The omission of several deserving players from the 2023/2024 NFL Pro Bowl has reignited a debate about the legitimacy of including fan voting.
Traditionally, the NFL Pro Bowl was a prestigious post-season all-star game showcasing the talent of the league’s best players – a recognition of outstanding performances during the regular season.
In the past, the voting process was limited to coaches and players. The system wasn’t perfect, but it was almost impossible to exploit.
In 1970, the NFL changed the selection process for the NFL Pro Bowl to include fan votes, which comprised 33% of the voting weight.
The predictable consequence of this change was that fans voted for their favourite players on the team they supported rather than those who deserved to be selected.
Park Life Sport spoke with Joe Chacksfield, center for the University of Gloucestershire Gladiators, to ask his opinion on Pro Bowl voting:
Introducing fan voting resulted in elite performers from teams with small fan bases being consistently snubbed and inferior players on teams with larger fan bases being undeservedly voted to the NFL Pro Bowl.
Take the example of Antoine Winfield, Tampa Bay Buccaneers safety. In the 2023/2024 season, Winfield put together one of the most impressive performances at the position in the last decade.
He led all safeties in sacks and forced fumbles, ranked second in pass breakups and pressures, and fifth in tackles.
NFL pundits showered him with praise, and he even won two NFC Defensive Player of the Week awards – one of only two safeties in the NFC to do so.
Winfield did not make it to the NFL Pro Bowl, and it’s reasonable to conclude that the Buccaneers’ small fan support was a significant reason for his exclusion; the Buccaneers rank 25th among all teams in fan support.
Julian Love, Seattle Seahawks safety, was criticised by head coach Pete Carroll and relegated to a part-time role for half of the season due to poor performance.
Despite his inferior play, Love was voted to the NFL Pro Bowl roster ahead of Winfield. It is perhaps no coincidence that the Seahawks boast a huge fan following, ranking fifth among all NFL teams.
The problem with fan voting is exacerbated by the fact that fans can vote for the same players as often as they like.
Fans of NFL teams exploit this flaw in the system and encourage others to do the same:
Detroit Lions wide receiver Amon-Ra St. Brown made no secret of his disappointment not to be voted to the NFL Pro Bowl roster, saying, “The receivers that got picked, they’re great players, but I was hot”.
The talented 24-year-old may have a point. St. Brown enjoyed a career-best season with eight 100-yard receiving games, tied for the most in the NFL.
With fan voting for the Pro Bowl set to stay, St. Brown certainly won’t be the last player to complain about being snubbed.
