The Super, Pro and Playoff Bowls

Thoughts on the Super Bowl, The Pro Bowl and the long forgotten Playoff Bowl…

The Super Bowl is all but an official holiday in America, and rightly so. The culmination of the National Football League’s season deserves a special place in our culture.

Now where did I put that other shoe? Aw, yes. Thud. Actually, I’m not going to drop the other shoe, but merely set it down gently. I really do think the Super Bowl is special and something fun to look forward to. In some ways it’s a better excuse for a get together than, say, Thanksgiving, because you don’t have to invite your relatives.

Over the years, the game and the pageantry have gotten incrementally grander. That I could do without. In 1967, Super Bowl I didn’t even sell out. Just over 60,000 fans in a stadium (The Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum) that seats over 90,000. No one cared, really. 22 million fans tuned in, but that dropped by 2 million the following year.

Today it’s “off the hook” as the young people say. We have to sit through a week of dopes saying “oh, I just like to watch for the commercials.” Or there are others who look forward to seeing the halftime show. Good grief. At least we don’t have to hear that jive about Super Bowl Sunday being the number one day for calls to domestic violence shelters. Thank you Snopes and whoever else finally debunked that.

Call me a purist, but the pre-game show should not be four hours. That’s crazy! I’ll give you an hour and a half. It should be a half hour on each team’s season, a half hour on the match-up, thank you, let’s go down to the field for the coin toss. A glitzy halftime show? I don’t need it, but for those who kind of felt compelled to watch and aren’t really fans, well then O.K. Commercials? I’ll be getting another beverage, refilling my snack and checking to see if anyone else wants anything while I’m up. But, hey, knock yourself out.

Every year my wife wonders why I need to watch it. Well, cuz it’s the Super Bowl. I’m rarely invested much in the teams, either way. I try to find one to route for or, worst case scenario, one to route against (see Super Bowl XXXV).

This year it’s another toss up. I’m a Reggie Wayne fan, but how can you route against the people of New Orleans? And the Colts have won two Super Bowls, one of them since they moved to Indianapolis. Really, I’m happy with a close game which we seem to get about every other year these days. Our friends up north in Canada seem to get a good championship game every year, which almost always seems to be decided by a last minute field goal.

Speaking of the C.F.L., I just learned the other day that in the fifties, the N.F.L. played half a dozen exhibition games against teams from the Canadian circuit. The N.F.L., won all six, with the only win by a Canadian against an American team coming when Hamilton defeated the A.F.L. Buffalo Bills in 1961.

Another forgotten exhibition game from that era is the “Playoff Bowl.” Officially known as The Bert Bell Benefit Bowl, it was named in honor of the former NFL commissioner who past away in 1959, while watching a game in Philadelphia’s Franklin Field.

It pitted the runners up of the NFL’s two conference championships (East and West). The series ran from 1961-1970 with all ten games being played in Miami’s Orange Bowl the week after the NFL title game. With the inception of the Super Bowl, and its two week gap between AFL and NFL league championship games, the Playoff Bowl was played during the off weekend. That, of course, is what they did with the Pro Bowl this year.

People think I’m joking when I say this, but I like the Pro Bowl. Of all the major pro all-star games, I like it the best. It doesn’t really pretend (well, not real hard) to be anything but what it is. On a side note, I actually find minor league (baseball and hockey) all-star games to be the most compelling, as they gather a wide range of up-and-coming talent in their respective sports that you might not see otherwise.

While I have always advocated the Pro Bowl being played before the Super Bowl, and thus without the players from the championship teams, I wasn’t sure I’d like it outside of Hawaii. Odd, I know, but for most of my football watching life the game has been in Honolulu. It just seems natural. That aside, I enjoyed this year’s game.

But how about this? Bring back the Playoff Bowl, and move the Pro Bowl back to the week after. Then again, you would have some players playing two otherwise meaningless exhibition games. It’s certainly something that can still be tinkered with. Perhaps all of the teams in the conference of the winning Pro Bowl team draft first in April? Although, I don’t think there needs to be anything attached to it like baseball’s (though there’s has that compelling wrinkle), but there folks that would like it to mean more.

After Sunday, no more pro football until August. Well, July for the CFL, whose regular season starts July 1. What to do between mid-February and July? Well, enjoy the play-off hunt in the NBA and NHL, the Final Four and baseball to be sure. I’ll give you one other option. Spring football. Move the AAA-esque UFL to spring. Your welcome.