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Thursday, February 04, 2010 By Kyle Keith
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For the first time in NFL history, the NFL Pro Bowl was not held the week after the Super Bowl, nor was it held in Hawaii. Instead, the NFL has changed the schedule so that the Pro Bowl takes place a week before the Super Bowl and will be held in Miami, the same place where the Super Bowl is being held this year.
The main reason why I think that the NFL did this is because of media reasons. Once the Super Bowl is played, no one watches football any more. Plus, it is easier for players and fans to get to Florida than it is to get to Hawaii. Unfortunately, there are some problems that may arise with the Pro Bowl being a week before the Super Bowl.
There are several problems that I see with the Pro Bowl being a week before the Super Bowl. First and foremost is the health of the players. The two teams that are in the Super Bowl would not want their players in the Pro Bowl because there may be a risk of injury to one of the players.
Though the coaches are usually good about substituting players in and out, there still is the possibility that a player could be tired because he had to play in the Pro Bowl game before the Super Bowl. If a Pro Bowl player from one of the two teams in the Super Bowl were to get injured and missed the Super Bowl because of the injury, the chances of the team winning could drop dramatically because of their absence.
Another problem that could arise is the increase in the lack of talent of the players playing in the Pro Bowl. This year several players have dropped out because it is not in Hawaii and it is a week before the Super Bowl. Peyton Manning and Drew Brees dropped out because they are playing the Super Bowl the week after. Other QB's such as Tom Brady, Philip Rivers, and Brett Farve will not play in the Pro Bowl because of injuries. The only QB that was voted in and didn't drop out was Aaron Rodgers of the Green Bay Packers . The NFL had to pick up QBs to fill the positions of those that opted out.
So how did this move turn out for the NFL? The game was high scoring and it was not as thrilling as some of the other Pro Bowl games in recent history. Both defenses were good but they were unable to stop the other teams offense.
The game turned out to be an offensive one and I think that defensive games are more interesting to watch, but the Associated Press reported that 12.3 million people watched the Pro Bowl. That is a 40% increase from last year’s Pro Bowl of only 8.8 million viewers. Also, the Miami stadium (Sun Life Stadium) had an attendance of 70,697, the most in attendance since 1959.
This year’s Pro Bowl was a media success and it had lots of viewers watching the game, but I still believe that the players would prefer to have the Pro Bowl a week after the Super Bowl so that players from the two Super Bowl teams could participate.
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