“It Doesn’t Matter… but It Does”: Pat McAfee Shares Grim Pro Bowl Reality Following Shocking Snubs

The NFL released the Pro Bowl Game nominees Wednesday. Eighty-eight players have been selected from the AFC and the NFC. As the league also announced the season’s top players, Pat McAfee and his team called out some significant names that the NFL has seemingly ignored this season.

The players selected for the Pro Bowl games will participate in events like precision passing, best catch, gridiron gauntlet, tug-of-war, and more on February 1 and 4. But there is an interesting debate in the social media world and McAfee’s show. The former NFL punter and his co-hosts called out some names who couldn’t make the list, sharing their thoughts on the reality of the Pro Bowl.

Is the Pro Bowl just a popularity contest?

Pat McAfee, in the latest episode of his “The Pat McAfee Show,” discussed the Pro Bowl rosters and pointed out the top three NFL draft order teams, which are Carolina Panthers, Washington Commanders, and New England Patriots, along with the Green Bay Packers didn’t have any Pro Bowlers, which surprised them. They mentioned Jordan Love’s absence from the list, as his performance this season has helped the Packers remain in playoff contention.

Read more: NFL’s Top 6 QBs Headed to Pro Bowl as Lamar Jackson Joins Dak Prescott and Brock Purdy for February Meet

McAfee said, “Pro Bowl doesn’t mean anything, no it does not for legacy and Hall of Fames. It does that kind of stuff for sure but it’s a popularity contest… we got a lot of young guys who maybe aren’t popular enough yet there was a couple of years where I was certainly upset and I thought I should have been in there but at the punter kicker position there’s only one and there’s a bunch of alternates and there’s a lot of really good guys.” He also pointed out that “it doesn’t matter anyways… but it does in like certain facets that are very real,” impacting on how players are judged for achievements like commercials, speeches, books or incentives, where the number of Pro Bowls a player made can be a significant factor.

McAfee hopes improvements will be made to the Pro Bowl selection process and make it fairer, even though he acknowledged it will be challenging. Besides that, McAfee and his team also pointed out the snubbed names from the Pro Bowl roster. They emphasized that QB Josh Allen was not picked despite having better records and performance than Patrick Mahomes this season.

Furthermore, they listed a few other names, including Antoine Winfield Jr., Brandon Aiyuk, L’Jarius Sneed, and Chad Ryland, besides Love and Allen, who have also performed well this season but still couldn’t make it into the list. Jalen Hurts wasn’t on the list, either.

How were the Pro Bowl nominees selected?

The Pro Bowl rosters were decided by taking into account the opinions and votes of three groups: fans, players, and coaches. Each of these groups had an equal say in the decision, with one-third of the vote coming from each.

In the end, a total of 44 players from each conference were selected for the Pro Bowl this season. The San Francisco 49ers had the highest number of Pro Bowl players selected, with nine of their players receiving a nod.

They all will be meeting each other in the Pro Bowl game events on February 1 and February 4 this year.

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