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The NFL's version of the All-Star game was played out at Aloha Stadium in Honolulu, Hawaii today. The NFC made a late game comeback to win 30-21. The thing is, does anyone really care?
All-Star games in all major sports are generally brutal. Sure they are usually filled with the best players in their respective league (although even that isn't always true anymore with the addition of fan voting), but the games are usually played half-assed and at half-speed, and are more of a formality than a real game.
As much as it pains me to say this, Bud Selig and Major League Baseball were actually very smart in coming up with an idea to make their All-Star game more exciting.....the winner of the MLB All-Star game (AL or NL) gets home field advantage for the World Series. So it is beneficial for all players involved to try their hardest in case their team does make the Show.
2008's MLB All-Star game at Yankee Stadium was won 4-3 by the AL in the 15th inning on a walk-off sac fly by Michael Young of the Texas Rangers. The game was 4 hours and 50 minutes long. As someone who watched a majority of the latter half of the game (from a bar in North Battleford after our own baseball game), the game was simply amazing. It was full of action and suspense.....in fact, it ended up being better than any of the World Series games later in October (which isn't really saying much).
So what does the NFL do to bring excitement to the game? Well, each player on the winning team receives $45,000, and each player on the losing team receives $22,500. And the Pro Bowl MVP (who was Larry Fitzgerald of the Cardinals this year) gets a Cadillac to take home. Well that is all fine and dandy, but did you actually watch the game today? There was no passion. In one instance, where Peyton Manning was 'sacked' (if you could call it that even), both the player that sacked him AND the referee helped Peyton to his feet. The referee!!! Would you ever see that in a regular season game?
To make matters worse, after 30 years in a row of having the Pro Bowl at Aloha Stadium in Honolulu, and selling it out EVERY YEAR, the NFL has decided that next year they are going to move the Pro Bowl to Miami, and play it the week BEFORE the Super Bowl. To me, this is stupid on two fronts.
First of all, the trip to Hawaii is really a good reward and an excellent way to unwind for all of the players who are playing in it (plus some of the coaches and teammates of these Pro Bowl players, who they often take with them). As someone who has been to Aloha Stadium, I can tell you that the entire area (and the entire island of Oahu) is simply gorgeous. Sure, Miami is nice too.......but many teams get to go to Miami once a year to play the Dolphins anyway. And Miami is NOT Hawaii. Not even close.
Secondly, the NFL is making a big mistake by moving the game to the week before the Super Bowl. This instantly eliminates all players who are going to be playing in the Super Bowl from playing in the Pro Bowl, due to the injury risk. If a team is in the Super Bowl, wouldn't it make sense that they probably have some great players who are deserving of heading to the Pro Bowl? One has to look no further than today's result - Larry Fitzgerald played in the Super Bowl last weekend, and won the Pro Bowl MVP this weekend. With the new rules next year, L-Fitz wouldn't even be in the game.
So with all of that said, here are my ideas to make the Pro Bowl more enjoyable:
-Keep the game at Aloha Stadium in Honolulu, Hawaii. They have sold that stadium out every single year it has been hosted there (30 in a row). The trip to Hawaii is a treat for the players and their family/coaches/teammates who accompany them.
-Continue to play the game the week after the Super Bowl. There is more than enough news in the 2 weeks between the AFC/NFC Championships and the Super Bowl that we don't need the media having to deal with the Pro Bowl too. Plus, the Super Bowl teams can send their deserving players as well.
-Make the game mean something. See below.
How do I propose to make the game mean something? Well here it is.
Whichever conference wins the Pro Bowl (AFC or NFC) will "win" the coin toss for the following year's Super Bowl, and will get to choose whether to kick or defer right off the bat.
So with that reasoning, because the NFC won the Pro Bowl today, whichever team represents the NFC in next year's Super Bowl (February 2010) would get to choose whether to kick or receive right off the bat.
Now there is a stat out there that might make this seem meaningless.......the team that has won the Coin Toss in the Super Bowl has a record of 20 wins and 23 losses in the 43 Super Bowls. So according to that, it has actually been a disadvantage to win the coin toss. However, what if you knew, as a team, 2 weeks in advance that you could choose whether to kick or receive right off the bat in the Super Bowl......would you not pick one or the other well in advance and base part of your game plan on it? This could work out to be a huge advantage, and would likely change that "coin toss win/Super Bowl win" record in a hurry.
Do you have any other ideas for how the NFL could make the Pro Bowl more exciting? Send in a comment or drop me a line.
How about having 2 teams from the losing conference play in the London game the following year? Haha you lost, enjoy the 10 hr plane ride and the kidney pie sucka!
ReplyDeleteIn all seriousness, there really is no way to make the Pro Bowl relevant. Football is too physical of a game to have a "friendly" one. It would be the equivilant of 60 minutes worth of Pete Rose steam-rolling Fosse, and no coach, owner, or agent would allow it. They should take a lesson from the NHL and highlight a skills competition and forget of the relvancy of the game. Reward the winner of the skills competition. If they want to turn the Super Bowl into a 2 week long "event", then a skills competion would go a lot further than a Pro Bowl game, especially if the players from the Super Bowl teams participated. Who wouldn't tune in to see a strongest arm or a jump ball competion? And, if they wanted to highlight the skills used the week of the Super Bowl, they could have a "how to knife a bitch in a crowded Nightclub" event.
Hmmm good ideas. But if the game must be played...... I wonder how draft picks work in the NFL.(MPQ please explain)Maybe the winner,(AFC/NFC)teams would get better percentages of draft picks. So say if the AFC won all teams in the AFC would bump up there draft lottery percentages as compared to the NFC. This may make the coaches work more, demanding more out of there players as there individual teams future depends on it, resulting in a better game. This may make for owners to put more pressure on their talents to do well, possibly adding there own bonuses for there players on how good they do in the pro bowl, also resulting in a better game.
ReplyDeleteRules for determining draft order
ReplyDeleteThe draft order is determined by first generating the order for the first round. That order is based generally on each team's regular season record, except as noted below:
[1]The winners of the Super Bowl are given the last selection, and the losers the second to last selection.
[2]Remaining teams are sorted by regular season record, with worse records picking first, regardless of playoff status; teams that make the playoffs can pick before teams that do not.
[3]For teams with the same record, teams that fail to make the playoffs always pick before teams that earned playoff berths.
[4]For teams that make the playoffs, ties are broken by the order in which teams lost in the playoffs.
[5]Remaining ties are broken by strength of schedule. For draft order, a lower strength of schedule results in an earlier pick. If strength of schedule does not resolve a tie, division and/or conference tiebreakers may be used. If the tie still cannot be broken, a coin toss at the NFL Combine is used to determine draft order. (Note: Strength of schedule is the combined records of a team's 16 opponents, including games played against the team in question, and counting divisional opponents twice. Because of this, each team's opponents' combined wins and losses—counting a tie as a half-win, half-loss—will add up to 256, so a team whose opponents had more combined wins has a better strength of schedule.)
Once the order for the first round is determined, teams with the same record "cycle" picks in each subsequent round, regardless of playoff status or any other factor (except that the Super Bowl teams will always pick last in every round). For example, in the 2008 draft, Arizona, Minnesota, Houston, and Philadelphia all finished 8-8, and picked in that order in the first round. In the second round, the order became Minnesota, Houston, Philadelphia, and Arizona. That cycling continues through all seven rounds.
On that note.....I don't mind the idea......but draft picks are HUGE in the NFL, more than any other league (as there are no real developmental leagues as there are for the MLB or the NHL). So that might be a bit too much to give up....but I like your thinking.
ReplyDelete