Q & A: Why does the NFL still play the Pro Bowl?

By:  Bobby Shores
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Question:  Why does the NFL still play the Pro Bowl, players don't even care, much less try to do well in it? It is an embarrassment to the players and the NFL in general. Will the NFL ever consider canceling it, or at least changing it? What can they do to make it more enjoyable?

ReclinerQB Thoughts:  I agree 100%, the NFL Pro Bowl is a complete farce, the players only go because it is a free trip to Hawaii, and if you don't believe me, then why did so many players drop out the year it wasn't held in Hawaii. As a "super fan" myself who votes repeatedly for the Pro Bowl, and takes my vote more seriously than I should (I don't just vote for my favorite players, I vote based off of my scouting notes to try and help the best players get there), I think the NFL owes it to the fans that spend their time watching, pay to go, and use their time to vote to actually put on a decent show.

Roger Goodell did openly talk about canceling the Pro Bowl after so many fans and media spoke out about the pathetic play this past year. Will they ever actually cancel it? I seriously doubt it as the Pro Bowl still makes the league a lot of money, dominates its time slot on television and is by far the most watched All-Star game in professional sports. No matter how much we as fans and media (no I am not including myself in the media category), as long as we keep watching it than the NFL will keep playing it.

The reason that the players don't play hard is that for most of them after having escaped the pounding of a 16+ game season their bodies are worn out and they do not want to wear themselves out in a meaningless game. There are also a lot of players that are either free agents or going into a contract year, and the payout for playing/winning is not large enough to risk injuring themselves. The financial risk of playing hard is too much to risk for most of the players also. Along the lines of not a large enough payout, the winning players only make $44,000 while the losing team makes $22,000, which is a fraction of what most of the Pro Bowl players make on a weekly basis.

So how can the NFL improve the Pro Bowl? This is a tough one, without giving players a very large bonus (upper 6 figures), massive insurance in case they get hurt that covers all potential future earnings or somehow penalizing players for not playing hard (heck Goodell penalizes players for everything else); I am not sure what they can do.

One idea I have (and I would personally like), is to get rid of the actual game and do a series of skill challenges:

• Have the fastest skill players compete in a 40-yard dash. Wide Receivers and Defensive, Running Backs, Offensive line and defensive line, quarterbacks, running backs, and specialists each have their own categories along with an "Open Competition". I think the fans would enjoy watching their favorite players race, and the players that won/beat other players would be bragging about it for years.
• You could do all kinds of quarterback competitions (similar to the ones they used to do)
• Kicking and Punting competitions would be compromised of longest field goal/kick with no rush, coffin corner punting and a trick shot competition.
• Wide Recievers, Defensive Backs, Running Backs and Linebackers could do a sort of 7-on-7 competition (which is basically what the Pro Bowl game ends up as anyways), having them line up in true 7-on-7 form and also have a contest of them competing 1-on-1 in an elimination style tournament.Have them redo their combine bench press competition, these guys are some of the strongest athletes in the world, lets see how much they can bench. What fan wouldn't have loved to see Larry Allen benching over 700 lbs. and bending the bar with just the weight on each side.

The competitions that you can come up with are endless and I think they would be very entertaining. To make it work in prime time the NFL would have to be very careful to not "over commercialize" everything like they tend to do, and the replays would be popular for years to come.

I believe my suggestions save all problems, the fans will enjoy it still, the players will still get the honor and their trip to Hawaii and most important of all to the NFL and Roger Goodell is that they still make money.

How do y'all think the NFL could improve the Pro Bowl?

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