (and yeah, a part of me feels like once they started losing they tanked the rest of the way on purpose ... no proof of that, mind you). They were 10-6 with Manning in 2010 before going to last place in 2011. They got another 1st overall QB and look at that ... a 10 win team again.

As far as a team going from 2 wins to 10 wins ... I don't think that necessarily says a lot about a team's QB. Otherwise everyone should be satisfied with Ponder at this point.

I think you're making my argument for me.

You have a 10-win team. That team is led by a Pro-Bowl quarterback.

They lose the Pro-Bowl quarterback. They win 2 games.

They get another Pro-Bowl quarterback and once again win 10 games (only this new quarterback isn't named to the Pro Bowl).

If Manning made them as good as they were, and Luck replaced Manning and did just as well, seems to me like the quarterback is the chief difference. Not the only difference, but certainly the main one.

Now, Jim brings up good points about the injuries. But that team was still no better than 4-6 wins even if those guys wouldn't have gone down. And the team still lacks depth this year. They still don't have Dallas Clark, and they still don't have Joseph Addai.

Your Ponder point is off target. Nobody here is saying the difference in the team is Ponder. Quite the contrary, for most of us. And Ponder does not have seven comeback wins (correction ... game winning drives). Ponder may never achieve seven comeback wins in his entire career. He has never shown a propensity to carry a team. Luck does it every week.

Look, I've had the Sunday Ticket now for years, including this year. I've watched most of Luck's comeback wins. They weren't flukes. In fact, they were incredibly impressive. This guy performs when the pressure is on. He just does.

I've also seen plenty of Matt Schaub over the years, and it's clear to me that he does not perform in pressure situations. In fact, I would say Schaub is pretty much the opposite. He can only succeed within the confines of the offense. When the play works, he's fine. But when a play breaks down, he's toast, especially with the game on the line.

Matt Schaub is Kyle Orton on a good team, only with a weaker arm and a sh!tty attitude. Andrew Luck is Tim Tebow with actual skills.

(By the way ... sorry to have hijacked the thread. Didn't mean to do that. Congrats to the Vikings who made it!)