NFL Pro Bowl Background Information

The Pro Bowl is the all-star game of the NFL. Played at the end of the season after the Super Bowl, it was first played in 1939 in LA. Now the official name of the game is the AFC-NFC Pro Bowl. In 1970, it merged with its rival American Football League (AFL), and since then it has been officially called the AFC-NFC Pro Bowl, matching players in the AFC against those in the NFC. The Pro Bowl has been played at Aloha Stadium in Honolulu, Hawaii, since 1980.

The Pro Bowl is the final game of the NFL season annually. Historically, this event has been held as a charity contest. The payments to the winning and losing teams were very low. The first All-Star Game was between the 1938 National Football League champions, the New York Giants, and a team of all-stars from the other NFL teams and players from 2 independent west coast teams, the LA Bulldogs and the Hollywood Stars. In the ‘30s west coast leagues were formed. The first game was played at Wrigley Field in South-Central LA following the regular season for five years through 1942. In 1942, the game was moved to the east coast because of the war in the Pacific. The game was cancelled after the 1942 season.

In 1950, the Pro Bowl was revived and was played on January 14, 1951 as a competition between conference all-star teams. As the National Football League evolved and changed through the years, the game also changed in format. The opposing teams were American Conference vs. National Conference (from 1951 through 1953), Eastern vs. Western (from 1954 through 1970), and AFC vs. NFC (since 1971).

The first Most Valuable Player award in the contest was presented in 1951. From 1957 through 1971, two awards were presented to a defensive lineman and an offensive back. In 1972, there were awards for both an offensive player and a defensive player. However, since 1973, there has been only one MVP award.

Since the game has no effect upon teams' statistics and records, and the fact that the game is held at the end of the season, the players typically take the contest less seriously than the regular season games. The players tend to "play soft" to avoid serious injuries that could impede their football careers. Defensive linemen will often simply stand up, when the ball is snapped during goals attempts and usually punts instead of trying to block them. The so-called injury-minimalizing attitude manifests in a strongly offensively weighted game.

Even nowadays, there are certain sportsmen that treat the game just like a regular game and will go for big hits and go the length of the field to make a play. Those are younger players but even some veterans are known. There are some examples from the 2007 Pro Bowl, when Sean Taylor laid a crushing blow on Brian Moorman during an attempted fake punt; Drew Brees dislocated his left elbow after being tripped up by Terrell Suggs.