Pro Bowl Dolphins Fallout and Reflections

It's the morning after the initial Pro Bowl rosters were announced, and as is always the case there was some strong reaction to some of the selections and omissions.

For the Miami Dolphins, the most debatable calls involved QB Tua Tagovailoa, WR Jaylen Waddle, DT Christian Wilkins and CB Xavien Howard — three players who weren't selected and one who was.

Let's break it down:

THE DOLPHINS SNUBS

Determining a Pro Bowl snub obviously is highly suggestive, but there can be no denying that Tua, Waddle and Wilkins all had strong cases to get selected.

Obviously it's the omission of Tua that created the biggest stir among Dolphins and even the national media, which is understandable given his stats and the fact he led all NFL players at any position in fan voting.

So it was the other two-third of the votes (one-third from the players, one-third from the coaches) that got Tua left behind Patrick Mahomes, Joe Burrow and Josh Allen as the AFC quarterbacks.

Before we move along, let's understand that it is almost certain that when the Pro Bowl Games take place Feb. 5 Tua either will be participating in them as an alternate or he'll be preparing for the Dolphins to play in the Super Bowl if they achieve that goal.

But Tua certainly had a case to make the initial AFC roster, and there would seem to be two clear reasons he didn't.

The first is the standing and reputation of the three QBs chosen ahead of him, and the fact that Mahomes, Allen and Burrow are second, third and fourth as NFL MVP favorites behind Jalen Hurts based on odds from BetOline, whereas Tua Tagovailoa now is off the board.

And then there's this under-the-radar factor that easily could have played a role in voting from players and coaches. Tua and the Dolphins were on the last Sunday night game before the votes were cast and the offense struggling on national television would have been the last impression on the rest of the NFL.

In the Dolphins' other two-prime appearances this season, where Tua could have the attention of the entire NFL, he was injured in the Thursday night game at Cincinnati and he had a sub-par outing in the Sunday night game against Pittsburgh.

Waddle also had a strong case for his first Pro Bowl, starting with an NFL-best 18.02 receiving average and his 1,117 receiving yards, which ranks fourth among AFC wide receivers.

The three ahead of him are Pro Bowl selections Tyreek Hill, Stefon Diggs and Davante Adams. But instead of Waddle, the fourth spot went to Ja'Marr Chase of the Cincinnati Bengals.

Chase missed four games in the middle of the season, but still has more catches than Waddle (71-62), but the big difference here again might have been the Dolphins' poor offensive showing in California because those were the last two games before the Pro Bowl votes and recency bias certainly can be a thing.

Against the 49ers and Chargers, Waddle had a combined three catches for 40 yards, which might have made it easier for players and coaches to forget about his earlier standout performances against Baltimore, Buffalo and Detroit, among others.

Like Tua and Waddle, Wilkins was a first alternate, and here it might be the Dolphins' defensive scheme that hurt him in the Pro Bowl voting.

Even though he does a lot of his work inside, Wilkins is listed as a defensive end with the Dolphins utilizing a 3-4 alignment most often. The three AFC selections at defensive end were Myles Garrett, Maxx Crosby and Trey Hendrickson, who all play in 4-3 schemes, where it's easier for a defensive end to rack up sack totals.

And, like it or not, that's often what voters will use to make their selections.

And, even then, the Hendrickson pick was weird considering he had six sacks on the season among his 29 tackles, as well as two forced fumbles.

Compare that to Wilkins, who may have only 2.5 sacks but 81 tackles (the highest total for an NFL defensive lineman) and the same two forced fumbles as Hendrickson, and it's easy to make the argument that Wilkins might have been the biggest Dolphins snub of all.

Fullback Alec Ingold is the only Dolphins player selected as a first alternate along with Tua, Waddle and Wilkins, but it seemed almost a given that Baltimore's Patrick Ricard would get the nod considering he was the AFC Pro Bowl fullback the previous three seasons and he won the fan vote at the position.

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THE FLIP SIDE AND XAVIEN HOWARD

Of the three Dolphins players who did get selected to the initial Pro Bowl team, Tyreek Hill was the biggest slam dunk, followed by tackle Terron Armstead, who has played very well through injuries and also had the reputation to get votes from those who maybe didn't get to see everybody play.

Reputation is what came into play for Xavien Howard, who has been a terrific cornerback for the Dolphins over the years but flat-out has not had what anybody objectively would call a Pro Bowl season.

According to Pro Football Reference, Howard is allowing a 58.6 completion percentage and a 102.4 opponent passer rating when targeted, and both figures rank as his second-worst since he first became a Pro Bowl player in 2018 ahead only of the 2019 season when he played five games before landing on injured reserve.

Rookie Sauce Gardner, Pat Surtain II and Marlon Humphrey were the other AFC cornerbacks selected to the initial Pro Bowl roster, and there truthfully were a lot of other players at the position more deserving this season than Howard, among them Pittsburgh's Cameron Sutton, New England's Jonathan Jones, Indy's Stephon Gilmore and Buffalo's Dane Jackson.

Outside of Gilmore, though, none of them have Howard's name or reputation.

ASSORTED PRO BOWL NOTES

-- Tua not getting selected will have an impact if the Dolphins pick up his fifth-year option for 2024, which they undoubtedly will do unless they sign him to a long-term contract extension instead. Tua's fifth-year option number, per overthecap.com, will be $22.7 million instead of the $28 million it would have been had Tua been selected to one Pro Bowl in his first three seasons. To be sure, the extra $5.3 million wouldn't have made a difference in the Dolphins' decision here.

-- Not that there were any doubts remaining, but the Pro Bowl selections of Hill and Armstead put the final stamp of validation on the Dolphins' two major acquisitions of the offseason.

-- The Dolphins' three Pro Bowl selections tied for fifth among AFC teams with Cincinnati, Cleveland, Las Vegas and Tennessee. The teams with more were Kansas City (7), Baltimore (6), Buffalo (4) and the New York Jets (4).

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