A Remarkable Achievement

Jan 12, 2009, 8:42:19 AM by Bob Gretz - FAQ

Sometimes when a great player is stuck on a bad team he gets forgotten.

But so good was the performance of Tony Gonzalez during the 2008 Chiefs season that voters from around the country noticed his play. That’s why the Chiefs tight end was named first-team All-Pro in voting conducted by the Associated Press.

Over the years the AP team has become the standard for all-league honors. There have been and are other All-Pro teams selected by various media outlets and groups like the Pro Football Writers of America. But the AP team is No. 1 and very meaningful.

Trips to the Pro Bowl are nice, but the real value for a player is when he can be called All-Pro. It means simply this: he’s the best player at his position in the NFL. Not the best player in one conference, or not one of the handful of the best players that gets a trip to Hawaii. I can tell you that inside the discussions about entering the Pro Football Hall of Fame, All-Pro carries more weight than Pro Bowls.

In 2008, the 50 voters from around the country decided that Gonzalez was the best tight end in the business. It wasn’t even close, as he received 33 votes, with Jason Witten of Dallas second with 14 votes.

What makes this honor so remarkable is this:

Of the 24 position players on offense and defense (the AP takes two outside and two inside linebackers, along with two running backs) only two played on teams that finished with a losing record: Gonzalez and Oakland cornerback Nnamdi Asomugha.

Throw in Oakland punter Shane Lechler who earned the first-team spot and that’s three players from losing teams. The Chiefs were 2-14, while the Raiders finished 5-11.

Of the 24 position players, 20 were on teams that made the playoffs. Besides Gonzalez and Asomugha, the only other All-Pro outside of the tournament were Houston WR Andre Johnson and Dallas DE DeMarcus Ware. Johnson led the league in receiving and Ware led the league in sacks.

Here’s one more remarkable tidbit that puts the honor for Gonzalez in perspective: no other Chiefs player at any position received a vote. Not a one. Not that many players on a team that finishes 2-14 should be honored with a vote, but even fellow Pro Bowler Brian Waters wasn’t mentioned. There were 10 guards that received at least one vote and Waters wasn’t among them.

There were two teams that did not have any player who secured even a single vote: Cincinnati and Jacksonville. There were five teams that had only one player: the Chiefs, Chicago (punter Brad Maynard), St. Louis (punter Donnie Jones), San Francisco (LB Patrick Willis) and Seattle (OT Walter Jones.)

Wide receiver Calvin Johnson of the Detroit Lions got one vote for the All-Pro team. He may be as good a receiver as Andre Johnson who got 45 votes and Larry Fitzgerald with 21 votes. But the Houston Texans won eight games and the Arizona Cardinals won nine. But the Lions did not win a game and thus we don’t know just how good a player Calvin Johnson is right now.

All this is just another lesson on how important the concept of team is in pro football. With 11 players on each side on the field, it’s not a game where one player can dominate the way a single player can do in say basketball. Success comes from the group playing together and playing together well. Great players can get lost on bad football teams. Good players can become great on good football teams.

Those who follow the Chiefs know how good a season Tony Gonzalez had in 2008 when everything else about the team was falling apart. His elevation to All-Pro status is evidence that the rest of the country noticed as well.

The opinions offered in this column do not necessarily reflect those of the Kansas City Chiefs.

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A former beat reporter who covered the Pittsburgh Steelers during their glory years, Gretz covered the Chiefs for the Kansas City Star for nine years. He is a member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame's Board of Selectors. He has been the senior columnist for the Chiefs web site since its inception.