I’m sorry to say this, but the Pro Bowl is unfixable. The NFL might as well stop trying to force people to watch a game that can barely be labeled football. Pop Warner games are more physical than what the Pro Bowl has turned into. Very few NFL fans want to watch players run up and down the field with little to no effort from the defense. Advertising the Pro Bowl as a professional football game is a mistake, and there is nothing the NFL can do to change it.
Nobody wants to get injured in the Pro Bowl. There’s a reason that many players choose to skip the game and players that will be in the Super Bowl the following week do not play. The fact that the game isn’t physical can’t be changed because nobody wants it to be changed, and that’s a good thing. There’s no reason to put additional stress on the bodies of these professional athletes for a pointless game. The players who participate are just looking to have some fun, maybe do a couple dances, and leave the game unscathed. This game is a glorified practice because hitting a quarterback is seen as an abominable sin. This simply isn’t the style of football that NFL fans want to see, and Roger Goodell can do nothing to change the physicality of this meaningless game.
Even if the lack of physicality doesn’t turn off some fans, the fact that the Pro Bowl is watered down today makes the game even worse. Moving the Pro Bowl ahead of the Super Bowl automatically disqualifies many of the best players in the league from participating. 14 of the best players in the league are ineligible to play in the Pro Bowl this season because they are participating in the Super Bowl. 33 players were added as replacements to assume the positions of the 14 Super Bowl participants and 19 other Pro Bowlers who declined to play for various reasons. The Pro Bowl is advertised as the best of the best squaring off, and that’s simply not the case anymore. There’s a reason that one-third of the originally selected Pro Bowlers are not playing in the game this year. There’s no way to force these players to participate, so second-tier players will have to fill their slots every year. What’s the point of having a Pro Bowl if one-third of the best players in the league can’t or won’t play?
The more the NFL tinkers with the Pro Bowl, the worse the game gets. Eventually, the game is going to get canceled altogether as the ridiculousness of the play increases. Sure, watching Odell Beckham Jr. make absurd catches for another week might be fun. However, anybody who has watched his pregame routine has already seen these types of catches and if he’s playing against a nonexistent defense in the Pro Bowl, what’s the difference? Perhaps making the Pro Bowl a game of two-hand touch would enhance the effort from the defense because the risk of getting injured during a tackle would be removed. That seems like the next feasible step anyway. Either way, I won’t be tuning into this meaningless game and I’m sure many fans of traditional football will join me.
Main Photo:
