Is the Pro Bowl the Most Pointless Event in Sports?
How can we make this day worth something more than it is?
Today the Pro Bowl kicks off in Las Vegas. Ninety or so of the top football players available will be playing each other in a game that has all the intensity of an old-timers game.
By “the best players available” I mean the fact that players from the teams in the Super Bowl are not allowed to play, so three Bengals and four Rams are out of the game. Then there are the 17 players who were injured and replaced, plus Tom Brady who was selected but retired. That’s twenty-five Pro-Bowlers who aren’t even in the game today.
Everything you need to know about the Pro Bowl is the fact that the game of football being played at Allegiant Stadium today is nothing like the football that is played during the rest of the season. There are a *few* rule changes in the Pro Bowl that real games don’t have. And by a few I mean that Wikipedia counts TWENTY-FIVE different rules.
No motion or shifting by the offense
Offense must have a running back and tight end in all formations
Offense may have up to 3 receivers on the same side
Intentional grounding is legal
No rushing the passer
Illegal forwarding passing is allowed
More than one forward pass thrown on the same play is allowed
Defense must run a 4–3 at all times, though the Cover 2 and press coverage is allowed
No blitz; DEs and tackles can rush on passing plays, provided they are on same side of ball
No blindside or below the waist blocks
No rushing the punter
No rushing the kicker
Coin toss determines who receives first; loser receives to start 3rd period. Procedure repeats at the start of 1st overtime.
Kickoffs are eliminated (including free kicks)
Punt returns are eliminated by the automatic fair catch
Teams will start on their own 25-yard line after any score or at the start of each half/odd overtime
If a team that would otherwise be kicking off wants to attempt to retain possession (situations where an onside kick would be attempted if there were kickoffs), they may run a single scrimmage play from their own 25-yard line; should the ball be advanced 15 yards forward, the team retains possession[32]
Receivers may flinch or raise either foot without incurring penalty
35-second play clock to run plays
Deep middle safety must be aligned within hash marks
Replay reviews are allowed
44-player roster per team
Two-minute warning in effect for all quarters, plus overtime
Game clock runs on incompletions except at 2 minutes left in half/overtime
Limited contact is allowed, provided ball carrier is surrounded by opponents
Undoubtedly, some of those rules would probably be better for the game to incorporate into real games, like the 35-second play clock. But a lot of these rules are designed to make sure that the game is entertaining and nobody gets hurt.
Not that people were trying anyway. The Pro Bowl is notorious for low effort plays, little contact, little tackling. And weird stuff like Drew Brees attempting a drop kick.
A Pro Bowl selection is a VERY big deal for players, a major accomplishment for a lot of guys who don’t necessary get the glitz and glamor of the Quarterbacks and the other offensive skill players. As a game, the Pro Bowl at least had the allure of location for many, many years. Aloha Stadium in Honolulu hosted the game for most of a thirty-five year period. Now that Aloha Stadium1 is no longer available, they’ve at least moved the game to this year to Las Vegas. But what about future years? How does the NFL make something that people want to watch and people want to participate it.
Here are some ideas:
Exotic Locations: Remember how I suggested that the 17th-game be used to grow the league’s footprint? Here’s another great example of this. I bet you more of these guys would be excited to go to the Pro Bowl if it were being held in Rio de Janeiro. Or Tokyo. Or Sydney. It would be better for this game to be used to grow the footprint and get fans who are excited to see *any* NFL action than just go to an NFL city weeks after their team’s season has ended or go to Orlando when the game is just a sideshow in Disney territory.
Make it a Madden Game: You want to see which conference has the best team? Plug the starters into Madden and see what happens. You can run it as a simulation or you can run it as a league where the players play as each other or you get the best two Madden players in the world to play the game. Show that game and see which team is the best of the best. Nobody has to travel, nobody has to get hurt, all the injured guys can play, and you can settle it on the field.
Larger Cash Prize: The winners this year get $80,000. That’s real money for some of the lower-paid guys, like the long-snappers. But it’s a rounding error for a guy like Patrick Mahomes who received $22,806,905 this year and will be making north of $40,000,000 a year until 2034.2 Make the pot of money bigger, and maybe more guys will show up.
Home Field Advantage in Next Year’s Super Bowl: I know baseball tried this and it failed spectacularly. But hear me out. If today’s Pro Bowl was being played and the prize was the winning conference was home field advantage at Super Bowl LVII next year, that may get the player’s attention. Every team dreams of making the Super Bowl but rarely are teams expected to do poorly go all the way and make it. However, the Bengals were one of those teams this year. Guys who are locked into their teams for the foreseeable future may want the limited advantage one gets from having the homefield rub.
Make the Skills Competition Bigger: I honestly didn’t know there was a Pro Bowl skills competition until recently. But I can tell you I’d much rather watch the players play Dodgeball and do some of this other stuff as the main event than seeing guys half-ass their way around the field on pads.
Is there an easy solution? No. But almost any improvement is better than the three hour void that the game has become.
It was condemned and is being torn down for a new, small, modern replacement.
Take a look at the man’s contract. It’s insane: https://www.spotrac.com/nfl/kansas-city-chiefs/patrick-mahomes-21751/