The Pro Bowl was this weekend. Everybody was there.
Everybody.
Did you watch it?
I can’t blame anyone who did. It is entertaining to watch your favorite players cut loose and enjoy football with the pressure off, mic’d up so we can hear them joke around. The skills competitions are fun. It’s cool seeing the league’s most popular players all in one place.
But it doesn’t matter. Not even a little.
The NFL has a Pro Bowl problem. Being named to the Pro Bowl used to mean something. It used to be a marker of an excellent season. Now, it doesn’t mean that at all — and it shouldn’t carry any real weight.
A hypothetical player who finishes a 15-year career with a stack of Pro Bowl appearances and not much else should get no closer to the Pro Football Hall of Fame than a player who only lasted a couple of brutal seasons and walked away with nothing but scars and brain fog. If Shedeur Sanders is named to the Pro Bowl, it officially proves the point: it doesn’t mean anything anymore.
I’m not picking on Sanders. He didn’t vote for himself. But neither Joe Burrow nor Joe Flacco should’ve been voted in, either. They didn’t even play full seasons. Don’t get me wrong — I love seeing them there — but their presence only reinforces the reality.
The Pro Bowl is a popularity contest. Nothing more.
The NFL, the media, the players, and the fans should treat it exactly like what it is: a fun exhibition whose participants — or at least some of them — will ultimately be remembered more for being famous than for being great.
The Pro Football Hall of Fame, unfortunately, is showing cracks too.
Bill Belichick — a coach with eight Super Bowl rings (six as a head coach, two as an assistant) — was not voted in as a first-ballot Hall of Famer after failing to receive the required 40 votes. He’s never been likable. He never tried to be. But liking him has nothing to do with how overwhelmingly great he was.
Instead, his gruff demeanor and the strange, tabloid-adjacent headlines surrounding his personal life post-NFL seem to have clouded the judgment of voters. Belichick will get in, probably next year, and when history settles, he’ll be remembered as one of — if not the — greatest head coach in NFL history. It’s a shame he wasn’t given this honor, because he deserved it.
There’s a familiar cautionary tale here.
Terrell Owens finished his career second all-time in receiving yards (he was later surpassed) and third in receiving touchdowns. He wasn’t a first-ballot Hall of Famer five years after retirement, and he absolutely should have been. Some will point to his lack of a Super Bowl ring, but the truth is simpler: he burned bridges everywhere he went and was widely regarded as a nightmare to deal with.
Again, that shouldn’t matter.
Owens dominated across multiple teams, multiple systems, and multiple quarterbacks. He was great immediately, everywhere. He deserved immediate induction.
To its credit, the Pro Football Hall of Fame hasn’t completely sullied itself the way Cooperstown has, but the Belichick situation is embarrassing. Something needs to change.
The guy who surpassed TO is Larry Fitzgerald. He also won zero Super Bowls, but he’s known as one of the best guys in the league. He’ll be inducted this year on his first try.
It pays to be nice, kids.
Finally, some actual, tangible news: the salary cap is set to exceed $300 million for the first time. Because of that, the Bengals project to have roughly the seventh-most cap space in the league. That’s good news for a team with a mountain of work ahead of the draft.
They need to re-sign several of their own players, then address edge rusher, defensive tackle, linebacker, corner, safety, offensive tackle, guard — and maybe even running back. Notice the pattern: basically every position except quarterback, wide receiver, and center.
They don’t need a starter at every spot, but they need starters at some of them — and depth everywhere.
They cannot go into the draft without doing the heavy lifting in free agency. If they do, the 2026 season will be doomed before it ever begins. Picking at No. 10 should give them access to impact players at positions of need. The fewer needs they have when they’re on the clock, the more freedom they’ll have to simply take the best player available.
And that’s how good teams stay good.
Don’t let go
You’ve got the music in you
One dance left
This world is gonna pull through
Don’t give up
You’ve got a reason to live
Can’t forget
We only get what we give
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