The overwhelming success that was the NHL’s 4 Nations Face-Off tournament already has every other American sports league
On Friday’s edition of the Rich Eisen Show, a caller named Modee in Detroit shared his vision for what the NFL could do to replicate the success of the 4 Nations Face-Off. He suggested that the NFL could have a game with players separated into teams based on which Conferences they played in collegiately to replace the current Pro Bowl format.
“Hey Rich, hey everyone,” said Modee. “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.”
On paper, the idea is certainly intriguing, particularly given the recent talk about whether the Big Ten has potentially surpassed the SEC as the best college football conference after Ohio State’s National Championship victory this past season.
Similarly to the NBA and their All-Star Weekend, the NFL’s Pro Bowl Games format is seemingly in dire need of a revamp and has been for quite some time, hitting a record-low viewership average of 4.7 million viewers in 2025. Something like this proposed format leaning into the popularity of college football could seemingly help the drastic decline in the past few years start to go in the other direction.
Rich Eisen liked Modee’s idea but went on to shut it down by sharing his opinion that the NFL will never return to a traditional full-contact Pro Bowl game like we have seen in the past, particularly due to the increase in regular season games.
“I hear you, Modee,” replied Eisen. “That’s not a bad idea. Other than the fact that you are never gonna see National Football League players when the season is over, just lay it on the line and start hitting people like (Charlie) McAvoy hit (Connor) McDavid on Saturday night. Those days are over. Those days are absolutely over. They used to be had when those Pro Bowl games were played on the rock-hard surface in Honolulu. I would walk on that turf and I would be like… This is like a parking lot. It was absurd, it was crazy.”
One factor that Eisen alluded to that is a stark difference between the NHL, and the NFL is that the Pro Bowl is played at the end of the season, which does play a factor in how eager players would be to buy into this new proposed change compared to players in the NHL.
It does seem unlikely that NFL players would buy into this concept, given the punishment their bodies endure just in the regular season and postseason alone in the NFL. But if implemented in some capacity, this concept would likely capture the interest of NFL and college football fans.
About Reice Shipley
Reice Shipley is a staff writer for Comeback Media that graduated from Ithaca College with a degree in Sports Media. He previously worked at Barrett Sports Media and is a fan of all things Syracuse sports.