The Pro Bowl Before the Super Bowl Is Worse Than a Team Resting Starters

Most All-Star games are a joke and some (NFL, NBA, NHL) are just horrible to watch because of the lack of defense, or in the case of the NHL and NFL, the lack of hitting.

Recently, this lack of actual football has caused ratings and attendance of the yearly Pro-Bowl to slump.

To rectify this, the NFL has decided the Pro-Bowl will now tour (much like the other 3 major sports) and be played at different venues each year.  Sadly, these venues are the same ones that host the Super Bowl, so it's still only going to be seen live in a handful of cities.

Also, Rodger Goodall and his boys have decided the game needs to be played two weeks early, better known as the week before the Super Bowl.

Why?  I have no idea.  Actually that's not true.  They're doing this because they feel that all the people there for the Super Bowl will buy a ticket to this game too and they can actually show a full stadium.

That might work, I have my doubts, but the at home audience won't tune in anymore, in fact they may tune in less.

The biggest problem with having the Pro Bowl two weeks earlier is that some of the biggest stars won't be there because they'll be preoccupied with some little game called the Super Bowl.

So this year we won't see the two best quarterbacks in the league play in the annual All-Star game.  In a sense its that last two weeks of the regular season all over again.

Basically the same players the league complained about not playing won't be playing again because they had the brilliant idea to schedule an exhibition the week before the big game.

The league wants to show case their best players but goes about it backwards.

Don't worry though, as always, I have a solution.

Put the game back to being a week after the Super Bowl.  However, instead of having it in Hawaii or this year's Super Bowl hosting city have it at next years host city.  Do it kind of like the Olympics with closing ceremonies.

It would be like passing the torch.  The owner of the Super Bowl hosting stadium (or mayor) could be at the Pro Bowl with the owner (or mayor) of the next hosting stadium and they can do the coin toss together.

Sure, we'd have the same old defenseless game that we've always had, but we'll have most of the stars there.  Also, I think the attendance at the Pro Bowl would go up even further in this scenario.

It would be like a big party to officially close out the NFL season.

On a side note, I am kind of glad the Pro Bowl is the week before the Super Bowl this year.  Mostly because justice has finally been served.  After many snubs, London Fletcher is finally going because Jonathan Vilma of the New Orleans Saints has pulled out due to the Super Bowl.