I would be more likely to watch that than to watch the Pro Bowl.
I think the complex system and injury problems make an All-Star game in the NFL pointless. Just do an All-Pro selection. Little Nemo’s idea is good too.
Ugh, I can’t watch 10 seconds of the ESPYS without terminal douche chills. I like the idea in concept, but in practice it would be a trainwreck.
The first all star game per se was baseball in 1933. It was supposed to be a one-off affair to celebrate the Chicago’s World Fair but was so popular that it became a
yearly thing (or two a year for a while 50 years ago). There were some previous games earlier for charity: when pitcher Addie Joss died, a game was played to raise money for his family. A sidenote to that game is Ty Cobb’s uniform didn’t arrive and he played wearing a Cleveland uniform, in case you ever run across a photo on him in one.
The Onion says it all.
What about the idea of a state of origin series? You could have the country divided into conferences and place players in the teams that match up with were they started played HS ball? Now that would be cool.
Works in Australia. It’s good fun. There are guys that you hate when your team plays theirs but you love them when they are playing for your state. So most Brisbane fans probably despise the Melbourne Storm most of the year but come the 3 game Origin series they no doubt love Queenslanders like Cameron Smith, Billy Slater, Greg Inglis and Cooper Cronk.
Hell, 90% of the players in the NFL are probably from California, Texas, Florida, Pennsylvania, Ohio, or Georgia.
How 'bout doing it by race? “Okay, you white boys line up ovah here…”
Or how about by birth order? You know, first-borns (or only children) vs. later-borns?
Or how about we take care of the safety factor by swaddling the players in grotesque amounts of padding, so much so that getting hurt will be just about impossible, and you’d have these huge guys unable even get their arms around each other to make a tackle, or to waddle down the field–I’m talking about a GROSS amount of padding everywhere, maybe hundreds of pounds of padding. That spectacle would be some funny shit. I’d pay a dollar to watch that.
I decided to check.
The 2011 Pro Bowl starters and their state of birth:
John Abraham - South Carolina
David Akers - Kentucky
Nnamdi Asomugha - Louisiana (but grew up in California)
Tom Brady - California
Nick Collins - Florida
Billy Cundiff - California
John Denney - Colorado
Zak DeOssie - Massachusetts
Kris Dielman - Indiana
Jahri Evans - Pennsylvania
Dwight Freeney - Connecticut
Antonio Gates - Michigan
Jordan Gross - Idaho
Andre Gurode - Texas
James Harrison - Ohio
Devin Hester - Florida
Andre Johnson - Florida
Calvin Johnson - Georgia
Maurice Jones-Drew - California
Vonta Leach - North Carolina
Shane Lechler - Texas
Ray Lewis - Florida
Jake Long - Michigan
Nick Mangold - Ohio
Logan Mankins - California
Marc Mariani - Montana
Robert Mathis - Georgia
Clay Matthews - California
Mat McBriar - Victoria, Australia
Ovie Mughelli - Massachusetts (went to high school in South Carolina)
Haloti Ngata - California
Montell Owens - New Jersey (went to high school in Delaware)
Julius Peppers - North Carolina
Jason Peters - Texas
Troy Polamalu - California
Jay Ratliff - Florida (went to high school in Georgia)
Ed Reed - Louisiana
Darrelle Revis - Pennsylvania
Asante Samuel - Florida
Chris Snee - New Jersey
Ndamukong Suh - Oregon
Joe Thomas - Wisconsin
Michael Turner - Illinois
Michael Vick - Virginia
Cameron Wake - Maryland
DeMarcus Ware - Alabama
Reggie Wayne - Louisiana
Eric Weems - Florida
Roddy White - South Carolina
Vince Wilfork - Florida
Patrick Willis - Tennessee
Adrian Wilson - North Carolina
Jason Witten - Tennessee
Charles Woodson - Ohio
As you can see, my state New York does not have a single pro bowler despite being the third most populous state. We would be stomped in a State Bowl.
Or perhaps winners of the Bud Bowl.
East vs. West
Rookies vs. Sophomores
SEC & Big 10 vs Pac-10 and Big 12
Protestants vs. Catholics
Republicans vs. Democrats
Circumcised vs. Uncuts
I’ve said it before, and I’m saying it again: nerf bats. Just a huge nerf bat free-for-all. It can’t fail!
So make it an east/west/middle conference?
If you want TV ratings, black all pros vs. white all pros would do the trick. Maybe have the Latinos line up with the whites to even things up a bit.
No. Make them fight it out to see who gets the Latinos.
I can see the Pro Bowl being interesting enough to watch if they actually bothered to play it, but then, that’s pretty much the root of the whole chicken-egg scenario. (For my part, I flipped over to it just long enough to see Peyton Manning and Philip Rivers standing on the sideline watching Matt Cassel throw a pick, think “WTF?”, and change back.)
I know the flag football idea was a joke, but hell, I’d watch it. No pads, just jerseys, shorts, tennis shoes and flag belts…a playground game brought to you by the best in the world. X-percent of proceeds go to some children’s charity in the name of the winning conference. It’d actually be pretty entertaining.
The players don’t want to play it. The viewers don’t want to watch it. Other than that , it is fine.