The NFL may have finally found a way to make the Pro Bowl interesting.
By making it virtual.
The NFL, which cancelled this season’s Pro Bowl in October because of COVID, is planning a virtual Pro Bowl to replace the real game.
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According to the Associated Press, the NFL's annual postseason all-star game this year will be played on Madden NFL 21.
The Pro Bowl was originally scheduled for Jan. 31 in Las Vegas at the Raiders’ new $2 billion domed Allegiant Stadium.
This will be the first time in 70 years the Pro Bowl won’t be held. There was an NFL all-star game in the late 1930s and early 1940s, but the current Pro Bowl traces its lineage back to 1950.
The teams will be selected the same way as always, with voting split up three ways — fans voting, players voting for players on the opposite side of the ball from their conference, and head coaches voting for players in their conference.
NFL
Players and coaches are scheduled to vote on Dec. 18, with the teams announced soon after. According to AP, 44 players from each conference will be selected.
All the Pro Bowl bonuses written into players' contracts will be honored.
Fan voting for the first — and hopefully last — virtual Pro Bowl opened up Tuesday.
With only four games to go before players and coaches vote, Brandon Graham probably has the best chance to be selected. He has 7.0 sacks, one fewer than Za’Darius Smith of the Packers, who leads NFC defensive ends with 8.0.
Brandon Brooks, Fletcher Cox, Zach Ertz, Jason Kelce, Lane Johnson and Rick Lovato made the NFC Pro Bowl team last year.
The Eagles have had at least one Pro Bowler every year since 1950 except after the 1971, 1998 and 2012 seasons.
The NFL has already announced that next year's Pro Bowl will be held in Las Vegas.
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