Pro Bowl Blanking or Snubbing?

The Bears were shut out in voting for the Pro Bowl after the final voting from coaches and players was combined with the fan balloting.

It's the first time since the 2017 season that the Bears did not put someone in the Pro Bowl. The 2017 season and this season are the only ones since 1998 when they had no Pro Bowl players.

For some reason, disgust and anger are being expressed over social media and in regular media that Justin Fields did not make it.

In fact, both NFL.com and ESPN listed Fields among those who were snubbed.

As exciting as Fields has been this season, any talk of a Pro Bowl for him is very premature unless a large number of QBs in the NFC who finished ahead of him withdraw from what is no longer an actual game. Next year might be the year for Fields but he hasn't produced the passing numbers yet.

Fields hasn't even hit 90.0 yet for a passer rating, has only 15 TD passes to 10 interceptions and has completed only 62% of his passes.

In the NFC, Geno Smith, Jimmy Garoppolo, Jalen Hurts, Andy Dalton, Jared Goff, Dak Prescott, Aaron Rodgers, Kirk Cousins, Marcus Mariota and Daniel Jones were starters who had better passer ratings than Fields.

Smith, Matthew Stafford, Hurts Prescott, Garoppolo, Dalton, Kyler Murray, Jones, Cousins, Rodgers, Goff and Carson Wentz all had better NFC completion percentages than Fields.

Smith, Cousins, Goff, Rodgers, Hurts, Dalton, Prescott and Garoppolo all threw for more TDs than Fields. Only Prescott and Cousins have thrown more interceptions among NFC starters than Fields.

No one in the NFL has fumbled more than Fields.

Sure, he's been sacked more times than anyone and doesn't have good receivers but the voting isn't a pity vote. It's for actual accomplishment.

Some quarterbacks make Pro Bowls based on leading very successful teams. The Bears have won three games.

The only thing Fields has really rated high at is rushing. Hurts is the only one in the NFC among quarterbacks even close to him, and he's 253 yards behind.

Rushing is fine, but the quarterback is being paid mostly as a passer and not a runner. Sure, Lamar Jackson is a running QB who makes Pro Bowls, but he also has been much more successful as a passer than Fields.

Jackson didn't even make the Pro Bowl when he threw for 26 TDs with nine interceptions and led an 11-4 team in 2020 while rushing for 1,050 yards. That's a snubbing.

They don't have a separate category for running quarterbacks. It's just quarterback. If Fields is to get on a Pro Bowl team, he needs to greatly improve his passing numbers.

This almost seems inevitable at this point considering how much progress he has made this year, but let's not get the cart before the horse.

He needs to actually do something beyond three 50-plus runs for one of the NFL's worst teams before being lauded.

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BearDigest@BearsOnMaven