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The much-maligned and seldom-entertaining NFL Pro Bowl might finally get the axe, according to ESPN's Chris Mortensen. Commissioner Roger Goodell, unhappy with the quality of the game, has the Pro Bowl "on life support."
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Here's a snippet from what Mort said Thursday morning on "Mike and Mike in the Morning":
"The league is moving toward suspending the Pro Bowl, possibly this year. As one person told me last night, it is DOA, Dead on Arrival. At the same time, the league, I believe, will instruct teams to continue to put Pro Bowl incentives in contracts; if players have Pro Bowl incentives, to go ahead and pay them so they don't have a problem with the union.
"Right now, the Pro Bowl is on the calendar for the week before the Super Bowl, but there's no game site that is listed, if you look at it closely. The reason why is, after a lot of discussion, I think this commissioner Roger Goodell and other league people, and even some of the players, are basically saying, as Aaron Rodgers criticized last year's performance, that there's no reason to play in the Pro Bowl."
It's not the first time we've heard these notions. Back in February, right after the "game," Roger Goodell hinted that maybe the Pro Bowl's time had come and gone. From what Mort said, it sounds like that's the course of action on which the league has decided.
[Related: Aaron Rodgers criticizes teammates' efforts at Pro Bowl]
It's the right call.
You may have heard this before, but the NFL is a violent game. What happens at the Pro Bowl is that the violence goes away, as the one true goal for any player in Hawaii is to walk away healthy. If there's no violence, the game is not the game ‒ the intensity and effort are not there, and it's impossible to play this game in an entertaining way without intensity and effort.
Which leaves the league with a choice: They can to put out three hours of an embarrassing product the week before the Super Bowl, or they can simply not play the game. The latter is the more sensible choice.
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