Packer Central

Rodgers, Adams Highlight Seven Pro Bowl Packers

The seven: Davante Adams, Jaire Alexander, David Bakhtiari, Elgton Jenkins, Aaron Jones, Aaron Rodgers and Za’Darius Smith. Six of the seven are starters.

Bill Huber

GREEN BAY, Wis. – The Green Bay Packers are 11-3 and in control of the No. 1 seed in the NFC playoffs because of their prolific offense and in spite of their mediocre defense. The Pro Bowl roster reflects all of those realities.

Seven Packers are on the 44-man NFC team. Due to the pandemic, the game will not be played. The breakdown was five on offense and two on defense: receiver Davante Adams, cornerback Jaire Alexander, offensive tackle David Bakhtiari, guard Elgton Jenkins, running back Aaron Jones, quarterback Aaron Rodgers and outside linebacker Za’Darius Smith.

To the victors go the spoils: Six of the players were named starters (all but Jones), giving Green Bay its most starters since it had eight in 1967 – the final season of Vince Lombardi’s Glory Years teams.

The Packers’ seven Pro Bowl selections are tied for the most. The Kansas City Chiefs, who are 13-1 and led by MVP favorite Patrick Mahomes, also have seven, as do the Baltimore Ravens and Seattle Seahawks.

Rodgers, who was fifth in overall fan voting but second behind Seattle’s Russell Wilson among NFC quarterbacks, is No. 1 in the NFL with a 118.0 passer rating and 40 touchdowns. He also leads the way with the highest touchdown percentage (8.4) and lowest interception percentage (0.8). He had eight consecutive games with a 105-plus passer rating until struggling through Saturday night’s victory over Carolina. With Rodgers playing at an MVP level, the Packers have been one of the best teams all season.

Adams, despite missing two-and-a-half games with an injured hamstring early in the season, is fourth with 98 receptions, seventh with 1,186 yards and second with 14 touchdowns. His NFL-record streak of eight consecutive games with six-plus receptions and one-plus touchdown was snapped last week.

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Jones is having a quietly excellent season. While only 12th in carries, he’s fourth with 968 rushing yards. He’s averaged a fifth-ranked 5.38 yards per carry and is tied for 11th with eighth rushing touchdowns. He’s added 41 receptions. With 1,266 yards from scrimmage, last year’s breakout of 1,558 is within reach.

A four-time All-Pro, Bakhtiari won the overall fan voting at offensive tackle. He hasn’t allowed a sack, according to Pro Football Focus, in a typically dominant performance. Only three starting tackles have not allowed a sack. He’s also been called for only two holding penalties.

Second-year guard Jenkins has allowed only one sack while starting games at left guard, right tackle and center. He even played the second half of the San Francisco game at left tackle.

Defensively, Smith and Alexander were deserving selections despite Green Bay’s struggles. Smith is fourth in the NFL with 11.5 sacks, ninth with 22 quarterback hits and tied for ninth with three forced fumbles. He was No. 1 in fan voting at the position. Alexander is fourth among cornerbacks with 0.70 yards allowed per coverage snap and has allowed less than 40 receiving yards in 10 of 13 games, according to Pro Football Focus.

The Packers were shut out on special teams. Kicker Mason Crosby is perfect on field goals but didn’t crack the top 10 in fan voting. Hunter Bradley was No. 1 in the NFC among long snappers and Oren Burks was No. 2 in the NFC (and overall) for special-teams player.4

Center Corey Linsley might have given the Packers an eighth Pro Bowler but injuries derailed his strong season.

If there was a big snub, though, it was tight end Robert Tonyan. Among tight ends, he is 10th with 49 receptions and 551 yards and tied for first with Kansas City's Travis Kelce with 10 touchdowns. Tonyan had a strong case over the Giants' Evan Engram, who has 54 receptions for 572 yards and just one score. Moreover, Tonyan is first among tight ends with zero drops and a 90.7 percent catch rate while Engram is near the bottom with six drops and a 61,4 percent catch rate.

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Bill Huber
BILL HUBER

Bill Huber, who has covered the Green Bay Packers since 2008, is the publisher of Packers On SI, a Sports Illustrated channel. E-mail: packwriter2002@yahoo.com History: Huber took over Packer Central in August 2019. Twitter: https://twitter.com/BillHuberNFL Background: Huber graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, where he played on the football team, in 1995. He worked in newspapers in Reedsburg, Wisconsin Dells and Shawano before working at The Green Bay News-Chronicle and Green Bay Press-Gazette from 1998 through 2008. With The News-Chronicle, he won several awards for his commentaries and page design. In 2008, he took over as editor of Packer Report Magazine, which was founded by Hall of Fame linebacker Ray Nitschke, and PackerReport.com. In 2019, he took over the new Sports Illustrated site Packer Central, which he has grown into one of the largest sites in the Sports Illustrated Media Group.

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