San Francisco 49ers: Who Should Go to the Pro Bowl?
The San Francisco 49ers may not have met their team goals in the 2014 season, but that doesn’t mean that they haven’t excelled on an individual level. With voting for the 2015 NFL Pro Bowl ending this week, it’s time to look at which 49ers deserve a trip to scenic…Arizona, where the game will take place the week before the Super Bowl proper on January 25th.
Obviously, the 49ers' relative lack of success this season compared to the last three years is going to diminish the number of players actually invited to the game—not only did players play better overall last season, but team success does highlight individual success in the borderline cases.
Last year, the 49ers ended up sending 10 players to the Pro Bowl; even the most optimistic 49ers fan would be hard-pressed to justify a similar haul this year.
The offense has had a down year, so it would seem highly suspect to give Frank Gore another Pro Bowl berth, even as a lifetime achievement sort of thing. Vernon Davis has been a no-show entirely, so he’s not likely to make a return, either.
The linebacking corps, boasting four Pro Bowlers normally, has been devastated. NaVorro Bowman has missed the entire season with injuries, and Patrick Willis and Aldon Smith have missed a half-year each, likely moving them out of contention. Ahmad Brooks has become persona non grata in San Francisco, so he’s not likely to get a return trip either.
In the secondary, Eric Reid hasn’t matched his spectacular rookie season with an equally good sophomore effort, though he’s been adequate. Even Andy Lee, the perennial All-Pro, has had a slightly down year by his standards.
With all that being said, however, there are a few 49ers who should get their tickets punched to Glendale and a few more who should make it there when the inevitable injuries and other withdrawals pile up, requiring replacement Pro Bowlers. Here are six players who should get recognition from the league for exemplary play in 2014.
Reserve Offensive Tackle: Joe Staley
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We’re going to start with three players whom I didn’t vote for on my ballot, but who I would like to see make the trip to the game when all is said and done. Last year, 28 players were named to the eventual Pro Bowl rosters as replacement players, due to injuries or players making the Super Bowl. That leaves plenty of room for players to make the team even after the official rosters are announced.
I couldn’t justify naming any of the members of the offense to the initial team, but there are several who would make fine replacement players, led by Joe Staley.
The stalwart offensive lineman is having his worst season since 2011, but an off year for Staley is a career year for most offensive linemen around the league. If you take out the nightmarish game against Denver, Staley’s only allowed one sack all year long, according to Pro Football Focus (subscription required) and led the more powerful side of San Francisco’s offensive line in the run game.
Staley’s odds increase, thanks to the fact that he’s been a Pro Bowler for the last three years—due to a lack of easily digestible stats, offensive linemen tend to keep making it to the game once they’ve made it once, thanks to the name-recognition factor.
I couldn’t justify making him a starter because he has allowed 26 pressures on the year, which is firmly in the middle of the pack, per Pro Football Focus (subscription required).
Being middle-of-the-pack isn’t bad at all, though, when you factor in his power and technique in the run game. On runs to the left this season, the 49ers are averaging 4.45 yards per carry, and it’s mostly thanks to the blocking prowess of the left side of the line.
Go back and watch the Kansas City game from Week 5; Staley absolutely destroys Tamba Hali and Dee Ford play after play after play. Staley should make it four Pro Bowls in a row once a few players drop out.
Reserve Offensive Guard: Mike Iupati
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It’s hard to separate out the performances of Iupati and Staley; they work so well in tandem together that I decided to put them both as reserves this year.
While Staley is an all-around tackle, Iupati’s here for one reason and one reason only—he destroys opponents in the run game. Pro Football Focus sorts out runs by direction, and the 49ers are by far at their best when they’re running left guard behind Iupati.
They’re averaging 4.9 yards per carry (subscription required), per Pro Football Focus, with Carlos Hyde especially benefitting from Iupati’s bruising, physical dominance at the line.
If Iupati was even average in pass blocking, he’d be a starter for sure, but sadly, he hasn’t been. He ranks 49th out of 59 qualifying guards in terms of pass-blocking efficiency and has never graded positively there in his NFL career.
That’s not what he’s paid to do, though—he’s paid to destroy interior defensive linemen, and he does that very, very well. For being the best one-dimensional guard in football, he deserves a reserve nod.
Iupati’s contract is up at the end of this season, and I think he’s played well enough to get a new deal from the 49ers, assuming they can get all the financials in place. This should be his third consecutive Pro Bowl appearance.
Reserve Cornerback: Chris Culliver
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The secondary was supposed to be one of San Francisco’s weaknesses entering the 2014 season—it had just lost Carlos Rogers, Tarell Brown and Donte Whitner and had to start almost from scratch. Instead, all the new starters stepped up and played admirably, including Culliver.
For being thrust into a top-corner role with the departed players and an injury to Tramaine Brock and still playing at a high level, Culliver deserves some recognition in the form of his first Pro Bowl appearance.
I don’t want to exaggerate his importance and call him a shutdown corner or anything, but his coverage stats have been quite efficient over the course of the year. He may only have two interceptions and three passes defensed—numbers that are low enough to probably keep him out by themselves—but he hasn’t been burned at all this season and has been good, if not great, in pretty much every way you want to measure it.
Check out his advanced coverage stats (subscription required), courtesy of Pro Football Focus. He allows less than a yard per snap when he’s in coverage, which is the 13th-best total in the league. He only allows a reception once every 12.3 snaps in coverage, again 13th-best in the league.
Opposing quarterbacks have less than an 80 quarterback rating when targeting him, and he’s allowed less than 400 yards receiving and only 32 receptions. Perhaps most impressively, he’s only allowed 104 yards after catch, eighth-least in the league. If you do complete a pass against him, you’re not turning it up the field for massive yardage.
It’s not just the numbers, either—you can look at the tape and see him play well. His best game came against Eli Manning and the New York Giants. Manning tried to force the ball at Culliver 11 times, mostly to Rueben Randle. Culliver only allowed three receptions and grabbed one of his interceptions—that’s a QB rating of just 2.5.
He’s not a shutdown corner and shouldn’t be called one or voted in as one. But with eight cornerbacks making the Pro Bowl roster, and a few bound to miss the game for one reason or another, Culliver is right in the mix for a replacement slot—and should earn one.
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Defensive End: Justin Smith
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Now we get to the three players who should be voted into the Pro Bowl rosters proper. While you could make arguments as to whether or not a player like Culliver or Iupati should replace someone, there is no excuse for leaving these three players off the final roster.
At age 35, most defensive ends are winding down their careers. Only 23 times has a defensive lineman of that age made the Pro Bowl, according to Pro-Football-Reference.com, and it hasn’t happened since Pat Williams in 2008.
Most of the defensive linemen who still produce at a Pro Bowl level past their mid-30s are Hall of Famers—Bruce Smith, Reggie White, Chris Doleman, Merlin Olsen, Doug Atkins, Gino Marchetti, Andy Robustelli, Ernie Stautner and Leo Nomellini all have a place in Canton.
Justin Smith’s name would fit in well with that group. Despite being the oldest starting defensive lineman in the NFL this season, Smith is still performing like one of the best players in the game.
When you consider the injuries and suspensions to so many of San Francisco’s key defensive players, Smith’s role as a consistent veteran was that much more important, and he has more than lived up to that challenge.
He’s tied for the team lead in sacks and leads the team in hurries, despite being a 3-4 end—most pass-rushing ends play in 4-3 defenses. More importantly, he’s been a force in the run game, as well—he hasn’t missed a single tackle all season long.
When you’re getting up there in age, like Smith is, every season becomes potentially your last. Smith is on record as saying he’ll retire when his skills erode, and he’s forced to become a situational player. If that’s the case, he’ll definitely be back for at least one more ride in 2015, because Smith is still playing excellent football.
Inside Linebacker: Chris Borland
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The 49ers have four Pro Bowl linebackers under contract already, and none of them are likely to make the Pro Bowl this season. Yet the 49ers are still likely to have their linebacking corps represented in Glendale in January—how unfair is that?
Adding Chris Borland is a case of the rich getting richer in the middle of their defense. He’s been a savior this year; with NaVorro Bowman missing the entire season so far, and Patrick Willis missing half, Borland has stepped up and put in a significant case for being Defensive Rookie of the Year. This is despite not playing a single defensive snap until Week 6. That’s how good Borland’s been right off the bat.
He’s played well in every single game after the bye week, but he mostly burst onto the scene during the 49ers’ two-game road trip in Weeks 10 and 11—two must-win games if the 49ers were going to stay in playoff contention. In those two games alone, he racked up 30 tackles—that’s an insane number.
Borland dropped in the draft because he doesn’t have that ideal combination of size and speed. His arms, especially, were criticized by Nolan Nawrocki of NFL.com as being too short to play in the NFL.
You know what? Maybe he does have short arms, and he’s not the most explosive player in the world. He makes up for it by having fantastic play-recognition sense and the ability to get himself in the right position play after play after play. Call it instincts, call it hours in the film-study room, call it whatever you’d like—Borland has it, and it makes him an elite player.
It brings up a problem for the future—a good problem, for sure, but a problem notwithstanding. What do you do with Willis, Bowman AND Chris Borland on your roster in 2015?
Do you switch to a 4-3 defense and move Bowman and Willis to the outside? You don’t really have the defensive linemen to play that kind of front, and that kind of moves Aldon Smith out of position as well.
Do you make Bowman an outside linebacker in your 3-4 and go Bowman-Willis-Borland-Smith? Bowman played outside linebacker in a 4-3 system in college, but that’s a much different role than a 3-4 linebacker.
Do you trade Willis, saving the 49ers roughly $8 million against the salary cap in 2015, per Spotrac? That’s a hard deal to sell, when you’re talking about getting rid of a future Hall of Famer for a rookie with a half-season under his belt.
Maybe the best solution is some sort of rotation—Borland and Willis playing on base downs, Willis and Bowman playing in the nickel and Bowman staying in in the dime package. I don’t know—I just know that trying to figure out ways to use three Pro Bowl linebackers is a good problem to have.
Strong Safety: Antoine Bethea
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For as good as Smith and Borland have been, there’s only one 49er who has been the absolute best at his position this season, and thus deserves not only a Pro Bowl vote but also a first-team All-Pro vote, and that’s Antoine Bethea.
When the 49ers let Donte Whitner go to Cleveland, only to sign the older Bethea for a slightly smaller contract, there was much gnashing of teeth—how could the 49ers afford to lose so many starting defensive backs? Sure, Bethea was a Pro Bowler back in the late ‘00s, but he was clearly on the decline—and anyway, didn’t he just make those Pro Bowls on the back of Peyton Manning, anyway?
Well, no. Bethea has been outstanding in all aspects of the game. He’s yet to be penalized once this season—remember Whitner getting called for an unnecessary-roughness or pass-interference penalty every other game in San Francisco?
He’s been the best in coverage in San Francisco, with three interceptions to his name. His 30 stops, mostly in the run game, rank second behind only Borland on the team and are only three behind T.J. McDonald for most in the NFL by a safety this year, according to Pro Football Focus. He even added a sack on the road in St. Louis.
Really, all the teams involved in the Bethea swap did well this offseason. Whitner’s been more than adequate in Cleveland, though he’s probably not playing at a Pro Bowl level. Bethea’s replacement in Indianapolis, Mike Adams, has an argument for a Pro Bowl slot himself, though I think he’s more reserve-quality.
And then you have Bethea, captain of a defensive secondary that has succeeded beyond anyone’s wildest imagination this year. Bethea deserves his first trip to the Pro Bowl since 2009, and I wouldn’t swap him for any other strong safety in football—at least, not this season, anyway.
Bryan Knowles is a featured columnist for Bleacher Report, covering the San Francisco 49ers. Follow him @BryKno on Twitter.
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