With the proviso that I've yet to watch a single minute of the pro bowl in my entire 35 years on this Earth, so my opinion is 100% uninformed, I think they'd be better off acknowledging that nobody wants to hit hard and risk injury in a meaningless game.
Name the top 8 QBs "All Pro", have them pick teams, then play a 7-on-7 tourney for a million bucks. They'd probably find some idiot company to sponsor it. Shit, maybe the Hawaiian tourism industry would foot the bill.
I might actually watch that. For at least 10 minutes, anyway.
and mic the players.
give jocks a chance to take a snap with the pros, or have "one lucky fan" per team handle the PAT and FG duties.
weren’t making so much money and it made a big difference to them if they got the winner’s share or loser’s share. Now, a lot of the players make much more money for a regular season game.
the best players take massive pay cuts in the playoffs. I believe the playoffs don't pay a difference for win/loss...they just make more the farther the team goes. But the winner does make more in the Super Bowl.
Holmgren used to take the winner's share in $1 bills and put that amount on a table in the meeting room the evening before the Super Bowl...basically letting his players know that the ring is neat, but there is a lot of money at stake.
I've read articles on SI.com where guys who know their team isn't good enough have their Suburban packed with all their stuff for the home playoff games or the last game of the season....as they want to get the hell out of dodge after the game.
If you ever watch a late-season NBA game between two teams who are out of it, it's something else. A lot of star players end up with mysterious wrist sprains that last week of the seaosn.
It was the hotel where the Pro Bowl Cheerleaders stayed. I'm a big fan of the event.
It is stupid to even play this meaningless game with the risk of injury.
It is the modern equivalent of a gladiatorial “friendly.”
Can't have throwback helmets because of CTE risk, but an extra exhibition game is ok?
It's an unwatchable bore and needless injury risk.
And dammit, we all deserve throwback Bucs, Falcons, Eagles and Patriots helmets
the 60's and early 70's, it sure meant a lot for a player to be selected, especially "All Pro."
I was devastated as a kid when they picked Merlin Olsen and Alan Page for NFC All Pro and Bob Lilly, my favorite player, only made the Pro Bowl.
Most people here would have far preferred Page, but that is a debate for another day.
The game should have been mothballed a long time ago. They can still select the honors though.
He was sitting behind me next to a huge Cowboys fan. Lilly talked with the fan the entire flight and really seemed to enjoy the conversation. He seems like a genuinely good guy (even though he played for the Cowboys).
Players still care about being selected. Lots of people around here were taking about the omission of Darius Leonard from the Pro Bowl even though he was first team all pro.
As for the quality of play, for the 35 years I've been old enough to pay attention, the Pro Bowl always has been known as the least worthwhile All-Star game.
He talks about the great defensive tackles he went up against that year, Alex Karras, Merlin Olson, Bob Lilly, Alan Page and Charlie Krueger.
I think he said Karras was the best of that outstanding group of players. I think he ranked Olson second.
I don’t think he said a lot about Lilly, as he was matched up with Jethro Pugh for much of the game, including the NFL championship game and the block for the game winning touchdown
I think he said Page was a big young athletic kid; maybe his rookie season.
He thought Krueger (49ers) was underrated . He liked to work up a hatred for the other player, but Krueger was too nice. After the game Krueger shook his hand and wished him well in the playoffs and Kramer felt bad for hating on him.
He had no trouble working up hatred for Karras.
Karras was in Lilly's league. Nor Krueger. Really good players, but Lilly could play today.
Olsen definitely and no one was quicker at the snap than Page. Page, Lilly and Olsen were in a class by themselves for a few years. Joe Greene joined soon after.
haha. Edit to add, Of course, I never had to block any of these guys.
by playing against Karras every year and against Lilly only occasionally.
He also acknowledged that Lilly usually lined up against the other guard.
Kramer did say Krueger was a cut below the others, but still very good.
He only played against Page when Page was young.
I really don't even care for any of the other Pro All Star games. They could completely do away with them IMHO.
In Australia, Rugby League is the traditional game of the state of New South Wales. The state of Queensland became the next area of the country to fall in love with the game.
Each year, in the middle of the regular season, they play a three game all-star series called State of Origin. The best players from the 18 teams in the league are selected to play for either Queensland or New South Wales based on which state they were (a) born, (b) played school rugby or (c) received their first professional contract.
The games are intense, get double the attendance of regular season games, and I believe is the highest rated TV event with the lone exception of the Australian Rules Football grand final.
Because I sure don't remember when that was.
College All-Star game with the NFL in Chicago.
annihilate the College All-Stars. Might of been the last game in the series.(?)
I was stationed at Scott AFB, IL. @ Air Weather HQ & we watched that storm develop. Remember the WLS weather interruption with radar of storm over Chicago. A monster.
It rained really hard for a while. I think it stopped before we got to the car to drive home soaking wet.
For many years, the game was actually competitive, even up to the early 60's - the All-stars beat the Packers in 1963, the last game they won. Even by 1969, the Jets only won by 2 points. Also in that game, I wonder if any of the Steeler starters got into the game at all.
The NFL champions won the last 12 in the series to finish 31-9-2. According to Wikipedia, the game's sponsor, Chicago Tribune Charities, "had every intention of staging a 1977 game," but "a combination of NFL coaches being increasingly unwilling to let their high draft picks play, rising insurance costs and higher player salaries meant the game was no longer viable."
I attended the 1964 NFL Championship game at Municipal Stadium between the Cleveland Browns with Jim Brown and the Baltimore Colts with Johnny U. The Browns won 27-0 with all of the scoring in the second half. Our seats cost a whopping $6 ea and were located in a box right over the home dugout of the Indians. The weather was colder than a grave digger's arse with a steady wind blowing in from the Lake.
A little trivia, this was the last NFL game that the officials' penalty flags were white. Also this was three years before the first Super Bowl, also billed as the First World Championship.
It was big, cold (even in the summer) and not well kept up.
Interesting trivia, only one person ever hit a ball out of the park.
It was Tom Kennedy, ND alum and Captain of the ND national championship golf team. Someone made that wager with Tom, but failed to specify what type of ball and how it was to be hit out of the stadium.
Tom teed up a 7 iron at home plate, took a half swing and knocked it out of the park.
I also attended the first NFL exhibition double header in Muni a year or so before that Championship game. I cannot remember who won the contests but Cleveland played the Steelers and Detroit played the Cowboys.
The teams stayed and dressed in the same hotel as we did and I had a chance to talk to my good friends Nick Pietrosante and Dick Le Beau before they left for the stadium. It was a long, but fun, afternoon and evening and we had a nice time at Tom (?) Joyce's establishment after the games.