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Sound-Off: Where Your Skills, NFL?

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By Hennessy

My apologies for dropping off the Total Steelers map the past couple weeks. If you must know, I let my confidence seep in to my gambling and have been in a perpetual “Tebow” since the close of the beat down in Denver. It turns out typing is not so easy when praising thy lord via fist on forehead. Let’s just say Mayor Ravenstahl’s PR photo-op was nothing on my two week long homage to Father Tim.

Now that I have stood back up and iced down my aching knees, I am being a good American and preparing for the biggest game in all of professional football. The final showdown between those two teams who have survived the gauntlet of late season football. The game that everyone eagerly anticipates whether our Black and Gold are there to represent the AFC or not.

It’s time for the PRO BOWL BABY!!!!

Setting my overly exaggerated humor aside, when is this game going to catch up with the times? MLB made their All-Star game important by awarding home-field advantage in the World Series to the winner. The NHL added a roster draft so we can laugh at the last man picked like the fat kid in gym class. Oh, and they both have skill competitions which are usually way more exciting than the ACTUAL GAMES!!!

Who doesn’t enjoy watching Geno Malkin firing slapshots at ceramic plates? How about six year old kids shagging fly balls in the Home Run derby, while you secretly cross your fingers hoping for a center-field collision? Moon shots and watching a snot-nosed kid’s epic fail!? Entertainment!!

Even the NBA’s slam dunk contest was entertaining until jumping over a 3’ tall electric car wins first place. Oh how I wish that lockout would have taken basketball under permanently. A world without Lebron and overachieving 9’ tall Slovakians is a good world indeed.

Nobody truly enjoys these all-star games. If you do, please leave a comment and let me know what I am missing. The NFL was going in the right direction until they cut out their Skills Competition. Everyone wants to know who can throw a football in a garbage can from 90 yards away, who can outrace a puma and how many bricks James Harrison can smash with his titanium Terminator eye-plate. LET THEM DO IT!! AND SHOW IT TO US!!!!

All Roger Goodell has to offer us between championship weekend and the Super Bowl is a half-assed 4-3 defense that can’t blitz, receivers who are allowed to run down the field and catch 80 yard passes unmolested, and guys standing around checking their Twitter feed during the always tense PAT. Oh wait, scratch that last one. That would be far too much fun for the No Fun League. Now that I think about it, the style of play at the Pro Bowl sounds a lot like Ginger’s vision for regular season action.

Ryan Clark and James Harrison had their ticket punched to Hawaii because the ladies in purple couldn’t see through their tears well enough to play. Just like the other leagues’ “showcases,” half of the participants don’t want to be there. And just like other leagues’ “showcases,” nobody wants to watch the fourth alternates play in place of the actual stars. A couple years ago, the NFL moved the game from the week after the Super Bowl to the week prior in an attempt increase player attendance and boost fan interest. How’s that working out?

It’s time for the NFL to make this weekend worth watching or plan on internet ridicule for years to come. If I could see kickers dropping oblong bombs on small children from 50 yards out or Jay Cutler pouting after being picked last, I would not only DVR it, I’d watch it over and over again. Until then, I’ll save my steaks and Ahrn Citys for the real football.

Oh, and to make good on one of the bets I placed during Divisional weekend:

“Yes coop, you were right… Denver is awesome and we are nothing. Simply clumps of mud on the cleats of a more superior Denver squad we are”