Peyton Manning leading Tom Brady in Pro Bowl votes

Rob Gronkowski, Jerod Mayo, and Logan Mankins are all leading their respective positions in Pro Bowl voting, but the New England Patriots best player is only second at the quarterback position. Tom Brady has the second-most votes overall with a little over 534,000, but he’s still second to long-time nemesis Peyton Manning in the fan vote. The new Denver Broncos QB has 586,523 votes, and the only other player with over 500,000 votes is Houston Texans running back Arian Foster.

Denny Medley-US PRESSWIRE

Adrian Peterson and Aaron Rodgers are two NFC North superstars who round out the top five, with the Green Bay Packers QB garnering just under 1,000 more votes than the Minnesota Vikings feature back.

Even though this isn’t a big thing, it’s still annoying to see that fans are selecting Manning at a higher rate than Brady. It’s pretty apparent to me that Brady has been the best QB in the NFL this season, even if Manning is second to him. Aaron Rodgers and Matt Ryan  are in some combination of third and fourth (Ryan has leveled off so I’d put Rodgers ahead of him), and Ben Roethlisberger would be up there with them had he not been slowed by the injury. In fact, the rib injury has shown Big Ben’s value to this team.

Peyton Manning has had a great year thus far, but Brady has been better by pretty much every metric. He leads in ESPN’s TQBR, in EPA, interception percentage, and adjusted yards per attempt. He also has more passing yards, a higher passer rating, and a higher average of yards per completion than Manning.

I wish that the Pro Bowl voting was constructed so that right tackles and left tackles would be differentiated, so Sebastian Vollmer’s path would be set (best RT in the league this year by far). I mean, there is obviously a big difference in being a LT than a RT. Mankins doesn’t belong in the Pro Bowl this year, but Mayo and Gronk definitely do. Gronk is easily the best TE in the league, and both Mayo and his partner-in-crime Brandon Spikes have been excellent this season.

Devin McCourty, Ryan Wendell, Wes Welker, and Stevan Ridley also deserve to be in the Pro Bowl. Put Chandler Jones on the watch list as well.

You can follow Joe Soriano on Twitter @SorianoJoe.