A “Pro” Experience
Courtesy of 1127sg from Webshots.com
The Pro Bowl played its final game in Hawaii for the foreseeable future and so, I decided to catch the game on TV to see “history”. If it wasn’t for the rain (yes, in SoCal we have rain sometimes in the winter time), I’d miss this “monumental” event. Unlike the Super Bowl which has a rich family tradition, one of which I have not missed since the beginning of time (a.k.a when I first discovered football in 1994), the Pro Bowl seems like a leap year experience. The game is normally sub-par in comparison to a regular season game and this year did not “disappoint.” The defenses are hampered for safety’s sake and the players seem to “chill out”. I don’t blame them because they are in on vacation in Hawaii for “allstar” efforts this past season .
Okay, so I actually found the game somewhat edible. Larry Fitzgerald proved again why he was a beast of a receiver and so fittingly deserved the Pro Bowl MVP. (Hey did you know that the award is called the MacGuire?) Every quarterback and their dad was trying to lob it to Fitzgerald to test him out. I’m sure he’d rather be hoisting a different type of hardware right now, but having a Pro Bowl MVP will come in handy come salary renegotiation time. The NFC won for the second straight year, but unlike the Mid Summer Classic, the game has no meaning (of which I fully support). Other then these obvious points that you can find at other news media outlets, I’d like to show you some interesting points worth noting:
- The rallying cry for 45: What is that you say? 45 means the $45,000 given to each individual player on the winning side. I guess that is one way to inject excitement in the players to play a “competitive” game. However, I think the NFL undermined itself in this respect by giving the loser half that much ($22,500). The disparity between winner and loser is such that it is easy to call it a day and take the loser’s share. Why even give the losing team any money. Don’t they already have their trip and tab picked up by the NFL for being their anyway?
- Penalties: Unless you’re blatantly offsides or moving really early on the offense, Offside and False Start Penalties were at a minimum. There were some obvious infractions, but they let the players play for the most part. This made the game much smoother, except near the end of the 4th quarter where an illegal defense was called. It came up from on top of the “video booth.” Now, it is quite funny that the NFL allows officials to correctly add a penalty after a play has ended in a Pro Bowl game after review from “up top” on a obvious penalty, but in a “real” game, such as the final play of the Super Bowl or the Ed Hochuli incident, they do not review the play. Why such a discrepancy?
- Fumblerooski: The original play is illegal, but this newer revised edition for the 2009 should definitely be tried in a regular season match. Then again, the play took too long to develop and most likely, the running back or quarterback would’ve been creamed in a real game. I guess the play is limited in its usefulness, unless you’re playing against the Oakland Raiders.
So the Pro Bowl was not a total snoozer, but it was not up to par on quality either. I guess maybe I’ll you next year in Miami? And a week before the Super Bowl? A fumble by the NFL?
