ATLANTA — Since 1951 the NFL has conducted some version of the Pro Bowl. The all-star competition has crossed the country and, particularly in the past decade-plus, gone through several different iterations, including turning the game itself into a series of games.
Now, The Athletic has learned, the Pro Bowl is being eliminated.
On Wednesday, league executives presented to team owners the future of the Pro Bowl, which will no longer have a standalone game — be it tackle or flag football — or games. After surveying players over the years, the NFL will now make the Pro Bowl effectively an individual performance award. Eighty-eight players will receive the Pro Bowl honor with no alternates, corralling a key aspect of the all-star event that had gotten out of whack in recent years.
“All-star games, I think, for all leagues have been fraught for a long time, and they haven’t necessarily represented the very best premium of that sport for those players,” Peter O’Reilly, NFL executive vice president of club business, international and league events, told The Athletic. “I think all leagues have struggled with that. We made the switch four years ago from the ‘tackle’ Pro Bowl to the flag game, and that was more strategic for us. In many ways, we saw a decrease in the replacement players.
“But ultimately, the Pro Bowl, at its core, is about honoring the best of the best in that season, on the field, in real games. And the shift here is about shifting the focus from the game — which is ultimately where people’s attention goes, especially the replacement players tied to it — to the honor.”
In place of the games, Pro Bowlers will be invited to Los Angeles for an in-person celebration in February. The process of selecting Pro Bowlers will remain the same. Ballots cast by fans, players and coaches are weighted equally to determine the selections of the 88 players on offense, defense and special teams across both conferences.
For years, league executives have informally surveyed players about how to fix the Pro Bowl. Earlier this summer, NFL executive vice president of football operations Troy Vincent Sr. got on a call with more than a dozen star players, including Jalen Hurts, Jalen Ramsey, George Kittle, Dion Dawkins and others. They made clear they wanted to properly honor and celebrate Pro Bowlers, including those who make the Super Bowl, after years of feeling the honor had become something less.
“You start doing it over and over again, and now what we’ve compromised on becomes the standard,” Vincent told The Athletic. “And that is not the product the fans deserve nor the way the players want to be celebrated.”
The NFL has tinkered with the all-star event seemingly annually since 2013. That year, the league abolished the conference format in favor of honorary team captains (Deion Sanders and Jerry Rice for the inaugural year) and a “fantasy draft.” The game restored the AFC-NFC format for 2016. It moved from its longtime home in Hawaii after the 2015 edition.
The biggest issue for the Pro Bowl has been the lack of competitiveness in the game. The 2007 game, during which Sean Taylor laid out punter Brian Moorman on a fake punt, might as well have happened in a different lifetime. Vincent remembers his first Pro Bowl following his seven-interception season in 1999. Hardy Nickerson, playing in his fifth Pro Bowl, told Vincent to buckle up his chinstrap and be ready to play and win a physical game.
“Those were direct orders from the Mike linebacker,” Vincent recalled. “‘This ain’t no party. You get a chance to spend some time at the pool today when we get back to the hotel. We came here to win a football game.’ That’s how it was. When you got to Honolulu, that was the message. That wasn’t the message anymore.”
In 2022, the league revamped the event to bring in skills competitions along with a flag-football event. But the NFL could never quite figure out how to make the event a success. Commissioner Roger Goodell has expressed frustration with the lack of competition over the years, even as executives tried various ideas to inject life into the Pro Bowl.
Last year, the league moved the Pro Bowl from its typical Sunday-before-the-Super Bowl slot to the Tuesday before the Super Bowl in the host city. The event, held at a convention center, didn’t break through.
Pro Bowl ratings post-pandemic ranged between 4.7 and 6.7 million viewers, but last year’s event saw ratings crater to 2 million after moving to a weekday. Still, not conducting a Pro Bowl event means giving up a TV event that did rate for the NFL.
“You always consider that, but I think when you boil it down, we kept coming back to: Is that the best representation of our sport, of these players?” O’Reilly said. “What’s the Pro Bowl about? It’s about recognizing the best of the best. No replacements. Eighty-eight.”
If viewers tired of the lack of competition, players tired of the honor losing its meaning. Being a Pro Bowler used to mean something for a star’s legacy. Any Hall of Fame inductee’s résumé would include mention of how many Pro Bowls he amassed.
But after moving out of a destination spot like Hawaii, and with the desirability of participating in the game waning, alternates took over. For decades, with a few exceptions, alternates only made the event if an initial selection was injured or, after the game was moved to the week before the Super Bowl, a player was preparing to play in the title game.
In 1998, for example, there were just seven Pro Bowl selections who did not attend the Honolulu game, including five who played in that year’s Super Bowl. Twenty years later in Orlando, that number had ballooned to 35.
Baltimore Ravens quarterback Tyler “Snoop” Huntley made the 2023 Pro Bowl as the AFC’s fourth alternate even though he started in just four games. Last year, Cleveland Browns rookie QB Shedeur Sanders was, statistically, one of the NFL’s worst quarterbacks over his seven starts, yet still made the Pro Bowl as the sixth alternate after several opt-outs.
The switch from tackle to a flag game actually decreased the number of alternates in recent years. Since 2022, there was an average of 26 alternates for the Pro Bowl. From 2016 to 2020, there was an average of 35.
“The alternate thing didn’t sit well with the guys, especially those that we would consider perennial Pro Bowlers,” Vincent said. “And in their mind, ‘I want to be considered the world’s best.’ And when you start getting into the fourth and fifth and sixth alternates, it waters down the entire team.”
If there won’t be a Pro Bowl event, why go through the process of naming Pro Bowlers at all? The answer, of course, is money.
There are salary implications for players named to the Pro Bowl. Players on rookie deals drafted after the first round are eligible for performance escalators if they make the Pro Bowl. The fifth-year option, available only to first-round picks, can increase depending upon how many Pro Bowls that player has made. And veteran players often have incentive bonuses for being named to the Pro Bowl.
The collective bargaining agreement gives the league sole discretion as to whether a Pro Bowl game is held, but it must replace the game with another event “that recognizes the accomplishments of outstanding NFL players, provided that the NFL will consult with the NFLPA prior to making its determination.”
Pro Bowlers have a unique motivation to appear in person this year. Los Angeles will also host the 2028 Olympics, where flag football will make its Olympic debut, and there will be key activations by the league promoting flag football in the lead-up to the summer games.
Presumably, a majority of those 88 Pro Bowlers will have some interest in representing their country in the Olympics. Being formally recognized as one of the best football players in the world, at the site of the future Olympics, is likely to carry appeal.