LOS ANGELES, January 26, 2013 — Welcome to the 63rd edition of the AFC-NFC Pro Bowl from Honolulu, Hawaii. The game begins at 7 p.m. EST on NBC. Join in the live chat!
In one week, the San Francisco 49ers and Baltimore Ravens play in the Harbowl, Super Bowl (47) XLVII.
This Sunday is the appetizer before the main course, the Pro Bowl. The best players from each team play in an NFC v. AFC all star game.
Yet even many hardcore fans see this is as a meaningless game that should disappear. The Pro Bowl is the Rodney Dangerfield of the National Football League. It gets no respect at all.
Hockey, basketball, and baseball all have their all-star game in the middle of the season. Football is so brutal that the pro bowl has to be at the end of the season. One year the NFL tried moving it to Miami to coincide with the Super Bowl. It was moved back to Hawaii. One year the league put the game on a Saturday, and when that failed, moved it back to Sunday the following year.
A couple of years ago, league officials moved the game from taking place after the Super Bowl to taking place the week before. All that did was exclude the teams in the Super Bowl from having their selected Pro Bowl players participate. It should be moved back.
Yet the biggest problem with the game is the lack of effort put in by many of the players. Until the fourth quarter, the game is often treated like a sandlot scrimmage. Providing extra incentives financially to the winning team could help fix that.
The game should be fixed, not scrapped. It is a fun tradition. Super Bowl tickets cost thousands of dollars, but a Pro Bowl ticket can often cost under $100. Make it part of a Hawaiian vacation and have a great time.
The game this year was moved from ESPN to NBC, an upgrade.
Let’s revive this game and make it worthy of a the greatest sports league on the planet.
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Communities sports fan and avowed Football junkie Eric Golub hosts the Live Communities chat of the 63rd edition of the AFC-NFC Pro Bowlfrom Honolulu, Hawaii. The game begins at 7 p.m. EST on NBC.
This fun prelude to the Super Bowl (47) XLVII and the mighty match off of the San Francisco 49ers and Baltimore Ravens is always bittersweet as we watch some of the most interesting, but also final downs of the season. The best players from each team play in an NFC v. AFC all star game.
The Pro Bowl is the Rodney Dangerfield of the National Football League. It gets no respect at all. Maybe we should embrace it for what it is - the best of the best having fun in Hawaii!
Join Communities writers and head to Hawaii where the weather is infinitely better!
Brooklyn born, Long Island raised, and now living in Los Angeles, Eric Golub is a columnist, blogger, author, public speaker, satirist and comedian who is obsessed with the National Football League. There is no offseason. Every February he pretends to care about other sports while sobbing uncontrollably each Sunday until September. Eric is the author of the book trilogy “Ideological Bigotry, “Ideological Violence,” and “Ideological Idiocy.”
Follow Eric on Twitter @TYGRRRREXPRESS Eric Golub is an independent writer for the Communities. Read more from Eric at his TYGRRRR EXPRESS blog. Follow us: @wtcommunities on Twitter
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