Flag This!!

 One of the absolute worst things in sports will take place on Tuesday night in San Francisco. Yes, it is the dreaded NFL Pro Bowl. This will be the fourth time that the NFL Pro Bowl will be a flag football contest. It's kind of like the Major League Baseball All-Star game being turned into a slow pitch softball game using four outfielders. If it being flag football does not suck badly enough, it will be a seven-on-seven competition. I can only hope that they are going to use an actual NFL regulation football and not use a Nerf football instead.

I have actually attended an NFL Pro Bowl game. The Pro Bowl for the 1977 season was played in January of 1978 at Tampa Stadium. Why did I go? One of our suppliers gave me two tickets. It was a pretty dull game. I had look up the final score because 48 years later, all that I can remember was that it was not an exciting game. My recollections were correct; the score was 14-13.

What have been the problems with the Pro Bowl over the years? First, most players don't want to play. Second, most fans don't want to watch it. Third, they can't even get people to watch it on television. I am 72 years old, and in that time, exactly NO ONE has told me, "I have to get home and watch the Pro Bowl tonight." Nobody has ever called in sick to watch a Pro Bowl. Other than that, it's probably a good event.

When I was in junior high school, we played flag football in Phys Ed class. In high school, we had a Powder Puff football game during Homecoming Week. That was when the girls played flag football. I seem to remember there being tougher hitting in that game than in the Pro Bowl that I watched several years later.

Here's a free marketing idea for the NFL. Pick All-Pro NFL cheerleaders and have them play a topless flag football game. 

Why does the NFL keep playing the Pro Bowl game? I can't believe that it is actually profitable. The Rin Tin Tin  reruns probably get a bigger market share in the ratings than the Pro Bowl.

This year they are playing it on a Tuesday night before the Super Bowl. I don't know what their marketing strategy for this game is, but I am pretty sure that no one with Super Bowl tickets is coming in three or four days early to catch a flag football game.

If the television networks really thought that people would watch this game, it would be on some kind of perverted Pay Per View. It would be one dollar to watch the game or ten dollars not to have it show up on your television set. That's the only way that they could make money with it on television.

The NFL can name an All-Pro team without having them play a game. AllStar games in any sport are rarely good games because the teams don't get enough practice time to work well together as a team. They are rarely events that showcase team talents. Does the NFL think that people are going to stop watching the Super Bowl if they euthanize the Pro Bowl? 

If there was a Humane Society for sporting events, they would put this dog down. The NFL needs to end the suffering now rather than waiting for the day to come when they will have to pay fans to attend this horseshit game.