The Irrelevance Of The Pro Bowl

I am certainly not alone in my disdain for the Pro Bowl. Brad Dickson of the Omaha World-Herald made this comment last week:

“There is a new European-made movie that shows paint drying. Good, now I have something to do during Sunday’s Pro Bowl.”

Some data would suggest that the players do not really care about the game either. Each Pro Bowl squad has 44 players meaning the game sends out 88 initial “invitations”. Obviously, some of the players on that “invite list” will be playing in the Super Bowl this week, so their absence is understandable. What is a tad unusual, is that so many other players decline the honor of participating in this game. It took 133 invitations to come up with 88 players willing to take an expense-paid trip to Hawaii and a minimum $30K check for participation. (The winning team got close to $60K.) It is as if one entire squad refused to show up and they had to go and get the next level participants.

Just look at some of the QBs on the teams. Teddy Bridgewater? Derek Carr? Jameis Winston? Tyrod Taylor? None of those even resemble “stiffs”, but are they elite QBs? Maybe next year…

One more observation from Brad Dickson on the Pro Bowl:

“I wouldn’t say people don’t take the Pro Bowl seriously, but a new rule this year allows players to text in the huddle.”

Last week, Michael Sam declared that he was going to give it one more try to make an NFL squad next season. I have two thoughts on that pronouncement:

1. I hope he gets a fair shot at making a team and that his fate is not determined by an injury.

2. If he is unsuccessful in this attempt to make an NFL team, then I profoundly hope that the part of his statement that refers to “one more try” is completely accurate.

If you have some spare cash lying around in your checking account, you can participate in an auction to buy a football thrown by John Unitas and caught by Raymond Berry for a touchdown in the first half of the 1958 NFL title game. That is the game that went into overtime and was called “The Greatest Game Ever Played”. The auction begins today and runs through 11 February; bidding starts at $10K. Here is a link to the report of the auction. Here is a link to the website of the auctioneer showing the status of this particular item. When I posted this rant, there had not been any bids on the item yet.

Last week, a reader, rugger9, posed a question in the comment section on one of the rants. He looked ahead to the weekend game between the Golden State Warriors and the Philly 76ers and wondered if the spread for that game might be the biggest spread ever. I do not keep track of such things but I know someone who does and who reads these rants at least once in a while. So, I posed the question to him for a query of his records. Here are the salient points in his response:

“According to my computer records, which only go back to 2003, on 3/30/2008, Boston was at home vs. pre-LeBron Heat at a closing line of -23, (183) and won 88-62 covering the line and the Under.

“My manual gambling records (pre-computer) show Phoenix’ closing line at home -24 over Dallas on 3/12/1993 and winning, 116-98. Dallas was 11-71 that year and Phoenix won over 60 and led NBA at 113 ppg that season.

“Prior to 1977, I don’t have any gambling records, but going back to 1973, the lousy Philly team was getting a bundle of points on the road vs. the Celtics, Bucks, and Lakers, but I don’t think they would have hit the 20’s, and if they ever did, there’s no way it was as high as the 24 quoted above. Philly though they were lousy did average 104 ppg that season and there was no 3-pointer then.”

That message came to me about 12 hours before any spread went up on the boards I follow for the Warriors/Sixers game. Here is another note from that message with regard to what he thought the spread was going to be:

“Using my power ratings, I would expect GS on the road to be in the -17 to -19 area. At home, they would be in the -21- to -23 area.”

The game opened at Golden State -18; it moved to 18.5 briefly and then settled in at 17.5 points. I checked it about 3 or 4 times on Saturday to see if I ever saw it outside the predicted “17-to-19 range”. I never did.

Oh by the way, the Warriors won the game by 3 points and it took a 3-point shot in the final seconds to provide the margin of victory…

Finally, I cannot resist one more snarky observation by Brad Dickson in the Omaha World-Herald regarding the Pro Bowl game yesterday:

“Pro Bowl Sunday is to Super Bowl Sunday what National Pancake Day is to Christmas.”

But don’t get me wrong, I love sports………