When you think about the Pro Bowl growing up for some people, you think about some of the absolute legends of the game of football. You think about the likes of Sean Taylor, Tom Brady, Randy Moss, Deion Sanders, and even more Hall of Fame-caliber players. That brings us to the modern day, where Deion Sanders son, rookie Quarterback Shedeur Sanders was named to the Pro Bowl roster this year in the AFC conference. There had been a huge uproar in the football community, with some people being of the belief that he was not deserving of getting the Pro Bowl nod from the NFL. I, on the other hand, am in the boat of believing that he rightfully deserved to be named to the Pro Bowl roster as he was.
One of the reasons that I believe that he should be named to the Pro Bowl roster is simply because of the given circumstances. If you look at the AFC Division, there are 16 starting quarterbacks. Four of them had already been ruled out due to the fact that they declined to participate in the game. Once that leaves you with just twelve QBs, now the injured quarterbacks have to be taken into account. The likes of Patrick Mahomes, Daniel Jones, and Bo Nix could not participate in the game even if they wanted to. Then from the nine signal callers you have left, another three of them can be eliminated due to bad play during the season. Justin Fields, Geno Smith, and Tua Tagovailoa all got benched at some point in the season due to poor performance.
Now with what would be six remaining options left, you can pretty much eliminate Aaron Rodgers from the equation as well, due to him being 42 years of age. He most likely would not want to participate in the dodgeball game that is conducted and the flag football game that the Pro Bowl had turned into. That leaves five gunslingers left; those five being Joe Burrow, Lamar Jackson, CJ Stroud, Cam Ward, and the aforementioned Shedeur Sanders. Joe Burrow ended up playing in the game as a late addition. But as for CJ Stroud, he is coming off a historically bad series of playoff performances. That being said, the likelihood that he would accept a Pro Bowl invitation was very slim. In the case of Lamar Jackson, he declined to participate in the Pro Bowl games this year.
That leaves just two names left; Cam Ward and Shedeur Sanders. The NFL usually takes four quarterbacks to participate in the Pro Bowl, these being the final two names vying for the last spot. This is where I believe another variable comes into play, that being popularity. Cam Ward my being the more gifted and the statistically better quarterback, but Shedeur Sanders because of his last name is the bigger draw and bigger attraction. Also the NFL is all about attracting more eyes to their product, so if they had to pick between these two highly talented rookie quarterbacks, it would stand to reason that they would pick the one who has a hall of famer as his father and sports the last night Sanders. The Pro Bowl has been an event that has been looked down upon over the last several years, and I believe that putting Shedeur Sanders in the Pro Bowl game drastically helped to improve the ratings that they drew on Tuesday night.
