15 Ways to Improve the Pro Bowl

The Pro Bowl is often described as “juicy, revved up, and refreshing,” “a truly frightening experience with a shocker of an ending,” and “a cultural landmark” (ok, those are descriptions of Notorious, The Uninvited, and Clint Eastwood’s latest movie, Get Off My Damn Lawn, respectively).

Actually the Pro Bowl is usually compared to watching a three-hour documentary about insurance.

The NFL is moving the Pro Bowl to a week before the Super Bowl next year, and if that doesn’t ramp up the ratings, they’ll start televising the game on Versus. With that in mind, here are 15 suggestions for improving football’s all-star game.

1. Form a team of former NFL players who are now in prison (OJ Simpson, Michael Vick, etc.) and have them play a team of prison guards. It’ll be like The Longest Yard come to life. The actual Pro Bowlers can watch from the sidelines and lead the chants of Mean Machine! Mean Machine! Who wouldn’t watch that?

2. Have the players live in a house together for a month, leading up to the game, and make it a reality show. (”Damn, who ate my last Twinkie? Peyyyttton!!!”)

3. Make the game a Pro-Am, with the likes of Ray Romano, Bill Murray, and Kevin James mixed in with the NFLers, and count the broken bones.

4. Combine the game with the NHL All-Star game and play it on ice.

5. Have every player play with a loaded gun tucked in his pants in honor of Plaxico Burress.

6. Play the game with brand-new rules...made up by Gary Busey

7. Remember playing pick-up-and-slaughter as a kid? One guy runs around with the football while everyone else tries to cream him, and then it’s someone else’s turn with the ball. No rules, just carnage. There’s your Pro Bowl.

8. Have an open bar for the players five hours before the game, lasting until kickoff.

9. Make the game more like Rollerball; receivers and cornerbacks ride motorcycles.

10. Have the Pro Bowlers play against a team of actors who starred in football movies: Burt Reynolds, Keanu Reeves, Jamie Foxx, Cuba Gooding Jr., Nick Nolte, John Goodman, LL Cool J, James Caan, Billy Dee Williams, and Dennis Quaid. The list is endless.

11. Each member of the losing team has to rotate playing a season for the Detroit Lions.

12. Each member of the losing team has to live with Joe Buck for a year.

13. Play it at the same time and on the same field as the Super Bowl. The Pro Bowl kicks off at one end, and the Super Bowl from the other. Kick back, crack open a beer, and watch the mayhem ensue.

14. Have Jake Delhomme play QB for both teams and see how many interceptions he can throw.

15. No more Mannings!