Diamonds, Engagement Rings & Diamond Jewelry in popular culture

It’s bad enough that this year’s NFL All-Star Game is going to be played in Miami, rather than the traditional location in Hawaii.  Those boys deserve a nice trip to Hawaii after a long season of busting heads.  But this year, the Pro Bowl will be played the week before the Super Bowl.

I’m sorry.  What?

Yes, one week before the Indianapolis Colts and New Orleans Saints battle it out for the title and the biggest, gaudiest, most tasteless of high-quality commemorative diamond rings, the Best of the Best are supposed to play against each other.

See Peyton Manning Do THIS During the Pro Bowl This Year.

The Best of the Best.  Talking heads in the NFL have said that they are holding the Pro Bowl before the Championship game because playing it after seems “anti-climactic”.  If by ‘anti-climactic’, they mean that they believe in their hearts that viewers don’t want to see the best players on the field, then they are right.  But coaches Sean Payton of the Saints and Jim Caldwell of the Colts would have to have rocks in their heads to let any of their players risk injury one week before the Super Bowl.

There’s a reason that Major League Baseball holds their All-Star Game mid-season.  It doesn’t interfere with the World Series, which takes place three months later, and, even then, certain players sit out if they are thisclose to injury.  And the NFL knows this.  Playing the Pro Bowl after the Super Bowl allows even players from the Championship team to be involved, if they want to.  And who doesn’t?

What’s the difference, really?

Well, the NFC starting quarterback, according to rosters released in the end of December, is four-time All-Star Drew Brees of the…(wait for it)…New Orleans Saints.  Yeah, he ain’t playing.  But at least he’s done it before.  Starting Guard Jahri Evans, a first-time All-Star, also from the Saints, won’t play because an injury in a game that counts for nothing would be totally stupid when he is to start in the biggest game of the season one week later.  His first time to be an All-Star, and he won’t play.  How PO’d do you think he is about this decision?  Linebacker Jonathan Vilma would have appeared for the second time, but, alas, he will not.  He will watch and fume from the sidelines.

That’s it, NFL.  Tick off a nice, big linebacker.

One team had six players selected for the Pro Bowl.  You guessed it: the Indianapolis Colts.  We won’t see Dwight Freeney, Robert Mathis, Jeff Saturday, or Reggie Wayne.  Who else won’t we watch that day?  Dallas Clark and Peyton Manning.

Peyton Manning is not playing in the Pro Bowl.  Welcome to the world of Big, Stupid Decision by Failed Athletes in Front Offices.  Manning, Freeney, and Mathis were all to be starters.  Not that the AFC is short on talent, but the best players are supposed to play in an All-Star Game.  That’s where the name comes from.

So this year’s Pro Bowl will be a lovely forum in which to watch a great group of also-rans competing while members of the Saints and Colts breathe fire on the bench.  The very talent that helped their teams reach the Super Bowl is keeping them from playing in the Pro Bowl.

It is said that players from the Saints and Colts will be there for the first half of the game, but, again, they’d have to be crazy to risk getting injured with the biggest game of the year, often the most-watched sports event in the US, just one short week away.  And then there’s the addition burn of having it in Miami, the same city in which the Super Bowl is held.  “Kicking off an exciting Super Bowl week” the folks in the NFL offices say.

There are stupid decisions, and then there are STUPID decisions.  This one ranks in the second category.  If you underline it.  And then make it bold.  Then make the font larger.

I’ll watch the Super Bowl, but I’m boycotting the Pro Bowl on principle.  I mean, really.