Pro-Bowl

The AFC won the Pro-Bowl game! I guess it doesn't really matter though so you don't really care whether or not they won or lost.

Aaron Rogers and Matt Schaub each threw two touchdown passes for their respective conferences--except when I thought of the two top pro-bowl quarterbacks going at it, I envisioned Manning and Brees. Of course those two quarterbacks will play on the stage--I mean THE STAGE, on Super Bowl Sunday with all the commercials and hype and excitement.

But it's kind of sad to see that the pro-bowl really did not get utilized to its full potential because not all the stars were able to play. I think having the pro-bowl before the Super Bowl is pointless and less enjoyable for the players as well as the fans; the bigger picture however is the fact that the pro-bowl literally means nothing to the season.

The National Basketball Association has the NBA All-Star game midway through the season and Major League Baseball has their All-Star festivities about 81 games in. Both games are played during the midpoint of the year in order to create a sense of resurgence in interest of the sport and a sort of "clean slate" mentality to improve records.

The MLB uses the All-Star game to decide which team receives home field advantage during the playoffs--which I think is the best method for weighing significance during such a festivity.

If the All-Star or Pro-Bowl game actually meant something valuable to a teams fate--players would be a lot more enthused and the games would be much more exciting.

I enjoy watching the top athletes of a sport participate in the greatest possible competitive game (most possibly competitive due to the level of talent on the field/court) because it should be an amazing game. But it is rarely the case that the players put everything they have out unless there is importance to the game.

Of course players are not increasingly competitive in such an atmosphere because they want to have fun and enjoy the honor--but that detracts the potential of an outstanding competition. Especially if you consider a game like baseball where a player cannot play anymore if he has been substituted in for another player. If Jeter is taken out of the 3rd inning of the All-star game--Jason Bartlett is playing for the rest of the game, unless Michael Young is willing to play shortstop--then he can play there for a couple innings too.

With an environment that restricts the termination of a players impact on a game once he is retracted from the line-up, he can't contribute to the outcome on the field anymore.

This doesn't effect any of the other sports, which is why I wish there would be some more competition during the special games. Football's pro-bowl is about as appealing to me as a fork on a pedestal--it's highlighted but with not really interesting.

I don't know what the NFL could do because football is much more physical compared to the other sports, which forces it to be a more injure-prone sport. Thus if a player participates in the pro-bowl, it might be getting a trip to a sunny place--but there's a high chance of being paralyzed for life.

It's hard to make the pro-bowl more appealing, but the NFL really has to do something.