No Bowl

Howdy to all of you in Lions Land,

The Pro-Bowl! Can a game be any more insignificant than the Pro-Bowl? I used to have a boss at one of my old jobs that put it bluntly about certain workers being ‘useless’. He posted his definition of useless as being unproductive, uncooperative, unreliable, unfriendly and unprofessional. This is exactly how I feel about the Pro Bowl.

Unlike other sports, it is the last game played of the season after the Super Bowl. In other sports the All-Star game is played half-way through the season with it being meaningful. In baseball it determines who gets home field advantage for the World Series. For thirty years it has been played at Aloha Stadium in Honolulu, Hawaii. Except the next one will be played at Dolphin Stadium in Miami, Florida before the Super Bowl.

I am going to pretend I rule the NFL and my word is final. This is what I would do with the Pro-Bowl to make it meaningful and fair. Alternate the stadiums like the Super Bowl, so fans from various cities can enjoy the experience. Make it a fan appreciation event with autograph signing sessions, fan challenge games and other events. Each conference would have 53 of the best players like a regular team and Alternates would also be named. An independent commission made up of former coaches, analysts and former GMs would vote on the best players to fill the positions of RBs, WRs, QBs and Linemen. Fans would vote on some of the players that the commission labels pro-bowler caliber so that the fans just don’t vote for the players from their team.

For those teams that have no pro-bowlers chosen, the team will be allowed to vote for a representative from their team to go to the Pro Bowl. This past Pro Bowl the Dallas Cowboys had 13 players when the Detroit Lions had 0 although Kicker Jason Hanson was an Alternate. I don’t mean to make this sound like redistributing the wealth of talent in the NFL for the Pro-Bowl but larger fan bases have more votes. The Giants, Redskins, 49s, Cowboys and Patriots have huge fan bases and those fans obviously vote for their own players.

To make it meaningful a few suggestions could be that the winning conference of the Pro-Bowl would determine home field advantage for the Super Bowl, the MVP of the Pro-Bowl from the team they are from get a compensatory pick on draft day, the winning conference's teams would get first choice in scheduling a Monday Night, Sunday Night or Thanksgiving game. Blackout rules would not apply and cheerleaders would also be welcomed from the various teams that have them.

Just a few thoughts to actually make this game worth something! Who knows maybe someday some of these suggestions will come to fruition.

Do all of you know that before Matt Millen became President and GM of the Lions that he was the heir to the throne of football broadcasting behind John Madden? Had he not taken the GM job he would have been next in line behind John Madden to be the voice for the NFL. Instead of Madden football the greatest football game ever made I might add there would have been Millen 2009, Millen 2010, etc. One of those what ifs of history that we will never know. Kind of like how OJ Simpson was considered for the role of the Terminator but no one could picture him as a ruthless killer so the role went to Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Well my fellow Lions as Porky Pig would say “That’s all folks”. I will have another post by the end of the week in regards to the Lions roster cuts.