A sign that your football program has hit the skids can be measured by the amount of players who are respected league-wide. Translation: players selected for the Pro Bowl.
This year, the New York Giants did not have a single player selected to the 2020 NFC Pro Bowl roster. Not one. They are one of only two teams – Miami is the other – that got shut out in the voting.
Pat Shurmur on zero Giants making the Pro Bowl rosters: “I don’t really have a response to that.” pic.twitter.com/GHuXf4j9qD
— Ralph Vacchiano (@RalphVacchiano) December 18, 2019
Last season, the Giants had four players voted to the NFC roster: running back Saquon Barkley, kicker Aldrick Rosas, safety Landon Collins and outside linebacker Olivier Vernon (alternate).
Collins and Vernon are no longer with the team. Collins was permitted to walk in free agency, signing a six-year deal with Washington worth $84 million. Vernon was shipped to Cleveland along with wide receiver Odell Beckham, Jr. in a blockbuster deal.
Barkley sustained a high ankle sprain in Week 3, missed three games and has been slow to regains form. Rosas has completely fallen off a cliff, missing kicks regularly and is only now emerging from a season-long slump.
As for Shurmur having no answers for the lack of Pro Bowlers, it is par for the course. He has few answers for anything anymore, which is an indictment on his tenure here with the Giants.
“I don’t really have a response to that,’ Shurmur said when asked what it says about his roster. “It’s great when players are honored with being a Pro Bowl selection, but beyond that, I don’t have any real response.”
He was asked if he felt if anyone was deserving of making the Pro Bowl.
“You know what, every year that question is posed to me in some way. I don’t know totally what goes into it. We just need to get better as a team, and certainly, we need to do things better. When you’re winning more games, then more of those Pro Bowl accolades come your way.”
Form the NFL….Thirty teams had at least one player selected to the 2020 Pro Bowl and 24 clubs had multiple players chosen as All-Stars. The Baltimore Ravens, including second-year quarterback Lamar Jackson, placed a league-best 12 players on the Pro Bowl roster, while the New York Giants led the NFC with seven players selected. The 2019 Ravens join the 2007 Dallas Cowboys (13 players) and 1973 Miami Dolphins (12) as the only teams to have at least 12 players selected to the Pro Bowl since 1970.