The Fifth Down: N.F.L.’s Pro Bowl Is Postseason Party Few Want to Attend

The Fifth Down: N.F.L.’s Pro Bowl Is Postseason Party Few Want to Attend  A Packers fan at the Pro Bowl seemed to show more enthusiasm than was displayed on the field. Quarterback Aaron Rodgers said afterward that some Pro Bowlers “embarrassed themselves.”

The Pro Bowl is the pimple on an otherwise unblemished cheek of the homecoming queen known as the N.F.L. schedule. It is a minor blotch, yet it is impossible to overlook because of how it stands out from the beauty surrounding it.

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This year’s edition of the game was particularly painful to watch, with defenders hitting so gently that the game made youth flag football look like Antietam. Aaron Rodgers said after the game that some players “embarrassed themselves” by not putting any effort into the game. The remarks made Rodgers sound very passionate and incredibly naïve: putting effort into the Pro Bowl is like performing extra research to accurately fill out a customer satisfaction survey. The only reason to go to the Pro Bowl is to go through the motions.

The Pro Bowl used to be held after the Super Bowl, but the league moved it to the Sunday before the Super Bowl, the scheduling equivalent of covering it in Clearasil and standing it in a shadowy corner of the banquet hall. In some respects, the schedule change was wise: Who wants to sit down to another football game right now? Particularly one that features five Seattle Seahawks?

On the other hand, the rescheduling backfired: the Pro Bowl got jammed into the same weekend as the N.H.L. and N.B.A. All-Star Games — though not this year, since the N.B.A. lockout moved the league’s All-Star Game to Feb. 26 — casting a spotlight on its staggering irrelevance when compared with those events. The N.H.L. and N.B.A. stage parties no one wants to leave; the N.F.L. stages one where everyone checks his watch and begs off that second cocktail. Even college football’s Senior Bowl is held in higher esteem by hard-core fans, who would rather watch prospects battle for their futures than Darrelle Revis’s jogging behind Larry Fitzgerald with the speed and intensity of two guys taking their dogs on a morning constitutional.

If the N.F.L. cribbed some ideas from the other leagues, it could spruce up the Pro Bowl and make it something more than the last mile marker before the exit for the Super Bowl.

The fantasy draft format used by the N.H.L. is brilliant, and the N.F.L. should adopt it. Braylon Edwards and Brandon Jacobs could be the captains, and a battle between Team Edwards and Team Jacobs might confuse millions of teenage girls and middle-aged women into giving the Pro Bowl a look. The game could be scored using fantasy football rules, so Matt Forte earns a point for his team if he gains 20 rushing yards and Philip Rivers costs his team 2 points when he throws an interception. Use point-per-reception scoring, and Drew Brees might attempt to engineer a comeback by throwing an endless series of 1-yard passes to running backs, which is similar to what the Saints tried to do in the playoffs, anyway.

While the fantasy draft is a good idea, skills competitions are not. Watching hockey players audition for their postretirement careers in “Phineas and Ferb on Ice” by pirouetting and Salchowing their way through penalty shots makes for some fascinating television, but there is no football equivalent. Making quarterbacks throw at moving targets is like making fighter pilots demonstrate maneuvers on riding mowers, and obstacle courses are better left to the “Superstars” program of the 1970s. Basketball players can slam dunk over cars; the only interesting thing most football players can do with a football is play football with it. Short of putting Roger Goodell in a dunk tank and letting long snappers aim for the bull’s-eye — not a bad idea, really — the only skills anyone wants N.F.L. players to exhibit are the ones they always exhibit.

Similarly, celebrity pickup games are a no-no. The N.B.A. gets a lot of mileage out of putting one of their All-Stars on the court with a W.N.B.A. star and a rapper or television chef and having them play three-on-three or Horse. Anyone with an urge to watch Ray Lewis, Aziz Ansari and Jill Scott (the soccer star) play flag football against Andy Dalton, Shaun White and Jill Scott (the soul singer) should seek medical attention, not their television listings.