Peterson, Allen take a step toward Pro Bowl

Adrian Peterson and Jared Allen would be the only Pro Bowlers from the Vikings if the fan voting was all that counted. It counts for one-third, and players were registering their votes on Wednesday.

Two years ago, the NFL faced a significant problem when it came to Pro Bowl voting. The Vikings had 10 players named to the Pro Bowl team and, had the Vikings won the NFC Championship Game, the league would have needed to replace all of them.

There are no such problems this year as far as the Vikings are concerned, but it begs the question: How many Vikings will get named to the Pro Bowl team?

The fan voting concluded this week and the players cast their ballots Wednesday afternoon, doing their part to select the best players at their positions.

Realistically, the Vikings should have just two Pro Bowl players – Jared Allen and Adrian Peterson. It’s hard to argue either. Allen has been at or near the top of the NFL sack list all season and Peterson is widely regarded as the most dominant running back in the game.

Vikings fans may argue that Kevin Williams, Steve Hutchinson and Chad Greenway should garner some consideration, but the reality is that most of the Pro Bowl positions go to players from the hottest teams in the league, as the Vikings did when they hoarded Pro Bowl spots in 2009.

The league will announce the Pro Bowl teams early next week and, while there may be a player or two that gets selected later as an alternate, don’t be shocked to see Allen and Peterson as the only Vikings among the players being voted into playing in Honolulu.

Peterson finished ninth overall and second among running backs in the fan portion of Pro Bowl voting. He had 925,554 votes, compared to Eagles RB LeSean McCoy, who had 962,824 votes.

Allen was easily the top Pro Bowl vote-getter from fans among NFL defensive ends. He got 784,527 votes. Justin Smith (49ers) finished second among defensive ends with 525,578 fan votes.

Packers QB Aaron Rodgers led all players with 1,581,982 fan votes. Quarterbacks Tom Brady (Patriots) and Drew Brees (Saints) finished second and third overall.

In an interesting injury report note, Adrian Peterson is no longer listed on the Vikings injury report this week, an apparent sign that he is in line to get more than the 10 carries he got last Sunday against the Saints last week.

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John Holler has been writing about the Vikings for more than a decade for Viking Update. Follow Viking Update on Twitter and discuss this topic on our message boards. To become a subscriber to the Viking Update web site or magazine, click here.

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