The Pro Bowl Defends Its Reputation As Pro Sports' Worst All-Star Game

Every year up until 2010 the Pro Bowl had been played in Hawaii the week after the Super Bowl. It was a bit of a reward to those selected to get to spend a week in Hawaii with the top players in the league. 

This year however, in an attempt to make money, the game was moved to the week in-between the Super Bowl and Conference Championship games. This move wasn’t real popular around the league as every player from the two Super Bowl teams wouldn’t participate, and many other players from the Conference runners-up chose to drop out. 

The AFC roster featured three quarterbacks that were fill-ins with David Garrard, Vince Young, and Matt Schaub playing instead of Peyton Manning, Phillip Rivers, and Tom Brady. The integrity of this game has really deteriorated with this decision.  

Having the game at the Super Bowl sight instead of Hawaii takes away from the honor of being selected. Imagine a player in the Pro Bowl in a year his team loses the AFC championship when the Super Bowl is in his city.  What a great honor that is.  The week after you lose the conference championship, you get to stay at home and go to practice for another week.

Ratings for the game did see a significant boost, so I guess Goodell’s plan worked. The New York Post reports that ratings were up from eight million last year to over 12 million this year. The 40 percent ratings boost looks good on the surface, but the game itself was a dud. I’m guessing the reason they were so high was because everyone wanted the new format. 

I don’t imagine these numbers will hold up too long. I watched the first half of this game and decided to flip on Xbox Live and watch a movie from my Netflix account. I watched the movie “The Last Hand” which, in my opinion, was one of the worst movies ever put together. I’m still not convinced I made the wrong decision.

Another thing I wasn’t a big fan of, although not a huge deal, was Goodell’s decision to force the Pro Bowlers from Indianapolis and New Orleans to be at the game.  You are taking away the best players from their teams during the most important week of their career to appear at the Pro Bowl so you can get better ratings. 

There are times for them to make public appearances for the fans during Super Bowl week, media day. The Pro Bowl has gone from a laid back, relaxed Sunday afternoon to a business-like atmosphere and a complete joke.

The game itself seems to be pointless. It was just the NFL’s attempt to “fit in” with the NBA, MLB, and NHL All-Star games. I always thought it would’ve been more fun to watch the top players participate in various contests much like All-Star Saturday night in the NBA. 

The NFL is such a physical and violent game, to actually put together a game is near impossible. I watched Mario Williams blow by the offensive line in the first quarter just to hold up and let Aaron Rodgers launch a 50 yard touchdown pass. There is no real competition top to bottom. 

The Pro Bowl should’ve stayed where it was. Forget the ratings, forget money for a second, just give the best players a weeks’ vacation to Hawaii for all their hard work. 

If they have to have a game, leave it the way it was. I’d like to see them scrap the game altogether in favor of some various contests.