As far as games go, the NFL Pro Bowl is not exactly one that will make the top 100 games of the year, maybe not the top 1000 games if you include all the sports, pro and college. OK, it wouldn't crack the top 5000. The rules make it kind of a vanilla affair. It is often a lovefest with hardly any chippiness or any of the requisite animosity that makes the average game relatively watchable. Nothing seems to be on the line, and the lack of a result that has consequences plunges this event to "Disney on Ice" status...unless you WAKE THE HELL UP and realize what this game really is and what it has to be all about to us if we are true football fans.
I think the Pro Bowl is like every slightly above average-looking girl you went to college with. You know who I mean. The girls who were by no means ugly, with hot bodies but average faces. The ones with hot faces and average bodies. The ones that loved to party and never had a boyfriend. The ones you overlooked for your entire collegiate career because you were too focused on the ultra-hot girls you had only a slight chance at landing. Somewhere along the line in your warped little alcohol-soaked brain, you convinced yourself that "settling" for the less attractive (but not even close to ugly) girl on any given night would somehow be ruining your chances at the hottie. Some of you reading this have a huge smile on your face because you know exactly what I am talking about. And you kick yourself for not taking advantage of having so many slightly above average-looking girls getting drunk around you all the time. You took them for granted. Never again will you have the regular opportunity in such a bogey-rich environment. (Not to mention you weren't a catch then and are less of one now, whereas those girls have only gotten hotter since college.)
Well, the Pro Bowl is that girl. And you take it for granted every year. Do you know that the next game (even the most meaningless) does not occur for 6 months!? August 9th is the Hall of Fame game. In June, after the NBA Finals are over, tell me if you wouldn't kill for an NFL game even half as good as the Pro Bowl. You will be jonesing hardcore...Michael Phelps-style at that point. You have to live in the now, man.
So last night's game was no big deal. Larry Fitzgerald looked great. Andy Reid held down his customary spot on the NFC's sidelines (awesome). Peyton Manning looked like a god for the few series he was in on. And Adrian Peterson looked like a stud as well. No need to really focus on any given play. As a whole, the game had a real fluffy, kind of made-for-TV movie feeling. Plot development and character depth were at a low-budget minimum.
But that is all we have for six months. So drink it up, take it in, take her home...because the upcoming drought is going to be hard to take. And won't you be kicking yourself if you didn't take advantage of the last opportunity you had at even a marginally attractive product?
Stay tuned for our 6 month-long pregame coverage of the Bills/Titans Hall of Fame game.