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Every year, the NFL holds one of the biggest popularity contests in all of sports: the Pro Bowl vote. Starting today and until December 13, fans can cast their votes for their favorite players to be sent to the league’s all-star game, which takes place in the week leading up to the Super Bowl. Naturally, fans of the New England Patriots will a) vote for their team’s players, and b) hope that they will again not play in the Pro Bowl.
As has been the case ever since the NFL moved the Pro Bowl to the weekend between championship round and Super Bowl, teams participating in the title game will not send their players to the all-star game. In three of the last four years, therefore, no Patriots players made the trip — despite a total of 13 nominations being earned through a voting process that includes an online vote, and polling players and coaches.
The results of the vote and the Pro Bowl rosters will be announced on Tuesday, December 18 at 8:00 p.m. ET live on NFL Network. The game itself will then be played on January 27, 2019, 3:00 p.m. ET in Orlando — but safe to say that nobody wants to see players from his/her favorite team partake in the exhibition contest.
That being said, being nominated to the Pro Bowl can generally be seen as a good thing for the players not just because of prestige: a lot of them also have contract bonuses tied to the game in their respective deals.