The Crappiest Sunday All Winter

Here's an idea for the NFL, that I'm sure others have had, too:

We've got this whole pointless two week break between the Conference Championship weekend and Super Sunday....why not do something like put the Pro Bowl on the Sunday between the Conference Championships and the Super Bowl?

I mean, nobody really cares about the Pro Bowl, anyway, right? After the Super Bowl, most football fans are looking forward to the draft. It's not like after the Super Bowl, many people start organizing the Pro Bowl party. It's just kind of like a pathetic afterthought.

In terms of media coverage and marketing, this is the one area Major League Baseball still manages to do better than the NFL....Baseball's All Star Game is still the second biggest event on its calendar....the Pro Bowl is like the kid brother of the Super Bowl who tags along yelling "Hey Guys, Wait Up!"

It wouldn't be hard to make it work. Most of the guys on the rosters have already had a couple or three weeks off (somewhat less for those losing teams in the playoffs). You could even make it so that players who will be playing in the Super Bowl the next weekend would be exempt from having to go to Hawaii. Sure, you'd occasionally be losing a big name or two from the AFC or NFC rosters....but how many people are tuning into the Pro Bowl already? Let alone just to watch that one or two players from the Super Bowl teams....

It'd be like one last look back at the season that was, before the Season's finale on Super Sunday.

I say this mostly because I'm not a basketball or hockey fan, and a winter Sunday like this one seems kind of pointless without a football game to watch.

And on the 2 week break....I say this without looking at my ESPN almanac, but it seems like the actual Super Bowl games are even more boring than usual when there's a two week break for a team to prepare. Because one or both teams seem to lose the intensity and momentum they built, as it gets sapped away by the media crush that surround the game.

And just a brief comment on the NFL's parity, where any team can make it to the BIG GAME...that's all well and good, and I'm sure it has the intended consequence of making a lot more money for a lot more teams. But I can't remember ever having given a crap about either the Patriots or the Carolina Panthers (except when Rae Carruth ran from murder charges and hid in a car trunk not too far from me here in Tennessee) in all my life.

I mean, if the Titans were there, I'd naturally be interested. But I'd be able to get behind a few other teams....and at least if it were the Cowboys, Ravens or Broncos playing, I would have an actual rooting interest against those three teams.

But the Patriots and Panthers both fall into that wasteland of teams that evoke no emotional response in me. No matter that I actually enjoy watching the football that both teams play. And that's the price you pay for parity, sometimes.

Maybe I'll feel different in a week, and be able to cheer for the Evil Genius that is Bill Belichick or the feel-good underdog story that the media wants to make He Hate Me and the Carolina Panthers into. But a week away, I'm not really giving a crap in either direction.