All-Star games are supposed to demonstrate the talent of a sport’s best players. The best players are usually divided by region or league and a game is played putting one all-star team against the other in an exhibi­tion game.

Basketball, baseball, and hockey leagues each hold their respective events toward the midpoint of the season. Each of these sports also adds some ex­tra flair the Saturday before their exhibition game.

Baseball has a homerun der­by. Basketball has a skills com­petition that includes a dunk contest, and hockey has a skills competition that gives bragging rights to the players who are the fastest skater and who have the hardest slapshot. This year, the National Hockey League even had captains choose their teams rather than use east and west re­gions to decide teams.

The NFL Pro Bowl, however, is unique among the major all-star games. Unlike the others, it takes place at the end of the season and has little or no in­novation.

It makes sense to hold the game toward the end of the sea­son, because players wouldn’t want to be injured before the season is over. Unfortunately, this late in the season few peo­ple, including the players, even care.

Now that the game is played the week before the Super Bowl, many players selected to play in the game sit out, because they are playing in the big game.

This year, James Harrison, Troy Polamalu, and others were replaced with other athletes that were far less deserving to be there.

If this wasn’t enough to wa­ter down the game, the way the players play is in contrast to the nature of football. Instead of grinding out each play, defenses aren’t allowed to do real blitzes and players barely bother to tackle.

This year’s game saw the NFC take a 42-0 lead and nearly blow it in the second half, and an offensive lineman scored a touchdown, because no one bothered to tackle him aside from a friendly push. The Pro bowl isn’t football anymore, but just a glorified game of seven-on -seven.