Sports Watch
ONE thing about the Pro Bowl. It's a great remedy for a Super Bowl hangover, especially when the latter is played in New Orleans, where one of its 3,000 drinking establishments is called Le Booze. See the future from
sidelines of Pro BowlSpending a week in Hawaii for the Pro Bowl isn't so shabby, either. Green Bay Coach Mike Holmgren calls the Pro Bowl "a wonderful consolation prize." He ought to know. He coached the NFC to a 20-13 victory over the American Conference in last year's Pro Bowl.
This year Holmgren was the victorious coach in Super Bowl XXXI in New Orleans, the city of dreams and all that jazz.
In the media crush, I didn't get a chance to remind Holmgren, not that he would have remembered anyway, that I had told him at last year's Pro Bowl that he had a good chance of coaching in the next Super Bowl.
The reason? The NFC coaches in the Pro Bowl have a streak going.
In 1994, George Seifert, then of the San Francisco 49ers, coached the NFC team. The following season, Seifert's 49ers beat the San Diego Chargers in Super Bowl XXIX.
In 1995, having lost to the 49ers, Barry Switzer of the Dallas Cowboys came here to coach the NFC team, which got drubbed by the AFC, 41-13. (Hey, the AFC only loses Super Bowls.) Sure enough, Switzer's Cowboys went to Super Bowl XXX the following season, beating Pittsburgh.
After having coached the NFC in last year's Pro Bowl, Holmgren kept the streak alive by not only making it to the Super Bowl, but winning it as well.
WELCOME to the club, Dom Capers. Now it's up to the coach of the Carolina Panthers to keep the streak going.
As you have gathered by now, the losing coaches in the National Football League's championship games pull Pro Bowl duty in Hawaii. It's a tough job, but somebody's got to do it. And so it's Capers' turn since his Panthers lost to the Packers in the NFC championship game.
"I like to hear that. I'm hoping we can follow suit and we don't break the trend," said Capers when informed about the streak after yesterday's NFC practice at Aloha Stadium.
Unrealistic? Heck, who would have thought that Capers and his Carolina coaching staff would even be here in the first place?
Actually, there's a little more to the streak than mere coincidence.
The fact that a coach is at the Pro Bowl means his team had been a championship contender in the first place. All that was missing was a key player or two. And where better than to find them than at the Pro Bowl, which has become the ultimate marketplace for football talent.
It's not tampering, either, since many of the Pro Bowlers are free agents. And even for those who are not, a good word here and there might pay off when they eventually go on the open market.
THE most interesting scenario in Pro Bowl history since free agency went into effect in 1993 involved Deion Sanders, who had to skip this year's game because of an eye injury.
When Sanders, then with Atlanta, made the 1994 Pro Bowl, he was wooed by Seifert, who was coaching the NFC team that year. Not surprisingly, Sanders signed with the 49ers for the following season.
In 1995, when Switzer coached the NFC team, guess who schmoozed Deion here, getting him to sign with what team?
Holmgren re-signed Mark Chmura and added tight end Keith Jackson, two of 17 unrestricted free-agents in last year's Pro Bowl.
The only free agents playing in this year's Pro Bowl are Pittsburgh's Rod Woodson, Jerome Bettis and Chad Brown, Shannon Sharpe of Denver, Kansas City's Derrick Thomas, Sam Mills of Carolina and Green Bay's Frank Winters, who's not called "The King of Plan B" for nothing.