Mickles: Fans honor Brees for stellar year

• By SHELDON MICKLES
• Advocate sportswriter
• Published: Dec 14, 2008 - UPDATED: 12:05 a.m.

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Considering the season he’s having, it was no surprise New Orleans Saints quarterback Drew Brees collected the most votes in fan balloting for the 2009 Pro Bowl teams.

The voting ended Tuesday with Brees, who has thrown for 4,332 yards and 28 touchdowns in 14 games, finishing with 951,246 votes among the nearly 85 million cast via the Internet.

The AFC and NFC squads are based on the consensus votes of fans, players and coaches. Each group’s vote counts one-third toward determining the 43-man rosters. Coaches and players cast their ballots last week and the teams will be revealed at 3 p.m. Tuesday on the NFL Network.

New York Jets quarterback Brett Favre (880,833) and New York Giants quarterback Eli Manning (821,852) were second and third behind Brees.

Four Louisiana natives led the voting at their respective positions.

In the NFC, Washington’s LaRon Landry and Chris Horton had the most votes at free safety and strong safety, respectively. In the AFC, Tennessee’s Kevin Mawae received the most votes at center, while Baltimore’s Ed Reed led at free safety.

Chicago running back Matt Forté, a Slidell native, had the third-most votes among rookies with 246,274.

The NFC South has the best record in the NFL this season with a combined 34-19 record, but you couldn’t tell the Denver Broncos that it’s all that tough.

The Broncos, who face the Carolina Panthers today in Charlotte, N.C., have already beaten the other three teams in the division — defeating the Saints (34-32) and Tampa Bay Bucs (16-13) in Denver and tripping the Atlanta Falcons (24-20) in the Georgia Dome.

Quarterback Jay Cutler certainly likes the NFC South. In those three games, he has completed 63 of 95 passes (66.3 percent) for 707 yards with four TDs and one interception. He’s also compiled a passer rating of 98.0.

If the Indianapolis Colts were sorry they had to flip the calendar from November to December, they didn’t show it last week.