Shedeur Sanders was named to the 2026 Pro Bowl games on Monday as an alternate in one of the most stunningly hilarious turn of events in season that already made no sense. Injuries, disinterest, and a dearth of quality quarterbacks in the AFC led to Sanders’ selection, who is, without question, the worst QB to ever participate in any Pro Bowl event.
The AFC will be led by Josh Allen, with Justin Herbert and Drake Maye as the reserves. Sanders will take the place of Maye, since the Patriots are playing in the Super Bowl. That means we’re going to have a quarterback participating in an All-Star game with the following statistics from 2025:
- 1,400 passing yards (35th in the NFL)
- 56.6% completion (42nd in the NFL)
- 6.6 yards-per-attempt (31st in the NFL)
- 3.3% touchdown percentage (36th in the NFL)
- 4.7% interception percentage (41st in the NFL)
- 68.1 passer rating (41st in the NFL)
- 18.9 QBR (40th in the NFL)
It’s not designed to be an indictment of Sanders to point out that he sucked, it’s just the reality. Rookies struggle, and sometimes they are able to bounce back in a major way — but putting him on a Pro Bowl roster is absurd. Here is a list of quarterbacks in the AFC who out-performed Sanders this season, aren’t injured, but didn’t make the cut over him — sorted by passer rating.
- Joe Burrow (CIN)
- Aaron Rodgers (PIT)
- C.J. Stroud (HOU)
- Trevor Lawrence (JAX)
- Tua Tagovailoa (MIA)
- Geno Smith (LVR)
- Davis Mills (HOU)
- Cam Ward (TEN)
- Joe Flacco (CIN)
We have nine healthy quarterbacks who should have gotten the nod over Sanders for that Pro Bowl spot. It’s entirely likely that all nine turned down invitations from the NFL, but that feels like a stretch — which raises questions of whether this was about marketability, rather than talent. While Sanders was objectively awful to anyone who watched football, he also attracts more attention that anyone on the above list, outside of perhaps Joe Burrow.
In terms of where Sanders ranks among the worst quarterbacks all time who participated in a Pro Bowl, that is a bit of a loaded question. The Pro Bowl began in 1951, but if we take it from the Super Bowl era Sanders ranks 15th all time for lowest QB rating by a player to be named to the roster. Still, that figure is a bit of fool’s gold, because we know how much the NFL has changed over the years. If we look at the mid-1960s the best quarterbacks in the NFL were finishing with passer rating in the low-to-mid 80s, because that’s how the game was played.
If we fast-forward to 1990 and look at the list of Pro Bowl QBs we get a better sense of where this rates in the modern era. Here is the lowest rated Pro Bowl quarterback from each decade.
1990s: Brett Favre (1993) — 72.2 rating
2000s: Vince Young (2006) — 66.7 rating
2010s: Andrew Luck (2012) — 76.5 rating
2020s: Shedeur Sanders (2025) — 68.1 rating
From this we see that the only quarterback who was as bad as Sanders, but selected to a Pro Bowl was Vince Young, but the devil is in the details. During that 2006 rookie season Young rushed for over 500 yards and 7 touchdowns. That dual-threat nature gave him 19 total touchdowns and 13 turnovers — while Sanders had 8 touchdowns and 10 turnovers
If we consider each player’s role in the NFL at the time they played, account for quarterbacks being dual-threat players, and their effect on the season they played in there’s no doubt: Shedeur Sanders is the worst Pro Bowl quarterback in history.
At least Deion is happy.
