The NFL hosts the Pro Bowl game every year before the Super Bowl. It used to mean something to be called a Pro Bowler and play in the game. Skill competitions accompanied the game, such as strongest arm, accuracy contests, wide receiver contests, etc. In the last number of years, the Pro Bowl has become a joke! Not “haha, they’re having fun, so it’s okay” funny, but an insult to football fans alike.
Why Is The Pro Bowl A Joke?
For years, players such as Derrick Thomas, Lawrence Taylor, Jerry Rice, Steve Young, and Barry Sanders were honored to be named to the AFC or NFC Pro Bowl teams. These players earned that right to play in those games, and play is exactly what they did. The late great Sean Taylor showed us how much the game meant to him when he leveled punter Brian Moorman on a fake punt and met him with a supersonic boom.
To me, the Pro Bowl has become a joke for several reasons. Reason one is the fact that they don’t play the game anymore. I haven’t watched a Pro Bowl game in about four years and haven’t missed much. These players and the league have turned it into a laughing stock with how the game is played. The best players from both conferences should be in the Pro Bowl, and they should be playing the game. They don’t have to go 100% at each other, but when I saw two-hand touch take place in a recent Pro Bowl game, I was disgusted.
Reason number two for why the Pro Bowl is a joke is the voting. For at least a decade, voting has been a crippling flaw for the weekend. The way players are voted in is a disgrace. Three parties (coaches, players, and fans) vote on who they think should be on the rosters, each party getting 33% of the vote or 1/3. With the media machine we have these days, players such as Matthew Stafford have been denied their due for a weekend.
When you have the media coverage, and pounding topics for more significant markets such as LA, Dallas, New York, Green Bay, or Kansas City, a player who balls out in Detroit will get the short end of the stick from the fan vote. The worst part about media outlets is the strict favoritism they have for specific players, and it starts right out of college for most, but pushing such players as faces of the league will also bury someone who’s had a troubled career in a death trap that is Detroit.
Pro Bowl Snub:
Pro Bowl snubs have become media outlets’ way of creating things to discuss after the flawed voting system claims another player’s résumé. I understand that I sound like an older man yelling at the clouds, but the fact is, players aren’t snubbed. Fans and media outlets ostracize them. This leads back to what I said about outlets pounding or pushing their favorite topics and players.
I mentioned Matthew Stafford earlier, and this one really bugs me. Stafford played 12 years for the Detroit Lions, where he compiled a pretty good résumé considering the circumstances. He had one Pro Bowl selection during that time which was in 2014. In 2011 Stafford was left off the Pro Bowl roster for the NFC. Who did the three voting parties vote in? Eli Manning, who played in the Super Bowl and got replaced by Rookie Cam Newton. There are plenty of seasons in Stafford’s career that I can point to and say he deserved the vote over someone else, but I’m just going to highlight 2011.
In 2011, Stafford threw for 5,038 yards, 41 TDS, and 16 ints, with a 97.2 rating, and led his team to a 10-6 record. Manning, on the other hand, finished with 4,933 yards, 29 TDS, and 16 ints with a 92.9 rating and led his team to nine wins. Playing in the same division as the league MVP, putting up those numbers, and not getting the selection over a guy he outplayed? That’s a slap in the face to Stafford.
Even though Stafford was listed as an alternate, Manning’s replacement was Cam Newton. How? Why? Stafford outplayed Newton in every way. Newton finished his rookie campaign with 4,051 yards, 21 TDS, 17 INTS, and 14 rushing TDS, with an 84.5 rating. Even combing Newton’s touchdown totals, he still fell six short of Stafford’s. Hence why, the selection process is a joke.
History Of The Pro Bowl:
Before 1995, the Pro Bowl rosters were decided on by votes from coaches and players. I guess that nobody was snubbed as severely as they are now. When the concept of the Pro Bowl was first conceived in 1939, the NFL thought of an “All-Star game.” In this All-Star game, the defending NFL Champion would take on a team of league All-Stars. Something similar to what the Soviet Union did when they played the NHL All-Stars in the Challenge Cup in 1979.
The first official Pro Bowl occurred in 1951 between the Eastern/American conference and the National/Western conference. After the 1970 merger between the AFL and NFL is when the Pro Bowl became NFC vs. AFC. That lasted until 2014 when the NFL changed to the schoolyard format. In this format Hall Of Famers drafted elected players to their teams, and no longer was it AFC vs. NFC (ex: Team Irvin vs. team Primetime.)
For years the Pro Bowl was held after the season was over, but in 2010, that ended when it was moved up to the week before the Super Bowl. The move now prohibits players on Super Bowl teams from playing in the Pro Bowl, thus taking away from the entertainment factor. The final death wound to the Pro Bowl came this year when the NFL announced that the 2023 edition would feature non-contact flag football in place of full contact.
The Round-Up:
To sum things up, for those of you still reading me yelling at the clouds. The Pro Bowl is a joke, and there’s no un-laughing this once-entertaining weekend.
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