Seriously Just Cut the Pro Bowl already
Jan30
on January 30, 2016
at 12:01 am
6 QBs got elected to the Pro Bowl. Only one of those 6 didn’t drop out (Wilson). Now Jameis Winston can put Pro Bowler on his resume. Does anyone think Jameis Winston deserves to put that on his resume after 1 decent at best rookie season?
The NFL has tried so much to fix the Pro Bowl but it just can’t do it. The Pro Bowl will always be a joke. I’d say more but I wrote about it already for my Uproxx article this week, so just go read that.
Oh, and in case the Russell joke doesn’t make a lot of sense, you might have missed the funniest dumb story of the week.
My fix for the Pro Bowl:
Any player who plays for the Pro Bowl only has half their salary counted against their team’s salary cap the following year. If your team wins, you get a 500K bonus from the NFL. If you are injured during the Pro Bowl, the NFL covers your entire contract for the duration of your injury, and matches it for two full contracts after your contract expires if it is career ending (pending medicals, of course). Any player who plays still on their Rookie contract get one year off the contract, and if they get a career ending injury, they get a 5 year contract from the NFL with them essentially getting Franchize Player Money. None of the Pro Bowl money counts against a player’s salary cap impact.
Play the Pro Bowl in like… mid/late March.
But the NFL won’t do that, because one Peyton Manning getting injured in the first year of his 100M contract would have the NFL crying.
Have they sunk as far as Tannehill yet?
Next year
The NFL looked into cutting the pro-bowl but then the NFLPA went up in arms about it because the players are given money (actually more money than some playoff teams) to participate. What they should do is bring back the skills competitions.
I know that some positions have these awards, but what about instead of playing the Pro Bowl, they just do awards for each position, one for each conference. So, like best QB in NFC and best QB in AFC…best center, best kick returner, etc. Call them the All Pro Awards (some groups already do an All Pro team at the end of the season anyway), but have this be an “official” one endorsed by the NFL. Do it like the Heisman ceremony or any big awards show where you have the finalists all there, and the winners are announced and come up on stage to accept it…show it on ESPN or NFL network. The finalists (maybe top 3?) for each position get a certain level of bonus (100k?…more?) and the winners get a top bonus (500k?).
Maybe even do it in Hawaii so the players still get to enjoy the week/weekend out there.
Players get recognized for being the best at their position (like the Pro Bowl is supposed to be) including a financial incentive/bonus, eliminates the chance of injury (outside of a bizarre Russel Wilson surfing accident or something), still gives the fans something interesting to watch (and honestly, probably not any less exciting than the Pro Bowl already is) and something like a 2-3 hour event that advertisers can get in on. And, you won’t have the issue where half the field drops out and you have fairly mediocre players getting the unearned title of “Pro Bowler”.
Russell Wilson makes Hootie look like the pirates from Captain Phillips
I bet Russell Wilson’s PR guy is going like “I hope I get paid extra for fixing this mess”.
Then he looks over at JFF’s agent and feels so much better that his clients biggest problem is he is a huge dweeb
Need a wingman? How bout a party buddy?
Try Johnny Football!
8 million people watched the pro bowl last year its not going anywhere. Just ignore it. It won’t effect your life any with it existing.
Why not just have a fun skills competition or, like, a mini combine or something?
Barely anyone wants to go to Cam’s dabbing 101?
But really as much as people complain about the pro-bowl, no one has a solution to replace it with something football-ish worth watching.
Dave, what’s your opinion on Megatron’s retirement?
If the NFL wants players to actually play in the Pro Bowl, they should actually give more incentives then the $50k for winning. Most of the guys in the Pro Bowl make that in a game! At lease make it something interesting! For example, the winning team gets the NFL to cover 5% the NFL their current contract, or new contract if their contract ends that year, and that 5% no long counts against the team’s salary cap. Watch QBs gladly play knowing that a portion of there monster contracts can not count against their team while still getting paid in full. Will it cost the NFL something? Sure, but when you a multibillion dollar company, what’s a $50 million to you a year when everything is in full swing anyway?
I get that you hate the pro bowl, and a lot of people understandably do, but don’t you think you spend way too much time hating on it? I feel like it’s just taking away from other funny topics you could do comments on, such as the aforementioned Russell Wilson Bing story. That would have made a hilarious full comic.
Not enough time is spent hating on the Pro Bowl.
It should instead be the toilet bowl where the bottom 4 teams compete for the #1 draft pick.
How competitive would Peyton have been to position the Colts to select Luck?
They snubbed Allen Robinson this year so I quit caring.
Selection should be about stats only and money should go to each player’s chosen charity for the winning team only. Absolutely nothing goes to the losing team. This all or none for a cause you care about may inject some competition in the game. Seeing the best of the best each season actually compete for something valuable may gather an audience. I’d watch.
One big thing the NFL should do is go back to having the Pro Bowl well after the Super Bowl. A good month or a little longer. That way, it allows the players who lost in their Championship games, or in the Super Bowl to have time to get over the loss enough to actually want to go. Having it right after the Championship games is stupid because a lot of good players aren’t interested in going if they lose (best example being almost all the New England Patriots players backing out after losing the AFC Championship this year).
And I think they should do something like a 7 on 7 passing tournament, instead of the game. Let the players get together and draft a team like they do now, but instead of a whole team, just quarterbacks, receivers, tight ends, and running backs. Have like 4-8 teams play in a bracket to try to win. That almost immediately cuts down on most injuries and still gives the fans something to watch.
As for the linemen, they can have their own little competitions during the passing tournament. Different drills and stuff, maybe even some one on one blocking competitions.
At the end, the winners of the competitions are rewarded and player awards are given out. This could last like a week and it allows for the networks to bring in lots of ads, while the players enjoy an extended vacation.