By: Colin Lacy

TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services

Before the NFL crowns a champion in Super Bowl LIX between the Kansas City Chiefs and Philadelphia Eagles, the NFL world flocks to Orlando for the Pro Bowl (or what has turned into being called the Pro Bowl Games).

Instead of a full exhibition game, the NFL has made the change to a Flag Football game along with a collection of skills competitions and “field day” type events.

While there’s no question that the honor of being named to the Pro Bowl, does the actual event mean anything?

Before we dive into the current rendition of the pro football version of the All-Star Game, let’s look back at how we got here.

There have been many iterations of a “Pro Bowl,” and it began in January of 1939 as the NFL All-Star Game. The NFL All-Star Game saw that year’s league champion (starting with the 1938 New York Giants) against a team of all-stars from the other teams around the league. The first time that the phrase “Pro Bowl” was used came in the 1951 when the best from the American/Eastern Conference taking on the top of the National/Western Conference.

After the merger of the AFL & the NFL in 1970, the celebration of the game’s best turned into the AFC-NFC Pro Bowl. The league’s exhibition match-up largely looked the same until 2023 (aside from the league flirting with a nonconference format from 2014-2016).

2023 marked the first rendition of the Pro Bowl Games with flag football and other random events that have changed each of the last three years.

Most fans remember that for three decades (1980-2009) the Pro Bowl game was held in Aloha Stadium in Halawa, Hawaii. The game would be moved to Miami for the 2010 rendition of the game before returning to Hawaii in 2011 until 2014.

There have been a couple of mainstays in the skills competitions over the last three years with Flag Football and dodgeball, but each year brings new competitions with some being more…creative…than others.

I’ve been able to be at this year and last year’s Pro Bowl Games and to be on the field in Orlando around the game’s best.

While many fans and even media have written the game off as a waste of time, this game still truly means something to many of the players bestowed with the honor of being named to the Pro Bowl.

That being said, you do have players each year that “opt out” of the Pro Bowl.

In fact, this year has 16 players named to either the AFC or NFC squad that won’t be in Orlando participating for a litany of reasons which doesn’t include the eleven combined members of the two teams that are competing in the Super Bowl a week later.

Full transparency, I was skeptical of what the point of the event was going into my first experience with the game a year ago, but after talking to players and folks around the game, for the players it’s a wonderful experience.

Obviously it’s a tremendous honor to be named to the rosters, but you have some players that are experiencing it for the first time as a young player and get to be around the best of the best for a few days and pick the brains of those that they likely grew up idolizing.

Others use it as a chance to catch up with friends or former teammates that they may not have seen since the last Pro Bowl.

Whatever the individual rational, there was one overwhelming theme that came up time after time. That it was a fantastic way for their families to get away and decompress after a long and grueling season and be around families that are wrapping up the same grind and strengthen the community between the families.

So, does the event draw the TV numbers or revenue that even this game once did? Not even close, but it absolutely means a great deal to the guys that this game is intended to honor.