Another dated Pro Bowl related post. This one from two years ago. While I didn’t get the solution exactly right, I was at least at the forefront of calling for a change. I still stand by bringing back the Quarterback Challenge and NFL’s Fastest Man contests. Don’t pretend you have something better to do on Saturday night.
Fixing the Pro Bowl
“Did you know Darnell Dockett is a Pro Bowler?” I asked my wife about a fellow Seminole who we had followed in the dark days of Seminole football still known throughout the panhandle as the Chris Rix Era.
“He is?” she said, “He isn’t still playing football?”
At first, I didn’t understand what she meant. Then it dawned on me that she had thought Darnell was now spending his Sundays in the bowling alley against that dude who wears sunglasses and hits his crotch after a strike rather than patrolling the Cardinals defensive line.
When a woman who grew up attending 49er games, knows the score of Super Bowl XXIV by heart (for which I have almost forgiven her), still harbors a crush on Steve Young, extols the virtues of falling on the ball and knows more about the Seminoles then most of the population of Leon County doesn’t recognize the All-Star game of the biggest sport in the country, there is a problem.
In the last two weeks we have seen the NFL Pro Bowl and the NBA All Star game and the contrast couldn’t be greater. The NBA All Star game is an event, the Pro Bowl an afterthought. The All Star Game is often more interesting and more watched than the NBA Finals. The Pro Bowl is a poor excuse for a football game played almost anonymously on a Sunday afternoon better spent doing all the chores neglected all fall.
The major problem with the Pro Bowl is that it wants to be everything to everyone. For the players, it is a reward (as if the huge bonus they each receive for being named to the team isn’t enough): a week in Hawaii to relax and have fun with your family and fellow players. If that was the extent of it, it would be perfectly fine. Unfortunately, the NFL also sees it as en event, something to be publicized as the chance to see all of the best players in the world play a competitive game.
Sorry Roger, I don’t think you can have it both ways; you can’t give everyone a week-long tropical vacation and then expect a hard-hitting game on Sunday.
So, how to fix it? Let’s look at each aspect of the game and see if there is a better alternative:
- Timing: The week after the Super Bowl, the biggest sporting event in the world, doesn’t seem like the best time to host an All-Star Game. Unlike the NBA, in which the All Star Game is the big party, NFL fans are still trying to shake off the Super Bowl hangover when they are expected to gear up for the Pro Bowl.
- Solution: Honestly, I don’t know if there is a good solution for this. Every other sport plays their All Star game mid-season, giving their players a little break. I don’t see that working in the NFL. Given the higher risk of injury, would any coach allow his best players to play a meaningless game in Week 10? Also, the League would need to take another week off either before or after to give the participants some rest. I guess they could remove the current bye week and give every team the same post-Pro Bowl bye week. The preferable option would be to move it further into the off-season. Who wouldn’t look forward to a small oasis of NFL in the off-season desert if the game were played at the end of February or beginning of April? It would also enable all of the players who take the game off because of ‘injury’ to heal up; resulting in more of the best players actually playing. One less week of forcing ourselves to watch Arena Football can’t be a bad thing.
- Location: Look I love the tropics as much as anyone (especially in February) but is a game played 2400 miles from the nearest franchise really the best idea to drum up interest? How many fans are going to pass up the Super Bowl to go see a meaningless game that the players don’t even want to participate in?
- Solution: Look at the other sports with more successful All-Star games – basketball and baseball (there is a rumor of a hockey All-Star game but I haven’t been able to confirm it). They rotate among host cities, typically in places people actually want to go. Why wouldn’t this work? If you are rewarding players, isn’t a weekend in San Diego, Tampa or Miami almost as rewarding as Hawaii? Even Denver would be fun (picture in your mind Terrell Owens on skis…see isn’t that fun?). There are also lots of marginally fun locations that want to host a Super Bowl; couldn’t we use the Pro Bowl as their audition?
- Attractions: As for the different fun activities that increase interest, the NFL has the actual Pro Bowl game and….well, that’s about it. There may be other activities but if there are we don’t know anything about them.
- Solution: Again, look at basketball and baseball. The joy of the All Star game weekend has very little to do with the All Star game. The NBA has the three-point contest and slam dunk contests. Baseball has the home run contest. The game is always going to be less than stellar, so we as fans need another reason to tune in. Remember when the NFL used to have the quarterback challenge? A fun, informal skill contest from some warm location in the spring? I actually (sort of) attended one of these several years ago in Orlando. The highlights being Brett Favre sending a 12 year old kid on a post pattern right into a tree, and meeting a couple Dolphins cheerleaders who because we were representing FSU were (almost) as happy to see us as we were them. Ok, so maybe I am little biased but why wouldn’t this be a great Pro Bowl Saturday event? What about the NFL’s Fastest Man contests (that was won every year by Darrell Green, even when he was about 46 years old)? Or how about the celebrity game? I can’t be the only one who would love to see Carrot Top or some American Idol reject get lit up by Michael Clark Duncan on a slant route.
So, there you go my humble suggestions as to how to make the Pro Bowl the event it should and could be.
Can’t you see the ads running non-stop in NFL Network now?
“You are invited to join us in Miami April 11-13th for the NFL Pro Bowl weekend. Meet your favorite players on Pro Bowl Saturday as the best passers in the game compete in the Quarterback challenge; your favorite receivers, corners and running backs race to be named NFL’s Fastest Man and many other events. Watch your favorite celebrities play Friday night and then ogle them as they enter the ESPN, Playboy and Maxim parties on Friday and Saturday night (invitation only). Cap off the weekend on Sunday at the Pro Bowl contest held at Pro Player Stadium, where all of the best players in the NFL meet to claim conference superiority.”
