Tag: NFL All-Pro team

Terron Armstead, David Bakhtiari call it: Texans LT Laremy Tunsil was an All-Pro snub

Houston Texans LT Laremy Tunsil had Terron Armstead and David Bakhtiari defending him after he was snubbed from the All-Pro team.

It isn’t common that an NFL offensive lineman gets protection.

However, Houston Texans left tackle Laremy Tunsil is not like most offensive linemen. The three-time Pro Bowler played all 17 games protecting the blindside for Texans quarterbacks throughout 2022 and opened up running lanes for rookie Dameon Pierce, who tallied 939 through 13 games before being shelved with an ankle injury sustained in Week 14.

San Francisco 49ers left tackle Trent Williams earned the first-team spot, and New York Giants left tackle Andrew Thomas earned the second-team slot.

“The fact that @KingTunsil78 wasn’t an #AllPro this year is deceitful to the masses,” Green Bay Packers tackle David Bakhtiari tweeted. “The guy was more than deserving of the accolade.”

Miami Dolphins tackle Terron Armstead quote-tweeted Bakhtiari’s statement and added one of his own.

“Completely agree! @KingTunsil78 was incredible all year! The Standard,” Armstead punctuated with a light blue heart.

Making the All-Pro team was one of the honors that Tunsil had in his sights even after making the Pro Bowl team. Nevertheless the former Dolphins 2016 first-round pick has sizable leverage to work with the Texans on an extension in the 2023 offseason.

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Cordarrelle Patterson named to Sporting News’ first-team All-Pro team as kick returner

The honors keep coming for Bears kick returner Cordarrelle Patterson, who was named to Sporting News’ first-team All-Pro team.

The honors keep coming for Bears kick returner Cordarrelle Patterson, who remains one of the NFL’s best returners.

Patterson was named to Sporting News’ first-team NFL All-Pro team, which was voted on by league head coaches. Patterson was also voted to the Pro Bowl as a kick returner and named first-team All Pro as a kick returner and second-team All-Pro as a special teams player by the Associated Press.

Patterson averaged 29.5 yards per kickoff return, including a 102-yard kickoff return touchdown against the New Orleans Saints. He also led the NFL with 825 kick-return yards.

Patterson, who signed with the Bears last March, has a reputation for being one of the league’s best kick returners. Patterson ranks second in league history with a 29.9-yard career average, and he trails only Bears Hall of Famer Gale Sayers, who had 30.6.

He also ranks third on the NFL’s all-time list with career kickoff return touchdowns with seven, which is just one behind Josh Cribbs and Leon Washington.

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How the NFL’s All-Pro voting system needs to be fixed

The 50 media members who vote for the NFL’s All-Pro team seem to need a little help getting it right. Here are a few suggestions.

There are those who will tell you that the votes for Pro Bowl and All-Pro selections aren’t a big deal. It’s just a popularity contest, right? Well, not really. A lot of players have bonuses built into their contracts based on their nominations on those teams. Hall of Fame voters absolutely take the number of Pro Bowl and All-Pro selections into account when deciding who is given the NFL’s greatest honor.

The All-Pro vote is supposed to be taken more seriously because there is not a fan element involved, but when looking at the selections from a panel of 50 media members, it’s hard to say that every vote should be given equal weight. And that, for all the reasons listed above, is a real problem. Here’s the list for the 2019 team; see what you think, and give these five suggestions for improving the process a look-see.

Give every voter a subscription to an advanced metrics website.

Frank Clark’s one defensive tackle vote was not well-deserved. (Jay Biggerstaff-USA TODAY Sports)

Whether it’s Pro Football Focus, Sports Info Solutions, or Football Outsiders, there are websites which, for a nominal subscription rate, give anybody a much better look at who’s doing what in the NFL. I’m not talking about PFF’s grades, per se — I find them far less accurate than their charting stats. But those charting stats have a lot of merit, as do the SiS and FO numbers. With these subscriptions, you can do everything from deducing which quarterbacks and receivers are the best on which routes, which outside cornerbacks and slot cornerbacks are the most effective in coverage, which teams run which defenses most effectively, and which pass-rushers are the most disruptive beyond just sack numbers. There are too many votes that are obviously skewed to old-school box-score thinking, and we should be way past that at this point in time. We have better metrics, and the game has exploded in both complexity and positional specificity.

PFF also has positional snap counts, which would have helped the one voter who wanted to add Chiefs defensive end Frank Clark to the list of interior linemen. Per PFF, Clark has 718 defensive snaps this season, and six of those are inside — one at left defensive tackle, four at right defensive tackle, and one at nose tackle. We don’t know what this voter was thinking, but we’d sure like to.

And speaking of that…

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