Every year the Sunday between the Conference Championship Games and the Super Bowl, millions of football fans tune into the Pro Bowl to watch (theoretically) the best players from the AFC and the NFC square off. None of the players on the Super Bowl teams are eligible to play. Many of the other top players look for ways to not go. The players that do go often don’t try that hard.
The AFC takes an early 7-0 lead in the Pro Bowl on Darius Leonard's pick-six of Kyler Murray. pic.twitter.com/gnVGQYHthg
— The Comeback (@thecomeback) February 6, 2022
Because of that, every Pro Bowl comes with complaints about how the game is a waste of time. Is this a problem for the NFL? Not really. The complaints come every year. The consensus on Twitter every year seems to be that it’s the worst Pro Bowl ever. But from the NFL’s perspective, if the ratings are high, there’s no need to change anything, right? Well, right-ish.
As long as the ratings are high, the game will never be canceled. And we also must be realistic. If anyone out there is expecting to find a formula where the players will play as hard in the Pro Bowl as they do in even meaningless regular-season games, forget it. That’s not happening. But we can make the Pro Bowl better.
One idea stands out above the rest. But before we go over that, let’s go over some ideas that sound good in theory but would never work.
Idea 1: The MLB All-Star Game (2003-2016) method
For those unfamiliar, following an embarrassing tie in the 2002 All-Star Game, Major League Baseball instituted the rule that the winning league in the All-Star Game would get home-field advantage in that season’s World Series. That idea gained some traction on Twitter as the Pro Bowl was unfolding. There isn’t one problem with this idea. There are several.
For starters, there’s a reason MLB abandoned this policy in 2017. While the game had stakes, the players continued to treat it as a silly exhibition. Furthermore, while the tie in 2002 was embarrassing, what happened in 2008 was much worse. Both leagues used up their pitching staffs for a game that went 15 innings. Had the game gone any longer, it would have been a disaster. An embarrassing tie suddenly didn’t seem so bad. But given that the game had stakes, that wasn’t possible. It had to finish.
Also, one of the issues was that home-field advantage in the World Series means being home in a potential Game 7. Until 2014, nine straight World Series that reached a Game 7 were won by that game’s home team. From 2003 to 2016, three World Series (2011, 2014, and 2016) reached Game 7. In 2011 and 2016, the team hosting the game had an inferior record to its opponent. It was hosting the game because of an exhibition game. Two of those three games were won by the road team. Still, it wasn’t equitable.
The MLB All-Star Game is played midseason. You don’t know who will be in that fall’s World Series. The NFL season is too short to play the Pro Bowl midseason. It’s not only played after the season but after the conference championships. You know who’s playing in the Super Bowl. If you’re on an AFC team other than the Cincinnati Bengals or an NFC team other than the Los Angeles Rams, do you care if your conference champion has home-field advantage in the Super Bowl?
Finally, the Super Bowl is played at a predetermined site and there’s good reason for it. The Super Bowl experience is not just the game but a weeklong firestorm to the host city. That takes a lot of planning. Hotel rooms need to be blocked. Buildings need to be reserved. That can’t take place in a matter of days. That takes months of work.
It also needs to be in a metropolitan area that can handle the rush. Places like Los Angeles, Miami, Phoenix, Tampa, and New Orleans are made for that. With all due respect, cities like Green Bay and Jacksonville are not. The predetermined site should not be changed.
Idea 2: Put the No. 1 draft pick on the line
Instead of the Pro Bowl, take the two teams with the worst records in the league: the Jaguars and Lions.
Let them play one game to determine the #1 overall pick in the NFL Draft.
Figure that’d be a much more competitive game over the Pro Bowl. pic.twitter.com/FYAMdmR4Ut
— Doug Rush (@TheDougRush) February 6, 2022
This idea has some legs to it. Unfortunately, if the challenge of improving the Pro Bowl is a marathon, this idea has the legs to get us through the first 100 meters or so.
However, there are three glaring flaws with this idea.
One, these teams might have already traded that pick. For this idea to work, the NFL would also have to institute a rule that bans trading of draft picks in future seasons.
Two, the Pro Bowl is played four weeks after the end of the regular season. If we thought the Detroit Lions and Jacksonville Jaguars were bad during the regular season, imagine how they’d be after shaking off four weeks of rust.
We could almost overlook those two issues — but not the third.
Imagine if this was in place a year ago, with Clemson quarterback Trevor Lawrence lingering as the obvious No. 1 pick. You’re on the Jaguars and getting ready to play the NFC’s worst team in 2020, the Atlanta Falcons. At the end of his pregame speech, your coach screams “let’s go get that No. 1 pick.” You get fired up, ready to go play the game of your life, then you look across the room into the eyes of Gardner Minshew. You can almost hear the Curb Your Enthusiasm theme being played, right?
This idea is essentially calling for is for players at football’s most important positions to go out and give their all so their teams can be in the best possible position to replace them. Not happening.
Idea 3: The extra home game
Until 2021, this would not have been possible. But when the NFL added a 17th game to the season, it also gave us our best fix to the Pro Bowl.
Having an odd number of games creates an imbalance. Some teams are going to get an extra home game. To its credit, the NFL had good foresight on this issue. The extra game is non-conference. In 2021, all AFC teams had nine home games and eight road games. In 2022, the NFC teams will have the extra home game.
There are advantages to winning your division and having the best record in your conference. But having the best record in the NFL doesn’t carry a lot of weight. The Rams and Bengals are both No. 4 seeds in their conference. At 12-5, the Rams were two games better but what did that give them? The Super Bowl was going to be played at SoFi Stadium this year with the AFC Champion as the designated “home team” regardless of who the conference champions were.
So, while the AFC teams had an advantage with the extra home games during the 2021 season, it wasn’t unfair because they didn’t gain anything from it.
But if there’s no advantage, who cares? Well, the players would. They may not get any advantage over the other teams in their conference but good luck finding a player who wouldn’t like having one fewer travel day. Also, the fans watching the game might care. If their favorite team’s conference wins, that’s an extra home game they might get to enjoy.
Again, if we’re trying to get the Pro Bowl to be played with the same intensity of a regular-season game, it’s not happening. But could this draw better ratings? Would the prospect of one fewer travel date inspire at least some of the players to try a little harder in the Pro Bowl?
It’s worth a shot.
