A postseason All-Star game between the new league champion and a team of professional all-stars was added to the NFL schedule in January 1939, at the end of the 1938 season. In the first game at Wrigley Field in Los Angeles, CA the New York Giants beat a team made up of players from NFL teams and two independent clubs the Los Angeles Bulldogs and the Hollywood Stars. An all-NFL All-Star team and regular NFL franchise battled on the football field until the end of the 1942 season.
The NFL revived the game in January 1951, after the 1950 pro football season. It was a contest between conference all-star teams: American vs National (1951-53), Eastern vs Western (1954-1970), and AFC vs NFC (since 1971).
After the AFL-NFL Merger of 1970, the name of the NFL's all-star game was changed to the "AFC-NFC Pro Bowl". Since the merger, the head coaches of the teams that lost in the AFC and NFC championship games have been selected as the coaches for the respective Pro Bowl squads — a compromise that arose from the decision to discontinue the Playoff Bowl, which had it been retained, would have matched up the two teams that lost the conference title games.
Currently, players are voted into the Pro Bowl by the coaches, the players themselves, and the fans. Each group's ballots count for one third of the votes. The fans vote online at the NFL's official site, nfl.com. There are also replacements that go to the game should any selected player be unable to play due to injuries. Prior to 1995, only the coaches and the players made Pro Bowl selections.
Pro Bowl MVP
The first Most Valuable Player award in the Pro Bowl was presented in 1951. From 1957 to 1971, two awards were presented to an offensive back and a defensive lineman. In 1972, there were awards for both an offensive player and a defensive player. Since 1973, there's been only one single MVP award.
Since the Pro Bowl has absolutely no effect upon players' or teams' statistics and records, and the fact that the game is played at the very end of the season, players generally take the contest much less seriously than the average regular season games. They tend to "play soft" to avoid serious injuries which could impede or end their football careers. Players commonly make weak blocks and tackles. Defensive linemen will usually simply stand up when the ball is snapped during field goals attempts and punts instead of trying to block them. This injury minimalizing attitude generally manifests in a strongly offensively weighted game, along with the willingness of players and coaches to go for big offensive plays.
With a large portion of the competitive nature of the game removed, players and the media tend to treat the game as more of a fun get-together than a hard-fought battle. The rotation of players into and out of the game also presents an opportunity for TV interviews of personalities who are only ever seen during the game from afar, or afterwards in press conferences.
However, there are certain players who treat it just like a regular game and will go for big hits and go the length of the field to make a play. These tend to be younger players but even some veterans are known. Examples are Roy Williams' hit on Todd Heap during the 2004 Pro Bowl and Ed Reed blocking the very first punt in the Pro Bowl and returning it for a touchown in the same game.
*The National/Western Conference won 13 of 20 games played against the American/Eastern Conference. * Of interesting note is that in the 20 seasons of the format, the Western/National Conference has won both the Pro Bowl and the NFL Championship game 9 times, while the Eastern/American won both 2 times. In the years they have split, the East won the Pro Bowl and West won the NFL title 5 times, while the reverse has occurred 4 times.
