Pro Bowl is just a bad game

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. -- It's raining on Day 1 of Super Bowl week. So if one has to hang out in one's hotel until the players arrive later on, then one might as well take one last look back at the Pro Bowl, otherwise known as Bryant's Not So Excellent Adventure.

I hadn't watched a Pro Bowl in decades until last night. In fact, I think the last one I saw might have also had a Clay Matthews in the game.

My decision to overlook the Pro Bowl all those years was reaffirm as a wise move while watching that game last night. A game played at half speed along the line of scrimmage was made even worse by the fact it was watered down with a record 34 replacement players.

NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell crowned it a success.

"I think we're getting more and more attention for the game," he said. "It's a great lead up into the Super Bowl, so it's accomplished a lot of things we talked about."

I don't know about you, but drawing more attention to this game might be a bad thing. Once you get a taste of this, do you really want another bite?

The NFL says the game created a "buzz" because it was moved from Hawaii to the Super Bowl site a week before the big game. A crowd of 70,697 was announced. There were some no-shows, but it was still a good-sized crowd.

The game goes back to Hawaii for the next two years. The league will decide in the next two months whether the game will be played before or after the Super Bowl.

If it has to be played at all, it should be played after the Super Bowl. This year was the perfect example why. Peyton Manning has the kind of personality that he'd play in this game until he's 50. But this year, he didn't play because, well, he's in the Super Bowl on Sunday.

Does the NFL really want to not include the players from the two best teams in the league? There were 14 of them who didn't have the chance to play yesterday.

Personally, I'd just ditch the game altogether. I know that's unrealistic because of television and the NFL's need to be in our faces screaming "LOOK AT US!" 365 days a year. But the players don't need the game. Most of them just want the trip to Hawaii, which they didn't even get this year.

And the league doesn't need the game. In fact, it's kind of like the preseason to me. Do you really want to put something like this on display as an example of your game? When you see even Jared Allen play at half speed, you know the game is a joke.

. I asked Adrian Peterson how he felt about getting only three carries for 17 yards. "Man, it was weird," he said. Then I asked him if it was nice to kind of relax and not get beat up with a bunch of carries. "Nooooo," he said. "As a competitor, you always want the ball." Peterson dropped a pass, but he also did a nice job hanging onto the ball during his three carries.

. I joked with Heath Farwell that NFC coach Wade Phillips tried to wear him out for the 2010 season. Farwell made the team as a special teamer, but was forced to play outside linebacker for most of the second half because of injuries to other players. "I told [Phillips] he tried to put me on IR," said Farwell, pointing to an ice pack wrapped around an ankle that was only mildly sprained. "He knows we play the Cowboys next year. He was out to get me."

Farwell wasn't credited with a tackle on the official stat sheet. But I know he made at least one tackle on punt coverage.

. Allen played almost the entire game and had four tackles, all solo, to finish tied for third on the NFC team. He had one stop for a 4-yard loss. He moved back and forth between the right and left sides. Allen didn't have a sack, but as I said earlier, most of the linemen don't go full speed. Some don't go half speed. Allen could have had a sack or two, but he was playing by the unwritten Pro Bowl code. One guy who didn't get the half-speed memo was Houston's Mario Williams. He had two sacks. Someone will be talking to him about taking it a little easier in 2011.

. Steve Hutchinson is a class act, a great representative for the Vikings and, well, everything else that Bryant McKinnie is not. Hutch played almost the entire game despite a shoulder that will be operated on in two weeks.

I was told that McKinnie was the running joke on the NFC team the past two days. Nice. A guy who complained for years that he was kept out of the Pro Bowl because of his off-the-field issues makes the Pro Bowl, gets dismissed and then becomes a joke in a locker room that includes some of the best players in the league. Bryant will NEVER make another Pro Bowl. The fans might be naive enough to stuff the ballot box for him again, but the players and coaches will NEVER vote for him again.