Pro Bowl Quarterbacks

A first team, or primary vote gives a player 2 pts and a second team or runner-up vote gives a player 1 pt. Most points wins. Since 6 people voted, 12 pts would be a unanimous selection.

Pro Bowl Quarterbacks

First Team: Drew Brees (8 pts, 4 1st team votes)

Second Team: Aaron Rodgers (4 pts, 1 1st team vote)

Also receiving votes: Peyton Manning (2 pts), Kurt Warner (2 pts, 1 1st team vote), Brett Favre (1 pt), Tony Romo (1 pt)

This was the year of the QB. Previously I would have gone with 2004 which headlined Peyton Manning's then record setting 313 pt, 26.08 pts/gm season -- records for any player let alone QB. But 2004 also had Daunte Culpepper put up 232 pts at 19.33 per game and McNabb contributed 223 (18.58 per). At the time those were the 3 best QB seasons for total points and 3 of the top 5 for pts / game.

Now this: Brees and Rodgers come in with the 3rd and 4th best per game average for a QB ever, Manning ties for 6th and Favre and Brady come in 14th and 15th. Those 5 QBs each scored more total points this season then all but 2 QBs ever (Brady in 07 and Manning in 04). Oh, and Rivers chipped in with the 12th best season total for a QB. Rivers scored the most points by a QB in 2008, scored more points this year and was the 6th best in 2009 in total points scored.

In the end, Brees and Rodgers finished in their order of total points and pts/gm. But I was one of the two people to give my 1st place vote to someone not named Brees. In fact, I ranked Brees 3rd behind Rodgers and Peyton Manning. Looking at per game totals the gap between Peyton and Brees is less then 2 pts per game. Rodgers had only 1 game all year where he scored less then 13 (median for QBs recently) and he scored 17 or more in 10 of his 12 starts. Peyton never scored less then 9 pts in a game all year and had 7 games of 17 or more pts. Brees also had 7 games with 17 or more points but had two games where he scored 6 and 2 pts respectively.

Any way you slice it we're splitting hairs amongst most of these QBs, so I have trouble faulting most of the votes. That said, I think Romo was a bit of a reach and Warner was another silly vote. Warner played in only 2 regular season games. And while his 17.5 pts per game is nice, its 8th among all QBs this year, behind other luminaries like Jason Campbell and Matt Cassel who both played 1 game this year.