Are the Vikings going to have a single Pro Bowl selection this year?

Seeing the Vikings market their specialists for Pro Bowl voting on social media raises an interesting question: Is Minnesota going to have a single player earn that honor this year?

The Vikings have a few candidates, including those specialists. Fan voting isn't over yet, and the Pro Bowl selection process is quite imperfect, so there's certainly a chance the team has at least one player selected. But as of right now, there are zero sure things on the roster, which creates the possibility of a rare occurrence.

This is the 65th season of Minnesota Vikings football. Among the previous 64, there are just two years in which the team didn't send a player to the Pro Bowl. It happened in 1983 and most recently in 2014, which was Mike Zimmer's first season as head coach.

In each of the other 62 years, they've had at least one representative at the league's All-Star event — and usually several. Last year, they had seven of them (Justin Jefferson, Brian O'Neill, Sam Darnold, Jonathan Greenard, Andrew Van Ginkel, Byron Murphy Jr., and Andrew DePaola). Here's how many they've had in each of the past ten years:

2024: 7
2023: 3
2022: 7
2021: 5
2020: 2
2019: 8
2018: 4
2017: 7
2016: 6
2015: 5

It says a lot about this Vikings season that there's a scenario where this year's number is 0. Think about it for a second. Who on this Vikings team has a real case to be there?

Let's start on offense. Jefferson has made the Pro Bowl in every year that he's stayed healthy, and it's certainly possible he could still make it, either on reputation alone or because he finally has some big games with J.J. McCarthy this month. But as of this moment, Jefferson ranks 13th in the NFC in receiving yards. To be fair, there are a bunch of players not far in front of him who aren't playing this weekend, so he could rise up quite a few spots on that list by next week. But still! He had four yards last week and doesn't have an 80-yard game in two months. Mostly due to circumstances outside of his control, his stats are such that it's no guarantee he's voted in.

Justin Jefferson — Jeff Hanisch-Imagn Images

Elsewhere on offense, it's kind of hard to even think of another candidate. Quarterback is an obvious no. There's no other skill position player in the ballpark. C.J. Ham has made it a couple times, in part because there aren't many fullbacks, but he's only played six games this year. Basically the entire offensive line has missed time due to injury, although maybe O'Neill has an outside shot? He's had a strong year and has only missed two games.

The defense might have even worse odds, despite being the better of the two units this season. The best candidate by a decent margin is Eric Wilson, which is pretty stunning. Wilson leads the Vikings with 85 tackles, 14 tackles for loss, and three forced fumbles. He's second with 4.5 sacks. But he doesn't have any real name recognition around the league, so that may not be enough to get him in. Dallas Turner leads the Vikings in sacks with 5.5, but the edge position is way too deep. Greenard and Van Ginkel don't nearly have the numbers. If anyone other than Wilson has a case on defense, it's probably Jalen Redmond, but he also lacks established star power.

Really, if Jefferson and O'Neill don't make it, it probably comes down to the specialists. Will Reichard has had an outstanding season, going 21 of 23 on field goal attempts, including an 8-of-10 mark from 50+. But he's also tied for 11th in total field goals made because of the Vikings' bad offense. Ryan Wright ranks fifth in net yards per punt and has the single longest punt of this season (77 yards), but who knows if he'll make it? Rookie return specialist Myles Price has done some good things this year, but he's also made some catastrophic mistakes and had his only touchdown of the season wiped off by a penalty.

Genuinely, the best chance might belong to DePaola, the Vikings' long snapper, who has made the Pro Bowl in each of the past three years. He's definitely good at his job, but also, there's so little variance in long snapping ability that reputation matters.

Andrew DePaola — Mark J. Rebilas-Imagn Images

In the first fan voting update, the only Vikings players in the top 10 at their position were Ham (eighth), DePaola (sixth), Price (third), and Jefferson (eighth).

The odds of the Vikings getting at least one player into the Pro Bowl are probably better than 50 percent. But again, the fact that it's not a lock says a lot about how miserable this season has been in Minnesota.

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