In January 2011, I jumped on a bus in Waikiki bound for Aloha Stadium and the NFL Pro Bowl.
With me were two mates, American Football novices, and they had been promised a spectacle featuring the best players in the world in the NFL All-Star game.
It was going to be a day of high-scoring, high-flying action – what we got was an embarrassing blight on the game.
The defensive line and offensive line merely stood up once the ball was snapped and became spectators. The defensive backs, save for Brent Grimes and DeAngelo Hall, hardly tried to contest for the ball and let receivers come down with catches in the end zone.
On run plays, defenders just stood there being blocked and let running backs push past them and into the end zone. There was no defence, no pressure on the quarterback, it was like watching a social game of flag football.
The NFC was ahead 42-0 midway through the second quarter and at that point the game was over. The final score was 55-41 to the NFC, a score that would normally dictate a thrilling game. But touchdowns don’t mean as much when no one is trying to tackle you.
A year earlier, the Pro Bowl had been played somewhere other than Aloha Stadium for the first time since 1978. The NFL’s contract with the stadium had expired and commissioner Roger Goodell chose to move the game to Sun Life Stadium in Miami, the site of that season’s Super Bowl. Players, coaches and critics condemned the decision and, after the state of Hawaii paid US $4 million to the league, the All-Star game returned to Hawaii in 2011.
Then the players tossed up the performance we witnessed from our $70 seats in the nosebleeds.
I remember leaving the stadium disappointed, the game had been nothing but a glorified vacation for players who did not want to get hurt and did not care about entertaining the fans or winning the game.
Goodell revealed late in 2012 that he had considered scrapping the game after the sad 2011 display, before the players had stepped in and said they would make it more competitive.
But the 2012 display was just as bad and this was after the NFL offered the players a $50,000 payment if they were on the winning team, but that only ensured that they had a crack during the final quarter. The losers only got $25,000, the discrepancy negligible for a team of 20 something millionaires.
The Associated Press wrote that players in the 2012 game were “hitting each other as though they were having a pillow fight”. After that game Goodell indicated he was looking at scrapping the game altogether, saying it wasn’t up to NFL standards.
The NFL has since added new rule changes to allow for more exciting play and last season installed an ‘unconferenced’ format, where NFL legends Jerry Rice and Deion Sanders picked their own teams from a pool of both NFC and AFC players.
The spectacle was slightly better and the new format made for some interesting and previously unseen match-ups, but the tattered image of the NFL’s All-Star game remains in desperate need of repair.
The NFL Pro Bowl is the only major All-Star game that draws lower TV ratings than its regular-season games. NFL games are among the most watched TV shows in America, but here is the chance to watch two teams of stars against each other during a one-off game. So why don’t people watch?
Perhaps because American Football is not an entertaining game played at half pace. Or maybe it’s the farce that is created when dozens of starters routinely drop out, citing injuries or something better to do. This season Andy Dalton, who threw 19 touchdowns and 17 interceptions, is a Pro Bowler after coming in as a seventh alternative quarterback. What a joke.
Those who do attend are not thinking about football. Those recently eliminated from the playoffs have just started their off-season and are on vacation in Hawaii. Others haven’t played football in a month.
The game is something the players want to get out of the way.
The move to an unconferenced format has promise, but it takes away any rivalry between the NFC and AFC. The game has lost even more meaning, if that is possible.
The NBA All-Star game is played in the middle of the season and generally features all of the league’s best players. It is a popularity contest voted on by fans, just like the NFL, and occasionally you see players like Kobe Bryant or Allen Iverson included despite being injured or in the twilight of their career.
But the difference is the sport is conducive to an All-Star fixture. There are dunks, alley-oops, blocked shots, three pointers. There is not a lot of defence played in the first three quarters, but the game is always competitive.
The new unconferenced format has breathed a few years of life back into the NFL Pro Bowl, but how long before that becomes tiresome. The NFL is nearly out of options and it won’t be long until the NFL Pro Bowl is a thing of the past.
Good riddance, I say. As an NFL fan who paid and travelled to attend the game, I can say I would never do it again. I’m sure there are others who feel the same way.
Who is the game really played for? The fans, the players or the league? I’d argue the former has been ignored by the latter for years.
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