Total Pro Sports
The NHL’s inaugural and highly successful 4 Nations Face-Off tournament, an alternative to the All-Star weekend, has led to calls from football fans for the NFL to replace the Pro Bowl with something more exciting.
The NFL keeps changing the Pro Bowl game and format with the hope of keeping the fans entertained and engaged. But the viewership for the big game continues to regress, with this year’s game averaging a record-low 4.7 million viewers.
Nine years after the last best-on-best tournament involving NHL players (the 2016 World Cup of Hockey), the league and NHLPA iced the 4-Nations Face-Off tournament featuring the top players from Canada, Sweden, Finland and the United States.
The thrilling tournament concluded with Canada defeating the Americans 3-2 in the championship game, with Connor McDavid rifling the overtime winner past Connor Hellebuyck.
A fan named Modee from Detroit called onto “The Rich Eisen Show” and proposed a fascinating NFL equivalent to the 4-Nations Face-Off to replace the Pro Bowl. Modee suggested a four-team tournament with players representing the top NCAA conferences, including the Big Ten, Big 12 and SEC:
“I was listening to one of your YouTube videos yesterday where you asked what would be the 4 Nations Face-Off version in the NFL. I was thinking maybe we could have four teams. One representing the Big Ten, one representing the SEC players in the NFL, one representing the Big 12. That’s like the closest thing to healthy tribalism in the NFL, which is college football. Because it is kind of territorial in a way. And each team play one quarter of 15 or 20 minutes of tackle football instead of the Pro Bowl.”
What would an #NFL version of the #4Nations tournament look like?
Big Ten vs. SEC? Florida vs. Texas? pic.twitter.com/zJjZAKpm1Y
— Rich Eisen Show (@RichEisenShow) February 21, 2025
Modee’s idea is certainly fascinating, but as Eisen stated, we wouldn’t see anything close to the energy displayed in the 4 Nations Face-Off. The players aren’t going to bring their full effort and physicality compared to all the bone-crunching hits we saw in the two Canada-USA games.
The NFL obviously can’t run a 4 Nations Face-Off tournament since the significant majority of its players are American. But Mode’s idea here is certainly better than the flag football format, and maybe cash prizes of some sort would entice the players to put in a better effort.
