Report: NFL having ongoing discussions about replacing Pro Bowl

The NFL’s spring meetings are ongoing this week from Atlanta, Georgia, and one of the topics that has come up, according to NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport, is finding a replacement for the Pro Bowl, the league’s annual all-star game.

After last year’s AFC title collapse, six Kansas City Chiefs found their way to Las Vegas, Nevada, to compete in the game at Allegiant Stadium. Having monitored the game to cover it here at Arrowhead Pride, I would tell you that the NFL is right in that it absolutely needs to get away from the games.

Far from the days of Derrick Johnson laying a hit on teammate Jamaal Charles, this past year’s game very quickly morphed from light tackling to straight-up two-hand touch. As a group, the Chiefs played rather poorly and it was somewhat of a waste of an afternoon for both players and spectators.

So what happens now?

I’m just not sure we need the Pro Bowl (or its teams) at all. In the arc of a player’s career — especially when he is garnering consideration for the Pro Football Hall of Fame — making an All-Pro team weighs far more heavily. In Kansas City, we were recently able to witness this disparity with former Chiefs right tackle Mitch Schwartz, who was named an All-Pro four times but was never voted into a Pro Bowl.

If the game makes the league too much money to do away with altogether — which is likely the case — perhaps Rapoport’s suggestion, playing the game as it’s become (flag football) could work. Maybe the answer is — in the explosion of E-sports — just playing it out before a national audience on the latest version of Madden. How about doing the skills challenges live in primetime?

I’m not sure where this goes, but the league is right for discussing a better way to go about it.