HONOLULU -- The Pro Bowl will be played before the Super Bowl when it returns to Honolulu next year.
The Hawaii Tourism Authority and the NFL announced Tuesday that the game will be at Aloha Stadium on Jan. 30, the Sunday before the Super Bowl in Arlington, Texas.
The Pro Bowl had historically been played in Honolulu the week after the Super Bowl, but was changed when the all-star game moved to Miami this year.
Frank Supovitz, the NFL's senior vice president of events, said playing the Pro Bowl before the big game generated more excitement and interest and was a good kick off to Super Bowl week.
Ratings were up for the AFC-NFC matchup that was televised on ESPN. It was watched by an average of 12.3 million viewers, the most since 2000. That's up 40 percent from the 2009 Pro Bowl on NBC, which drew 8.8 million viewers when the event was held after the Super Bowl.
This year's game was in a later time slot, when more people watch TV, and competed against the Grammys on CBS, which attracted 25.8 million viewers, the most since 2004.
However, one drawback of playing the Pro Bowl first is not having any Super Bowl players.
About 40 percent of those originally selected didn't play in Miami. That included seven Indianapolis Colts and seven New Orleans Saints because they were preparing for the title game.Paging the NFL. Paging the NFL. Terrible idea. Absolutely terrible idea.
Even though ratings were up 40% from the previous years Pro Bowl, and drew 12.3 million viewers. It was still a disaster for an event. A total waste of time. Every single player that most fans wanted to see did not play. Nothing exactly exciting happened in the game. It was a total waste of time for the league, the players, and fans to participate again.
We have a much better solution for you. Do a combine. Take the 3 or 4 best QBs and have them compete in an accuracy competition, then see who can throw the football the furthest. How fun would that be? Brady, Manning, Rivers, and Brees proving who has the best arm (Manning) and who is the most accurate (Brady)
Take Chris Johnson, Maurice Jones-Drew, and Reggie Bush. Have them race. Who wouldn't want to see that?
Take Sebastian Janikowski, Jeff Reed, and Neil Rackers have them kick 40 yarders, 50 yarders, 60 yarders until the last person is standing.
And more importantly, who wouldn't want to participate in that? You can't tell me these guys wouldn't want to compete against each other. They never get the chance to go head to head against each other. It may seem crazy but fans would watch and players would compete, for at least a few years.
Something needs to happen with these types of games, because clearly they have gotten way to watered down. Players are afraid to get hurt in all sports. Leagues need to do something to try to spice it up and I think this would be a pretty good solution for the NFL.
I mean, just pull the ratings from the combine. If there's interest in watching future draft selections run a 40 yard dash there most certainly will be interest in the top players from each position, currently, competing against one another.
