When will the National Football League admit that its annual All-Star game has become a joke to the point where the name of the contest should appropriately be called the Good-But-Not-Great Bowl?
Desperate to fill the void for diehard football fans looking for something to watch between the championship games and the Super Bowl, the NFL in its infinite wisdom decided to showcase its best players during the bye week (prior to last year, it ran the week following the big game).
But what that did was eliminate all of the top players from what we presume are the best two teams in the league. Add to that the amount of players not in the title game who chose to opt out for one reason or another (injury or apathy), and what you get is a game filled with the sport’s non-elite.
Seriously, how can you have a legitimate Pro Bowl without the players selected from the two Super Bowl teams? That list includes Green Bay’s Greg Jennings (wide receiver), Chad Clifton (offensive tackle), Clay Matthews (linebacker), Charles Woodson (cornerback) and Nick Collins (safety), as well as Pittsburgh’s Maurkice Pouncey (center), James Harrison (linebacker) and Troy Polamalu (safety).
Those omissions by themselves make the Pro Bowl a farce, but it gets even more comical when you add this list of players who allegedly backed out due to injury: Nnamdi Asomugha, Raiders; Tom Brady, Patriots; Lance Briggs, Chicago; Dwight Freeney, Colts; Antonio Gates, Chargers; DeSean Jackson, Eagles; Andre Johnson, Texans; Maurice Jones-Drew, Jaguars; Nick Mangold, Jets; Shaun O’Hara, Giants; Jason Peters, Eagles; Ed Reed, Ravens; Asante Samuel, Eagles; Richard Seymour, Raiders; Ndamukong Suh, Lions; Brian Urlacher, Bears; and Patrick Willis, 49ers.
By my count that means almost 30 players who were originally voted into the game by the fans and fellow players will not be suiting up this Sunday in Honolulu, and it’s a number of no-shows the league should be downright embarrassed by. And even though pro football is by far my favorite sport, I won’t be tuning in this weekend. If it’s not good enough for the players, it’s surely not good enough for me. Aloha!