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The end of a middling era is here; the Pro Bowl is no longer.
On Wednesday, The Athletic’s Jonathan Jones reported that the NFL will not be holding the Pro Bowl Games, bringing an end to the league’s All-Star game after 75 years.
The Pro Bowl, however, was on a long and painful downward trajectory. A game which once showcased Hall of Famers and greats such as John Elway and Jerry Rice trying to lead their conference to victory had devolved into last year’s flag football matchup featuring Shedeur Sanders and Joe Flacco, who was a backup quarterback by the end of the season. The days of Sean Taylor’s hit on punter Brian Moorman or Peyton Manning calling Colts kicker Mike Vanderjagt “liquored up” and an “idiot” on live television are in the past, and now, so is the Pro Bowl game in its entirety.
As the NFL bids adieu to the Pro Bowl, here’s a look back at five decisions that ultimately led to the game's demise.
Allowing fan voting
In 1995, fans were tabbed as part of the Pro Bowl voting process, which was split between players, coaches and fans. It did not exactly help the product. Teams rallied for their fans to vote for their players. Well-known players tended to receive more Pro Bowl honors, even during a tough season, simply due to name recognition. As one NFC coach told Sports Illustrated’s Gilberto Manzano last winter, “The NFL screwed up when they gave the fans a vote. The most popular guy on TikTok goes to the Pro Bowl now. When it was coaching and players voting, it meant a lot more.”
Allowing fans to vote for All-Star honors is not exclusive to the NFL—fans vote on MLB, the NBA and WNBA’s All-Star Games—but it has hurt the quality of the Pro Bowl more than it has hurt the other All-Star Games. The NFL features 53 players on every roster. It’s easy for players having a breakout season, lesser-known players or players from smaller markets to be snubbed because they are not as widely known by the fans. And when the best players that season aren’t named to the Pro Bowl, it impacts the quality of the game—especially when some first-time honorees might be more willing to partake in the honor that used to be playing.
It’s important to note that fans will still take part in the voting process for selecting Pro Bowlers. Top players will still be named Pro Bowlers every season and invited to an in-person celebration, but there will no longer be a game.
Moving the game to the week before the Super Bowl
In 2010, the NFL decided to make one of the biggest changes to the Pro Bowl: moving the game to the Sunday before the Super Bowl. Previously, the Pro Bowl had been held the Sunday after the Super Bowl. With the Pro Bowl moving up before the big game, players taking part in the Super Bowl were no longer able to compete in the Pro Bowl. This has contributed to the decline in participation in the game from players that were originally selected to take part in the competition.
Accordingly, the 2010 Pro Bowl saw an increase in alternates, particularly at quarterback. Peyton Manning, a face of the league, could not play in the Pro Bowl because he was competing in the Super Bowl. Overall, there were five alternate quarterbacks at the 2010 Pro Bowl, compared to just one the year before. As the decade wore on, more and more star quarterbacks would skip out on the Pro Bowl, not only costing the NFL in name appeal, but the competitiveness of the game.
Letting the alternate situation get out of control
The need for more alternates increased after the NFL moved the Pro Bowl to before the Super Bowl. Somewhere in that time, it became way more than just Super Bowl participants missing out on the Pro Bowl. With increasingly more players missing the game, the NFL kept allowing other players to be named alternates—even in seasons when they had no business making the Pro Bowl. It was particularly bad at quarterback, where the signal-callers selected skipped the Pro Bowl more often than not. In 1999, John Elway finished his legendary career by playing in the Pro Bowl a week after his final Super Bowl.
Outside of the quality of the game, allowing all these alternates only caused the Pro Bowl honor to be taken much less seriously. Between allowing more undeserving alternates to be honored as Pro Bowlers and not doing enough to incentivize the participation of star players and quarterbacks, the significance of the Pro Bowl simply shattered over the past 15 years.
Moving the Pro Bowl from Hawai‘i to Orlando
Pro Bowl participation was already on the decline by the time the NFL decided to move the game from Hawai‘i to Orlando for good in 2017, but the switch certainly didn’t help matters. Hawai‘i had been the primary home of the Pro Bowl from 1980 to 2016, and carried widespread appeal to players receiving the honor.
When the Pro Bowl temporarily relocated from Hawai‘i to Miami in 2009, a number of star players expressed their preference for Hawai‘i.
“Guys are going to miss Hawaii,'' Tony Gonzalez said at the time, via Titans.com. “There’s nothing like coming over here. When you step off that plane and they put that lei around your neck and come to the hotel and get a mai tai … it’s a special, special feeling.”
Switching from football to flag football
Over the past 15 years, the NFL has tried making a number of changes to the Pro Bowl to improve the competitiveness and participation of the game. This has included switching from an NFC vs. AFC format to players being drafted by legends to the addition of the skills competition. Most recently, in 2023, the NFL officially changed the game to flag football, aligning with the league’s vested interest in the sport.
A switch to flag football made sense given the lack of tackling and physicality already taking place during the Pro Bowl. Ultimately, though, flag football is a different sport. And the move signaled what everyone already knew: The Pro Bowl was dying, and there was no way to fix it.
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EVA GEITHEIM
Eva Geitheim is an NFL writer at Sports Illustrated. Prior to joining SI in December 2024, she wrote for Newsweek, Gymnastics Now and Dodgers Nation. A Bay Area native, she has a bachelor’s in communications from UCLA. When not writing, she can be found baking or rewatching Gilmore Girls.
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