GLENDALE, AZ – JANUARY 25: Team Irvin quarterback Tony Romo #9 of the Dallas Cowboys throws a pass during the first half of the 2015 Pro Bowl at University of Phoenix Stadium on January 25, 2015 in Glendale, Arizona. (Photo by Christian Petersen/Getty Images)

We all generally know that the NFL Pro Bowl is a joke. It’s held the week before the Super Bowl so no players on the two best teams can participate, numerous guys drop out due to injuries, the biggest names often fail to see the point, and the game itself is practically flag football.

But you can’t fully recognize the absurdity of the NFL’s all-star game until you count up the number of players invited to fill the 88 spots on the two teams. By ESPN’s count, 123 players were invited to this year’s game, with a whopping 35 turning down their bids for one reason or another.

The number of rejections alone demonstrates why the whole exercise is silly. Whether because of injuries, disinterest or a Super Bowl conflict, 35 of the league’s best players have chosen not to participate in a game designed for the league’s best players.

Tom Brady won’t play in the Pro Bowl. Aaron Rodgers won’t play in the Pro Bowl. Matt Ryan, Larry Fitzgerald, Julio Jones, Ben Roethlisberger, Le’Veon Bell and Antonio Brown all won’t play in the Pro Bowl. What is the point of a Pro Bowl without any of those players?

But what really makes the Pro Bowl dumb is the aforementioned number of invites. How big a number is 123? Well there are 32 teams with 11 starters on defense, 11 starters on offense, a kicker, a punter and a return specialist. That makes 800 players more or less “eligible” for the Pro Bowl, with 123 earning the distinction. That’s about one in six players. If you take out the players who only played part of the season or split reps, and the odds go up even higher.

So if you’re a starter in the NFL, there’s, conservatively, a one in six chance you’ll be named to the Pro Bowl. Even baseball, which is similarly maligned for having a bloated All-Star Game, doesn’t come close to that level of inclusivity.

There isn’t really any way of fully correcting this problem. Playing the Pro Bowl after the Super Bowl might enable a few more players to participate, but it wouldn’t change the fact that many guys are injured at the end of the season or just don’t want to play an extra game. No matter what the NFL does, it’ll be stuck with players competing in a violent game they have little incentive to win.

So should the NFL kill the Pro Bowl and just honor players with an expanded All-Pro team?

Hell no!

No matter how poor the quality of play is, people watch the Pro Bowl every year. The ratings were down sharply in 2016, but the game still drew millions of viewers. There’s no way the NFL is giving up yet another opportunity to feed football to the salivating masses.

So for the foreseeable future, we’ll be stuck with 123 players getting the invite every year. Enjoy Andy Dalton, Darren Sproles and Melvin Gordon on Sunday. Or, you know, don’t.

About Alex Putterman

Alex is a writer and editor for The Comeback and Awful Announcing. He has written for The Atlantic, VICE Sports, MLB.com, SI.com and more. He is a proud alum of Northwestern University and The Daily Northwestern. You can find him on Twitter @AlexPutterman.