NFL Pro Bowl was never just a game of football

Noise gets loud every year and the NFL has listened. They fixed the Pro Bowl, reminding us what it truly means. It’s fun and its an honor. It was never just a game.

How about that Pro Bowl?! Did you see all those plays those talented players made? And how about that surprise excitement in that one drive? We didn’t see that coming!

Very few of us did, because the game itself is inconsequential. We now have a ton of fun events to enjoy, featuring the very best of the NFL. And the best players get honored for being on top of their profession. Stop trying to fix what isn’t broken. The Pro Bowl was never just a game of football.

Two brothers from New York, Dan Salem and Todd Salem, debate the Pro Bowl in today’s NFL Sports Debate.

More from NFL Spin Zone

• Dallas Cowboys made the trade everyone else should have made
• Pittsburgh Steelers rookie sleeper everyone should be talking about
• Anthony Richardson putting jaw-dropping talent on display immediately
• Denver Broncos’ stud wide receiver might be out for a while
• Washington Commanders: Three takeaways from win over Ravens

Todd Salem:

Okay, I have to come clean. I didn’t watch any of the Pro Bowl. I never do. It serves no purpose. They can still elect Pro Bowlers for sure. The honor is worth something to the players, their contracts and their legacies. But why play the game at this point? This take isn’t even anything new.

I did tune in for a little of the skill challenges earlier in the week. The dodgeball game was actually pretty fun to watch. Jarvis Landry made an unlikely comeback for the AFC without even throwing a ball. He kept dropping his ball or even throwing them back to the NFC side. And then he would catch a throw, immediately drop the ball and catch another. He made three consecutive catches to eliminate the NFC and win the skills challenge for his conference. It was all great fun.

The skills challenge also had a new defensive event. Defensive backs attempted to knock down throws from quarterbacks aimed at scoring areas. Kirk Cousins showed out. Deshaun Watson was surprisingly terrible. The whole thing was interesting to watch. It feels odd to admit, but the league is doing a legitimately good job of making the skills challenges interesting and adaptive.

During the same week, the NHL also showed some new ideas in its skills challenge, as it has been for years. And their main event was similarly unnecessary. To think a sport as massive and popular as the NFL could actually be following in the footsteps of the NHL in an attempt to improve All-Star weekend is illuminating.

We seemingly discuss every year whether the Pro Bowl game is salvageable and how it would be done. I don’t think it needs to be done at this point. Play the game, don’t play the game, it doesn’t matter. The real star has become the skills challenges, and if the league does a good enough job of continuing to adapt and make sure the weekend evolves, this can be a capital-E Event.

Perhaps some guys feel too cool to play dodgeball in shorts in a little square area at the beach. Perhaps jumping through these obstacle courses feels beneath them. We don’t want those guys participating anyway! As long as a couple of dozen guys are in full-go on the skills challenges, this will be something worth tuning in for.

Dan Salem:

I must admit that my first thought when discussing the Pro Bowl is whether it “can be saved.” But my eyes are now open and the truth is clear to me. The Pro Bowl was never about the game and the game itself never actually mattered. The fact that we now have a tremendously entertaining set of skills challenges only adds to what was otherwise a fantastic honor for the NFL’s best.

This whole fiasco of giving meaning to the Pro Bowl game has its roots in Major League Baseball. Bragging rights truly meant something to the MLB All-Star game winners. When that dried up, baseball put something on the line by dishing out home-field advantage in the World Series to the winning league. Monetary incentives have been added, but no amount of anything can change an exhibition among colleagues and friends into anything more than fun and games.

The NBA embraced the sham of an All-star game years and years ago. It’s an honor to be an All-Star and it’s fun to watch the league’s best mess around on the court. We now have this with the Pro Bowl, as it should be.

Unfortunately for football fans, the game is not much fun to watch when played in this manner. Basketball and baseball can be fun when the players are screwing around. Even hockey can be fun like this, but football is nearly impossible to play without some form of aggression.

We must commend the players for trying and we must commend the NFL for adding fun skills challenges to make the Pro Bowl fun as a whole. Suggestions pour in every year about how to “fix” the game itself, but none of that matters. I’d love to see them play two-hand touch or flag football as the Pro Bowl game. Put them all on the beach in the sand, because sand is the ultimate equalizer and injury deterrent.

But no matter what, its the honor of selection that matters. No one is pretending the game is good to watch any longer. It’s barely a blip on the sports radar. Perhaps the NFL has finally found something that’s best seen in person.