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Suisham Snub: Four Hawaii-Bound Skins
By Jamie Mottram | December 17, 2008
This could’ve been worse, but, as it is, the Skins are sending four players to the Pro Bowl: Mike Sellers, Chris Cooley, Clinton Portis and Chris Samuels. That’s four offensive players from a team that’s averaging 16.5 points per game. Seems absurd on the surface, but when you look at it by position it’s not so bad.
Sellers is, and has been, one of the best fullbacks in the league. He’s a fine player, has a great story and is one of the most likable guys on the team. I’m glad he made it.
Cooley is, behind Jason Witten, the second-best tight end in the NFC, or at least the second-best pass-catching tight end. He’s been there for years and, with his blog-fueled stardom, is a good choice.
With Portis it’s more complicated. Adrian Peterson and Michael Turner are the top two NFC running backs, but after that you’ve got Portis, DeAngelo Williams, Brandon Jacobs and maybe Matt Forte all on equal ground. You don’t really go wrong with Portis, who was a Pro Bowl snub last year.
The confounding one, for me at least, is Samuels, who makes his sixth Pro Bowl, including four straight. That’s a staggering number; six Pro Bowls for a guy who seems to be regarded, even by Skins fans, as good-not-great. Art Monk only made three Pro Bowls. I have no idea if Samuels is the third-best tackle in the NFC or not (Jordan Gross and Walter Jones are your starters), but if Samuels making twice as many of these things as Monk doesn’t tell you the Pro Bowl’s a joke, I’m not sure what does.
Related: see full rosters … consider London Fletcher … read The Mighty MJD
Topics: Chris Cooley, Clinton Portis, Mike Sellers, Redskins | 3 Comments »
December 17th, 2008 at 9:16 AM
Samuels is pretty good. O-Lineman is just an underrated position until its talked up for events like the Pro Bowl or contract renegotiation.
December 17th, 2008 at 11:57 AM
Fletcher should have made it.
December 17th, 2008 at 12:58 PM
Fletcher and Horton got hosed.
Samuels continued presence at the Pro Bowl is mystifying to me. He isn’t even the best lineman on the Redskins. He is slightly (slightly) above average at run-blocking and barely adequate at pass-blocking. But I have a theory: Samuels went in the top 5 in the draft and got a lot of hype, so a lot of average fans knew his name. When the Pro Bowl voting rolled around, most of the average fans didn’t actually know any lineman so they all voted for Samuels, because he was a high profile pick and they had heard of him. Then the next year, more people who didn’t know any offensive lineman thought, Oh, Samuels made it last year, I’ll vote for him. Now, he has a reputation as a “Pro-Bowler” and gets voted in every year.