What could be more exciting in the NFL offseason than talking about PRO BOWL DESTINATIONS!
Are you with me! Well, too bad because we’ve gone too far down this road to turn back now.
The 2017 Pro Bowl will be leaving Honolulu for the second time since 2010. This time though, the Pro Bowl won’t be packaged together in the same city as the Super Bowl. The 2017 version of the NFL All-Star Game That Nobody Cares About Or Even Wants To Play In will take place in Orlando, Florida.
What might be more interesting than who is actually hosting the Pro Bowl is one of the cities that was reportedly interested in hosting it.
BREAKING: @NFL moving Pro Bowl to Orlando from Honolulu, sources say. Houston, Honolulu and Sydney also showed interest #NFL #sportsbiz
— Scott Soshnick (@soshnick) May 19, 2016
One would presume that’s not Sydney, North Dakota but Sydney, Australia. If the NFL has a hard time convincing weary players to take part in a meaningless exhibition game at the end of a long season in HAWAII of all places, what makes them think they’re going to convince them to fly halfway around the world to play in a meaningless exhibition game? I would have liked to see that happen just to see what number alternate the Pro Bowl would actually have to go to in order to actually field a roster. The only way an Australian Pro Bowl could work is if it was some kind of Aussie Rules-NFL crossover. (Don’t tell me you haven’t dreamed of seeing Richard Sherman go toe-to-toe with Buddy Franklin.)
Houston would have made a lot of sense as the host of Super Bowl LI and Honolulu is certainly the traditional home of the game. Does Orlando really add value as a host site? Does any host site outside on planet earth actually add value to this game? Or are we just going to parade the Pro Bowl around until it finally succumbs to the fate that we all know it deserves? Do you know who the Pro Bowl quarterbacks were last year? Derek Carr, Eli Manning, Tyrod Taylor, Teddy Bridgewater, Russell Wilson, and Jameis Winston. They ranked #5, 8, 10, 16, 17, and 24 in the PFF rankings last year. Yikes.
The Pro Bowl has tried pretty much every gimmick imaginable to try to maintain relevance – quirky rules, fantasy drafts, changed venues, you name it. None have managed to turn fan interest around (although it must be said that pretty much any other sport would give anything to get the ratings the Pro Bowl does). Nevertheless, the NFL will continue to keep the Pro Bowl going, because our culture loves nothing more these days than zombies.
