The microphone was put into the hands of Rodgers.
The Green Bay Packers quarterback spoke two days after the Pro Bowl. I was not happy. Some of the guys on the other side were embarrassed.
Rodgers, who was still a few years away from having a reliably contrarian opinion, said he was surprised that some of the players didn't want to play.
For a long time, it was an embarrassment to the game. The most pointed criticism the Pro Bowl had received from an active player was from Rodgers a decade ago. The Pro Bowl game will be replaced by a series of events that will lead up to a flag football game.
You weren't paying enough attention to the "tackle" football on display at the Pro Bowl over the past 10 to 15 years if you thought flag football was a joke. The players decided to reduce the risk of injury in meaningless games. They ran half-speed and mostly passed up opportunities for big hits.
The end of forward progress would be noted with as many whistles as possible.
Even though they avoided hard contact, there were still injuries. Tyler Eifert broke his ankle in the fourth quarter of the 2016 game when he jumped to catch a pass. After that, his career never came back to normal.
So many great opportunities. I hope the NFL branches out beyond football specific things. Spike ball tournament, ping pong, cornhole, dodgeball, chug offs/drinking games. This has been a missed opportunity by the nfl for so long. Love it!
— Jason Kelce (@JasonKelce) September 26, 2022
The league heard all of the players' reservations. Vince Wilfork said in 2012 that players play a full season and get rewarded. It's not a good idea to play a game like that and hurt yourself. It's not good for the organization or the individual.
The NFL took so long to act. It was clear when I reported over the years. The week after or the week before the Super Bowl was when the NFL built their audience. The league had something similar to replace it if the audience diminished.
To put it kindly, that meant pushing through years of insincere competition. The league was struggling to get players to commit to the game when it moved to a new city. It had to invite 135 players to fill the roster for that game.
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The decision was pushed by a few developments. The most entertaining part of Pro Bowl week was when the league began experimenting with dodgeball and other skills. When the 2020 Pro Bowl was canceled, the television ratings on ABC and ESPN were the lowest they had been in fifteen years.
The standard for a credible replacement was lowered because of those numbers, and the league was working on an initiative that fit the bill.
One of the league's most recent but intense programs is flag football, which it believes can keep boys and girls out of tackle football. The International Federation of American Football is partnering with the National Football League to lobby for the game to be included in the Olympics.
"When we talk about the future of the game of football, it is, no question, flag," said TroyVincent, the NFL's executive vice president of football operations.
There aren't a lot of ways to avoid injuries. Longtime Pro Bowl watchers will remember that in 1999, New England's RobertEdwards suffered a catastrophic knee injury at the Pro Bowl while playing a flag football game on the beach. He missed three seasons before retiring.
It's not clear if the game's biggest stars will be more willing to play flag football. For a long time, it was clear that the Pro Bowl wouldn't return to a level of intensity that was acceptable. It's a victory for everyone.
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