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Punt Pro Bowl: Goodell
NEW YORK -- The NFL will consider dropping the Pro Bowl if the level of play doesn't improve, commissioner Roger Goodell said Monday night.
Appearing on SiriusXM NFL Radio's Town Hall, Goodell agreed with host Michael Strahan the last Pro Bowl "was embarrassing."
"If we cannot accomplish that kind of standard (of high play), I am inclined to not play it," Goodell said. "It is really tough to force competition, and after a long season, to ask those guys to go out and play at the same level they played is really tough."
The league still would select a Pro Bowl team through voting by players, coaches and fans, because it is an honour, but "just not play the game," he said.
The Pro Bowl will take place in January, a week before the Super Bowl, after the players lobbied to keep it, promising to upgrade their performances. Goodell and others were disappointed in the quality of last season's Pro Bowl, won 59-41 by the AFC and missing any semblance of hard hitting.
The league is also working on scheduling more East Coast games involving West Coast teams in late-afternoon slots to avoid what amounts to a 10 a.m. kickoff for the western teams.
"Several of our teams on the West Coast have raised that and we have been studying it," he said. "We have tried to put as many of those games on the East Coast at 4 p.m. You can imagine the thousands of different issues you have to put into the schedule."
Goodell admitted to having "an issue with the pre-season, but going to an 18-game season with two exhibition games remains a point of contention with the players' union."
"Our fans don't like watching the pre-season games, attending the pre-season games, so we have to evaluate the season format," he said, "and that is one way of looking at it: 18-2. Or go to 16-2 or some other alternative; take two of those (pre-season) games and make them more developmental."
-- The Associated Press
Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition October 23, 2012 D3
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