Daily Norseman
It’s often said that nobody cares about the Pro Bowl, outside of players who have incentives for such things written into their contracts. Based on the announcement that was made just an hour or so ago, fans of the Minnesota Vikings now have even less reason. . .if that’s possible. . .to care about this year’s installment of the Pro Bowl Games.
The Vikings were one of just three teams to have zero players named to the roster for this year’s Pro Bowl Games when the league announced the rosters earlier on Tuesday morning. The other two teams were the New Orleans Saints and the New York Jets.
This is just the third time since the inception of the Pro Bowl that the Vikings have not had a player named to the event. The other two times were in 1983 and 2014.
As surprising as it might be to hear that for a team that has the sort of players on the roster that the Vikings have, it’s really hard to make the case that anyone got snubbed. Justin Jefferson’s numbers have suffered greatly due to the instability at the quarterback spot this season, and while the defense has performed solidly as a unit at times, there really hasn’t been any individual player who has put up the sort of numbers that would garner anyone Pro Bowl recognition. I suppose you could potentially make an argument for Jalen Redmond, but he’d still be a long shot at best.
Perhaps the two best cases to be made for snubs on the Vikings roster would be on special teams. Long snapper Andrew DePaola has made the Pro Bowl in each of the last three years and was the leading vote-getter at the position in terms of the fan vote, but that wasn’t enough to get him in.
Then there’s kicker Will Reichard. Reichard has made 27-of-29 field goal attempts this season, connecting on all of his kicks of less than 50 yards and going 9-for-11 from beyond 50. One of his two misses came when his kick hit the wire that was holding up the skycam at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in London, and the other came with the Vikings in hurry-up mode at the end of first half against the Los Angeles Chargers and the team didn’t get the “K” ball swapped in for the attempt.
(Yeah, that second one is sort of a lame excuse, but we’re here to pump up our guy, darn it.)
Other than that, it’s hard to argue that the Vikings really deserved to get any Pro Bowlers this season. They may get someone when the inevitable drop outs come after the season ends, but as of the announcement of the initial rosters they do not have any.
