AI Summary
5 min readThe NFL's Pro Bowl is dead, and Ben Maller says good riddance
The NFL's Pro Bowl has been officially euthanized after 88 years, and Ben Maller is not mourning. "There's no candlelight vigil being held outside NFL headquarters in Manhattan right now," he says on his show. The league announced it will no longer hold the all-star game or the flag football replacement that had been tried in recent years. Eighty-eight players will still be designated as Pro Bowlers each season, but there will be no game, no replacement selections, and no chance for a player like Shedeur Sanders to ever sniff the honor again. Maller argues that the Pro Bowl's death was not a cancellation but a mercy killing — and that the other major American sports leagues will soon follow the NFL's lead.
Player empowerment killed the all-star game
Maller's central argument is straightforward: the Pro Bowl died from "player empowerment with complications from terminal apathy." The average NFL salary is around $5 million, and players collectively decided years ago that they would not risk injury in an exhibition game for any amount of money. They staged what Maller calls a "sit-down strike" — they stopped trying, fans stopped watching, and the league eventually noticed.
Continue reading the full summary in the app — free to try.
Read Full Summary →Free • No credit card required
Never miss an episode of The Ben Maller Show
Get every new episode summarized in your inbox — free, ~5 minutes to read.
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
What you'll learn
- 1 (03:18) **Pro Bowl Officially Killed** - The NFL announces the end of the Pro Bowl game after 88 years, and Ben Maller declares it a good riddance.
- 2 (04:06) **The Final Pro Bowl's Embarrassing Venue** - Maller recounts the last Pro Bowl was played in the basement of a San Francisco convention center, a fittingly ignominious end.
- 3 (13:37) **Scrapbook Memories from the Pro Bowl's Heyday** - Maller shares personal stories from when the Pro Bowl had real juice, including his time in Honolulu 25 years ago.
- 4 (17:29) **The Greatest Pro Bowl Moment** - Maller identifies Sean Taylor's legendary hit on punter Brian Moorman during a fake punt as the all-time highlight.
- 5 (19:18) **The Pro Bowl Will Never Return** - Maller argues the event is gone for good and can only come back if the NFL is on "life support" and salaries are drastically lowered.
- 6 (19:43) **Bob Myers' Absurd LeBron Take** - Maller attacks former NBA executive Bob Myers for calling Philadelphia the "hardest path" LeBron James could have chosen this offseason.
- 7 (30:48) **Tom Brady's California Welcome** - Maller reports that Tom Brady's new trading card shop in Palo Alto was ransacked by burglars just one week after its grand opening.
+ Full timestamped outline available in the app
Guests on this episode
Show Notes
Ben Maller talks about the NFL eliminating the Pro Bowl and what the official cause of death was for the game, his favorite scrapbook memories of the Pro Bowl, Bob Myers saying Philadelphia is the "hardest path" for LeBron, Maller to the Third Degree, and more!
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
More from this podcast
The Ben Maller Show →