Getting rid of the Pro Bowl will save NFL history

To despair at the death of old American institutions is very much in vogue. As Silicon Valley’s AI-powered megalopolis ruthlessly expands, nothing we once held dear is safe: our jobs, our stock portfolios, Google search results, academic integrity. All very sad. 

But sometimes, there is a “great” American institution that absolutely has to go and everyone should rejoice when it finally bites the dust. Right now, I’m rejoicing, because the NFL just came down on the Wicked Witch of the Week Before the Super Bowl like Dorothy’s house landing in Oz: Ding dong the Pro Bowl is dead!

The Pro Bowl was an abomination that needed to end

There are several pertinent reasons to get rid of the Pro Bowl, all dutifully outlined by Jonathan Jones for The Athletic in their exclusive report. Ratings had completely cratered, with the contest clearly generating no popular interest. It wasn’t even a “game” anymore, having been shuffled from tackle to flag football to some kind of carnival game skills contest which was honestly a bit embarrassing for everyone involved. But none of those are the reason I’m rejoicing; I’m happy because we have saved NFL history.

I could frankly care less if some skeleton version of the “Pro Bowl” continued unto eternity. Broadcast George Kittle running NFL Family Feud on Disney+ on a Tuesday at 1:30 p.m. and see if I care. What I couldn’t deal with any longer was the alternate system, as the physical event theoretically required X number of players on site once the best of the best inevitably said they weren’t able or interested in going. I wouldn’t mind a Pro Bowl banquet or something.

The Pro Bowl becoming an uneditable list of the 88 best football players is a glorious innovation that will finally put the kibosh on the horrific practice of terrible players being named “Pro Bowlers” after every single other eligible person opts out or is declared ineligible due to injury or playoff logistics. This really only affected quarterbacks, but a few years ago, Tyler Huntley was a Pro Bowler despite having started four total games. That was a funny little quirk, okay, whatever.

The alternate system was broken and not worth repairing

But then last year, Shedeur Sanders was a Pro Bowler, and that’s where I’m drawing the line. Sanders was the worst quarterback in the NFL last year that I watched with my presently functional eyeballs, and yet when you go to his Pro-Football-Reference page to look up “Shedeur Sanders stats,” there will forever be a little star next to his name saying he was a Pro Bowler. His Wikipedia page will eternally say he was named to the 2025 Pro Bowl. That is a catastrophe.

You may be saying to your screen “bro, can you just relax,” but this is a massive deal and no, I will not relax. We cannot have future generations of NFL fans thinking terrible quarterbacks were good, and writing blogs in 2070 with the words “Shedeur Sanders, son of NFL legend Deion, had a promising start to his career, making the Pro Bowl in his rookie season before falling off massively.” We need to save future generations from that confusion; we cannot allow them to believe Shedeur Sanders was ever good. 

Of course, Shedeur Sanders could become good (I’m not against that, I loved Shedeur at Colorado and am as upset as everyone that he’s been bad in the NFL) and then I’ll chill out, but I would legitimately prefer if all “alternate” Pro Bowl nods were retroactively stripped from the players that made the contest as alternates. That will never happen, and is exponentially more trouble than it’s worth, but it would be a more accurate portrait of NFL history.

Getting rid of the event itself and thus the alternate system fixes this problem, and I will rejoice accordingly. Awards matter. History doesn’t remember appalling interceptions in the third quarter of a Week 9 game; it remembers awards, and we must not give them out like a free set of tires. By killing the Pro Bowl, the NFL has forever saved Pro Bowlers.