When you’re a team with legitimate aspirations toward the league championship, as the Pittsburgh Steelers certainly were, then you are never looking forward to participating in the Pro Bowl. At least not since the NFL moved the Pro Bowl to the week before the Super Bowl, rather than the week after, and barred Super Bowl participants from attending.
It is a bitter consolation prize under the best of circumstances, yet it is still—usually, anyway—an honor to be voted in to play, and to be invited to coach. This year, the Steelers have had 10 members of the 53-man roster named to the Pro Bowl, including two as alternates, and all but the injured Ryan Shazier are expected to participate.