How to Save the NFL Pro Bowl (If You Must)

Geoff Magliocchetti February 3, 2026 Fact checked by: Matt Moreno No Comments

It’s worth wondering if the NFL all-star game is beyond redemption, but what can be done about the Pro Bowl’s last gasp?

Hey, now, you’re an all-star. Get your game on, go … home?

All that glitters is certainly not gold for the NFL’s take on an assembly of its supposed finest for an exhibition. The league’s annual all-star game, the NFL Pro Bowl, has long been a punchline for gridiron comedians that run out of New York Jets material.

Things have essentially hit rock bottom this time around despite rolling on for a fourth year in the “Pro Bowl Games” format: essentially acquiescing to the fact that the game was indeed a glorified rendition of two-hand touch, the event is now a flag football showdown centered around other activities that wouldn’t be out of place at a local elementary school’s field day.

Shedeur Sanders #12 of the Cleveland Browns looks to pass in the game against the Las Vegas Raiders at Allegiant Stadium on November 23, 2025 in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Photo by Steve Marcus/Getty Images

Combine that with a downright bizarre roster headlined by the puzzling inclusions of late injury replacements like Joe Flacco and Shedeur Sanders and the satire hits dangerous levels.

The comedy doesn’t even have a stadium attached this time around: after years of being stationed in Hawaii and Florida, the attempt to re-connect the Pro Bowl Games with the Super Bowl has moved the affair to San Francisco’s Moscone Center, a convention facility best-known for launching e-sports titles and Walter Mondale’s damned presidential campaign, on Tuesday night (8 p.m. ET, ESPN).

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Let’s get one thing clear: the Pro Bowl is never going to rediscover whatever state of glory it once had. There’s probably no amount of money that the game can offer in terms of a respectable prize when current salaries are considered and that also ensures that no one is risking anything for their respective conferences, where there is little loyalty attached. 

It’s also apparent that it’s not going anywhere. The NFL has long made a living in the space of making its supposedly undesirable or mundane segments (i.e. preseason games, the attaching of times and dates to games we’ve known about for years) into must-see television and the Pro Bowl is no exception, still capable of beating out its competition from hardwood and ice to this day. Financials also play a part, because players would no doubt resent the Pro Bowl incentive being removed from their contracts.

Besides, what did the world talk about during the week before the Super Bowl, a rare period of no gridiron activity? The absurdity of Sanders, he of a 68.1 passer rating in his debut as a fifth-round selection, putting a flag around his waist during the week of the Big Game. 

With that in mind, TFB7 has a series of Hail Marys to save the Pro Bowl, again … if you must …

Move It, Move It

The placement of the Pro Bowl has been a quiet debate in recent seasons: it used to serve as a peaceful, tropical coda to football season the week after the Super Bowl (which allowed the players competing for said Super Bowl to partake) but more recent times have seen it situated at some point in the gridiron desert between the conference championships and the Big Game. Neither date has really done anything to shake things up.

If there’s one thing the NFL has done extraordinarily well, it has been commandeering every month on the calendar for pigskin purposes. Draft season, for example, has essentially been extended from a spring weekend to a year-long affair (more on that shortly) and Christmas has been stolen from the NBA with no Grinch-style intention to give it back. School gets out in June but football doesn’t, as brief practices in shorts (known as organized team activities) wind up headlining “SportsCenter.”

Why Not Move The NFL Pro Bowl To The Summer?

Perhaps the one month the NFL has left to conquer is July and its particularly vulnerable for such a purpose: while there may be some interference from the World Cup every so often, the primary competition is perhaps, ironically enough, the MLB All-Star Game. MLB, as well as NASCAR and the WNBA, is also in full swing, albeit in their respective regular seasons that likely aren’t enough to fully distract from the lack of football.

Even if you’re never going to get a full tackle version of the Pro Bowl again, its current “skills competition”/field day nature may actually be a solid way to press things forward. Basketball editions have been able to stay relatively relevant with its own sideshows (i.e. 3-point contests).

Staging it in the midst of a football drought and creating a showcase-type of atmosphere might serve as at least a somewhat satisfying appetizer for the season ahead. 

Shift It

For all its marketing mastery, perhaps the NFL is focused on the wrong per-Bowl bowl.

One of the most prominent bits of evidence that favors football as the new national pastime is the way the draft has expanded beyond its weekend. Careers can be made or lost with but one move, long beyond college football schedules. One place for such tremors has been the Senior Bowl, a staple in Mobile, Alabama that has modified many a mock draft.

Having just moved past its diamond anniversary, perhaps its time for a long-due promotion on the league’s national slate.

Instead of granting the game to professional who have already attained the dream, why not turn it over to those attempting to reach those heights?

The Senior Bowl has anything a football junkie of any kind could hope to see: prospects due for selection in all seven rounds, a chance to shift spots on their projections, and their first chance under professional coaching.

Yes, the event has enjoyed longevity during non-playoff afternoons of the early winter, but it feels like its finally ready for prime time.

Feature The NFL Up-And-Comers

Other sports have livened up their own showcases through showcasing the future: the “Rising Stars” competition has long been a staple of NBA All-Star Weekend while a team consisting of young North Americans stole the show at the last World Cup of Hockey in 2016.

With rookie development a slower process in the NFL than it is in the other major sports, football freshmen deserve a better opportunity, especially at the start of their careers. Granting them a high-profile opportunity where the Pro Bowl once proudly stood could be a realistically viable path forward. 

Count It

This is perhaps the most truly, egregiously desperate ploy: if the NFL truly wants to connect the Pro Bowl to its Super counterpart, copy MLB’s ambitious gambit and say “this time it counts.”

Eager to atone for a tie in 2002 All-Star Game, MLB removed the exhibition nature from the Midsummer Classic by offering the winning league would get homefield advantage in the fall’s World Series (which would obviously feature All-Stars partaking in both, unlike the current Pro Bowl).

Such a setup lasted through 2016 before turning to the league champion with the best record hosting Games 1 and 7.

It’s obviously impossible for the NFL to replicate such a set-up for the Super Bowl as it’s obviously not a series and it’s held at neutral location. Perhaps even more damning is the fact that there probably hasn’t been any true animosity between the AFC and NFC (the current Pro Bowl “opponents”) since the turn-of-the-century, and even then the bad vibes from Joe Namath backing up his guarantee were almost entirely diminished.

But if the NFL really wanted to get nuts with it, perhaps it could grant the winning conference of the Pro Bowl the coin toss victory on Super Sunday. Another intriguing idea could be to put the extra home game on the line in a 17-game schedule up for grabs. 

Is it perfect? Of course not, be neither is the Pro Bowl’s continued presence that doesn’t really have any form of natural predator.

Geoff Magliocchetti is on X @GeoffJMags

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