NFL 101 Series: The NFL Pro Bowl Explained

The Pro Bowl is like the All Star Game or State Of Origin of the NFL.

It is an exhibition game between the best players for each position in the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC).

A ballot goes out at the end of each season for NFL fans, players and coaches to vote for players they think deserve recognition and the right to represent their conference.

The Pro Bowl is generally the last game played at the end of the NFL season but has been moved to the week before the Super Bowl in 2010.

The game is also usually played at Aloha Stadium in Honolulu, Hawaii but will be at Sun Life Stadium, the home stadium of the Miami Dolphins and host site of Super Bowl XLIV, in 2010.

As the Pro Bowl is being played before the Super Bowl in 2010 and not afterwards, the game will not feature any players from the teams playing in the Super Bowl.

The first Pro Bowl, featuring the all-stars of the 1938 season, was played on January 15, 1939 at Los Angeles’s Wrigley Field.

Players often take the actual Pro Bowl game very lightly and is often more entertainment rather than competitiveness. There is a Pro Bowl MVP each year given to the best player on the field.

Often well known players are miked up inside their helmets to the TV network covering the Pro Bowl during the game and there is a lot of entertainment and interviews held during the day.

Pro Bowl Selection

The Pro Bowl has been plagued with criticism ever since the NFL allowed fan voting. Fans votes make up a large chunk of the Pro Bowl voting and many players are voted in simply because they are well known and not necessarily for their outstanding play during the season.

Some players have had a surprisingly small number of Pro Bowl selections despite having very successful and distinguished careers. If a player is selected to the Pro Bowl but can’t because of injury, the next player with the highest amount of votes in that position will be chosen as an alternate.

Pro Bowl Status

Being selected to a Pro Bowl is considered to be a mark of honor, and players who are accepted into the Pro Bowl are considered to be elite. Players who are often selected to the Pro Bowl are referred to as Pro Bowlers or Perennial Pro Bowlers during the season and off season. There are often incentives in each players contracts that sees each player awarded a wage bonus for making the Pro Bowl.

Pro Bowl Coaches

The Pro Bowl coaches are usually the head coaches of the teams that lost in the AFC and NFC championship games, but in 2010 the coaches that lost their divisional playoff game but still had the best regular-season record will lead their respective conference Pro Bowl team.

Pro Bowl Uniforms

Each year players from each conference wear their respective conference coloured uniforms during the Pro Bowl (Red for the AFC and Blue for the NFC).

Each player wears their normal team helmet with their conference uniform to honor tradition and to help represent their team.

In the earliest years of the Pro Bowl, the players did not wear their unique helmets. The AFC All-Stars wore a solid red helmet with a white A on it, while the NFC players wore a solid white helmet with a blue N on it.

Two players with the same number who are elected to the Pro Bowl can wear the same number for that game. It is usually recommended—although not required—that players use different jersey numbers, and generally when two players share a number, the less experienced one will wear a different number for the game.

Pro Bowl Records

In the 37 seasons since the AFL–NFL Merger, both conferences have swept the Super Bowl and Pro Bowl 9 times. In the 19 years they have split, the NFC has won the Super Bowl 10 times.
Baltimore/Indianapolis Colts players have won six MVP awards, more than any other team. Chicago Bears and Los Angeles/St Louis Rams players have won five MVP awards. Minnesota Vikings, Pittsburgh Steelers, Buffalo Bills and Cleveland Browns players have won four MVP awards. 10 teams have won two, and 13 teams have won one each. The Baltimore Ravens, Carolina Panthers, Denver Broncos and Houston Texans have never had a player win an MVP award.
Quarterbacks have won 16 MVP awards; wide receivers are second with eight.
Only two AFC–NFC Pro Bowls have gone to overtime. Both have been won by the AFC in overtime with field goals.
Due to the rescheduling of Super Bowl XXXVI in the wake of 9/11, the 2002 game was moved from Sunday to the following Saturday, one week later.
Sean Taylor was voted to the 2007/08 NFC Roster as a starter at free safety, shortly after he was fatally shot in his home by armed intruders. This was the first time in Pro Bowl history that a player was named as a Pro Bowler posthumously. The NFC took the field on defense for their first series with only 10 players on the field. He was later replaced by Roy Williams.
John Madden and Tom Landry have coached in the most Pro Bowls (5 each).
Pittsburgh head coaches Bill Cowher and Chuck Noll are #1 and #2 in Pro Bowls won (Cowher 4, Noll 3).
The 2007/08 Dallas Cowboys have the most selections in one season with 13.
The most points in a single game was 55 by the NFC in the 2004 Pro Bowl, which also featured the most points by the losing team (the AFC scored 52).
Marshall Faulk and Adrian Peterson are the only rookies in NFL history to win both the Offensive Rookie of the Year Award and the Pro Bowl’s Most Valuable Player Award in the same season.

Pro Bowl Links

The above information is a mixture of personal knowledge and facts the the NFL Pro Bowl Wikipedia reference http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pro_Bowl.