There's two dates on the NFL schedule that while being incredibly important,are also mind numbingly boring to watch.
The pro bowl & the draft. NFL Commish Roger Goodell is looking to make some long overdue changes.
First the pro bowl. His idea is one I've been touting for several years, which is to move the game from the week after the superbowl to the week before. The way I see it two problems get solved, first that pointless two weeks between the conference titles games and the superbowl get something worthwile to watch. Second, it moves the pro bowl from a time when no fans care anymore to a time when the football calender is at it's peak.
Now, detractors have raised a few obvious problems but in reality they really aren't valid. First, in all likelihood the two superbowl teams will be sending a whole lot of players to the pro bowl and clearly none of those guys will be able to play. No one is going to risk injury in the pro bowl with the Superbowl looming. The problem is, those guys won't go to the pro bowl regardless of when it's played! Every year, several of the guys that played in the superbowl the week before inevitably skip the pro bowl. Even for the non superbowl players, any guy with even a slight injury skips the game. Baltimore general manager Ozzie Newsome, part of the league's competition committee brought up one valid point,
This is simple to solve... The commish, as the owners representative, and the player's union both agree to alter the CBA and/or existing contracts to say you don't have to play in the game if you're in the superbowl to get your bonus. The players would have no problem with it, and neither would Goodell.
His second change is a no brainer. After last year's nightmare marathon that was the NFL draft, it was high time to make it more TV friendly.
It also moved the starting time of the draft from noon ET to 3 p.m. and limited the first day to two rounds instead of three.
"We believe this will make for a more streamlined and efficient draft," commissioner Roger Goodell said in a statement issued during the league owners meetings.
The change also applied to the second round, which will go from 10 minutes to seven between choices for next year's draft, which will be held April 26-27 at Radio City Music Hall in New York.