Pro Bowl Draft Results: Was Fantasy Football Style a Hit?

January 22, 2014; Ko’Olina, HI, USA; Team Sanders alumni captain Deion Sanders (left) and Team Rice alumni captain Jerry Rice (right) react during the Pro Bowl draft at J.W. Marriott Ihilani Resort & Spa. Mandatory Credit: Kyle Terada-USA TODAY Sports

This week started a new era in the NFL Pro Bowl, or fantasy football 1.0. The always-inventive NFL came up with a new format to boost enthusiasm and hopefully an all out better effort for their lackluster event, and they did this using a Pro Bowl Draft, a format your avid fantasy football player would envy over.

The NFL has decided to put the names of all the All-Stars in a hat or “Green Room” and let two pre-determined captains pick their teams. The two captain are none other than “Primetime” Deion Sanders and the best wideout of all time Jerry Rice.

If any one can help the rating for this game “PrimeTime” will be that person. Yes ratings is the driving force behind this revamping of the Pro Bowl.

The fall in ratings over the past several years has prompted this sudden change for this dying All-Star game. As I mentioned before, with this new Fantasy Football format the league hopes to get the players excited again but also the fans.

Last year’s Pro Bowl had 12.2 million viewers, the lowest of any NFL game last year, and that is down 3.3 percent from the 2012 Pro Bowl game. So the NFL made a drastic change to try and revive the game.

In an alternating draft format, meaning after a coin is flipped for first pick… then the next guy picks…and so on until all 88 remaining players are picked. Just like the playground where most of you was always the last one picked.

Only one problem, none of these guys has ever been the last one picked. So one wouldn’t be completely out of bounds to think feelings or ego’s, in this case, could take a televised hit.

The new format also means no more AFC vs NFC. A new sexy idea is whats warranted to draw better ratings, and now everyone is talking about the selection process but nobody seemed to like it.

The first day of picks were both interior offensive and defensive lineman, fullbacks, and special teams players. Also both playing captains were selected too. J.J. Watt and Jamal Charles are Deion’s playing captains and Robert Quinn and Drew Brees on team Rice for his playing Captains.

Tuesday  was only the first of a two night event, and one would expect it to be the least entertaining since the most unsexy of positions were chosen.