Pro Bowl: List or Flag, Period

Everything about the Pro Bowl is wrong. The entire rationale for it, aside from one more opportunity to squeeze cash out of the American viewing public like were all a collective $9B sponge, is flawed and stupid. The Pro Bowl, as a game, should never be played ever again. 

The Pro Bowl is an All-Star game. Pretty straightforward, every major sport has one. The difference between the NFL and all other sports is the injury risk during non-important moments. Even in actual games, the heat of battle, as soon as the score is decided, teams are expected to hook their players for fear of injury risk. For fear of what happened to Welker in Week 17 a few years back. You risk every part of your body and long-term health playing even one down of real football. Risk your knees, spine, brain, everything. Which is why the preseason is nothing but a useless limp to the regular season, as every team holds its breath for those weeks that nobody suffers a key injury when none of this mattered at all.

I would submit the following: big player injuries, which is to say, elite players getting hurt, is bad for the business of football. There were tons of them this year, as well. Peterson, Manning, Mendenhall, JC, Britt, the list goes on and on. The more big names and stars who  are unable to play, the worse your product becomes.

Now we come to the Pro Bowl. The Pro Bowl is a game which means absolutely nothing, but the injury risk when played at full speed is just as high, if not higher (because every defensive player is now a stud) than a normal game. The MLB All-Star game, for example, is played at full tilt. More substitutions obviously, but the extremely small chance of serious injury (except Pedro in ’99) allows the two teams to just let it fly and play a great exhibition game halfway through an eternally long season.

The Pro Bowl features none of these elements. The season is short, and nobody needs a break from it. The injury risk is high. And, worst of all, because the injury risk is high, that means everybody plays this meaningless game at half speed, so it’s miserable to watch anyway. Aside from that one last day of generating revenue (while risking your long-term investments and key players) this game solves nothing. The very best, brightest and best paid players all convene on one field for a pillow fight, hoping to God nothing bad happens. Awesome show, fellas.

Which is why I propose the solution to turn Pro Bowl selections into a list, rather than a game. Just like being named all-conference in college, you simply are selected to the team (and your salary can be negotiated reflecting that accomplishment) and everybody wins. Hell, if you feel like rewarding these guys for this great achievement, then send them to Hawaii anyway for some relaxation, press, etc. Just don’t make them play a real game.

Or, as my buddy suggests, if you really want something to sell tickets to, make it a flag football game. Sure, knees are still at risk, but knees are at risk walking down the street. Wouldn’t be too much fun for linemen I’d presume, but would make for a great show, there’d be tons of scoring, and nobody gets carted off the field in a stretcher.

Nobody likes the Pro Bowl. It’s awful. And moving it to the week before the Super Bowl, once again, solved nothing. Get it out of there, before somebody on the field gets killed, or somebody watching it fatally succumbs to boredom.