Pro Bowl Pats: Seymour's Fourth, Brady's Third

The NFL released rosters Wednesday for the 2006 Pro Bowl in Honolulu, Hawaii, on Feb. 12. Defensive lineman Richard Seymour earned his fourth straight bid, while Tom Brady joined Vito "Babe" Parilli and Drew "Feet of Stone" Bledsoe as Patriot quarterbacks with three selections.

Despite missing four games with a knee injury, Seymour, 26, becomes the first Patriot with four straight Pro Bowl selections since Ben Coates had five from 1994-1998. Seymour hasn't piled up any great stats, but his impact is probably one of the biggest in the Patriots season turnaround. Since returning to the lineup, the Pats run defense has steadily returned to elite status. Coupled with the manpower opponents have to dedicate to Seymour, that has allowed the pass rush to improve; hence, the overall pass defense as well.

Brady, who also made the Pro Bowl in 2001 and 2004 leads the league with 3,888 yards passing, more than 260 yards more than second-place Peyton Manning, who also earned a selection. Brady is on pace to set multiple personal and team bests.

Patriots fullback Patrick Pass, also having a career year, led his position in fan balloting but was overlooked by players and coaches. Several other Patriots having super years, including linebacker Mike Vrabel, placekicker Adam Vinatieri, punter Josh Miller, three-time Pro Bowl special teamer Larry Izzo, and offensive linemen Stephen Neal, Logan Mankins and Nick Kaczur, were all basically ignored by fan and peer alike.

Vrabel's, Vinatieri's and Miller's statistics speak for themselves. Vinatieri and Miller are always tops in their positions, while Vrabel blossomed in the early absense of Tedy Bruschi and others, and held the defense together for several weeks.

But let's look at these offensive linemen. No, let's look at who these linemen have played against: Dwight Freeney (made the Pro Bowl) and Jason Taylor (made the Pro Bowl). Both of these guys are the elite of the league, Freeney recently broke the Indianapolis Colts franchise record for sacks, and neither one of them got so much as a glimpse of Brady throwing past them, depsite the outcomes of particular games. That's just the beginning of a list of top defensive linemen and linebackers that Mankins and Kaczur have protected Brady -- pretty well -- against all season.

As you would expected, head coach Bill Belichick downplayed the importance of Pro Bowl selections.

''Our goal is about winning and that's what we can have some degree of control over, is our performance," he said. ''Everything else that we don't have any control over, there's only so much you can do about it."

And then, he played the ace he always has up his sleeve.

"It is what it is," he said. Again. And rightfully so. Who cares about individual achievements when you can decorate a fourth finger?

By contrast, the Colts had a league-leading seven players selected and several more named first alternates. But that obviously isn't enough for the egomaniacs. When they were initially told they had eight, only to find out a tabulation error dropped tackle Tarik Glenn, they were up in arms.

“I’m a league guy, but this is a bad, bad situation," head coach Tony Dungy said. "They need to tell the whole story and it’s not good."

According to the Associated Press, the simple mistake "led to a lot of outrage."

Of course, this happened before we learned of the death of Dungy's son, and so this has been horribly placed in perspective all too suddenly.

But you see the difference between a two-time defending champion and a group of underachievers. The Patriots for years now have quietly accepted the constant lack of respect, and go out and prove everyone wrong. Other teams loudly protest how great they are and then cough up chicken bones when push comes to shove. I'm jumping the gun here, but can you imagine if the Patriots have another of their runs, and they send only two players to the Pro Bowl, while Indy sends seven or more?

By the way, the Chicago Bears were next with six player selections, five on defense.