From
where I sit it looks like the Pro Bowl tried some new ideas, and got
the same boring result...
Yes,
the game was closer and more defensive than normal. And it was
amusing to watch teammates clobber each other. However, those
weren't players from my favourite team, so I wasn't too concerned
about it. However, if I was a Browns fan I would be very upset to
see Josh Gordon sending T. J. Ward spinning with a low hit. Yes, it
spiced things up a bit to have a draft, but football is still a
collision sport, even at the Pro Bowl. How awful would it be to have
a star injured by his own teammate in a meaningless game.
Secondarily, the Pro Bowl is the NFL's all star game. Without all
it's stars. The record setting quarterback? Beast mode? The Legion
of Boom? None of them were there. They were on their way to New
York for the Super Bowl. It's not easy to get sports fan to sit and
watch an all star game at the best of times. For all it's the chance
for stars to showcase their talents, it's played in a half-assed way
with little emphasis on actually winning. It's certainly not a good
way to market to the casual fan. The Pro Bowl is bad, the NHL All
Star game is worse. The NBA is a glorified shoot around. MLB tries
to make the game count, but still few players take it seriously.
It's useless and boring. Wake me up when they start playing real
games again.
At
least that's how I see it...and I sit in the cheap seats.
I touched on the topic of how the NFL's "best of the best" can never really be in the pro bowl the way it is formatted at the moment in a recent post of my own. I, as well, wasn't able to watch players from either of my favorite teams participate, which took some of the interest away for me. You also said though that it's useless and boring, but will you always think that, or is there something that could be done to make the pro bowl more exciting for you? Of course, the game will never MEAN anything, but I personally find it fun to watch a majority of the best players in the league all at once.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the comment! I've really given this some thought. What the NFL is lacking (and football in general) is some sort of best-on-best tournament. It's a long, long way away from happening if it ever does. The best soccer, hockey, and to a lesser extent baseball, tournaments are the World Cups, not the all-star games. Outside of that, maybe a skills competition would spice things up. Fastest corner routes. Kicking from distance. Throwing accuracy. A bit extra to give me something I don't see very day.
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