1951 Pro Bowl

Background

The NFL's annual Pro-Bowl game began according to the model of the league's other annual exhibition, the Chicago Charities College All-Star Game, initiated in 1934 under the auspices of the Chicago Tribune. This game, played in the summer ahead of the league's pre-season slate of exhibition games, pitted a select team of college all-stars coming into the league against the NFL's champion of the previous year. With proceeds of the game dedicated to charity, the Chicago College All-Star Game had become an institution, drawing vast audiences and priming fans for the football season to come.

The Pro-Bowl was initially envisioned as a comparable post-season spectacle, held in sunny Southern California in January in the capacious Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum following conclusion of the regular season and World Championship Game. With the size of the NFL boosted in 1950 from 10 teams to 13 through absorption of three teams from the All-America Football Conference, the time seemed right for an exhibition contest between the year's stars of the NFL's two newly-realigned conferences.

As with the Chicago game, newspapers were to play a prominent role in the game's organization, with the Los Angeles Newspaper Publishers' Association the chief organizing body. The Los Angeles Times had already sponsored NFL All-Star games after the 1938, 1939, and 1940 seasons, with the eruption of World War II bringing an end to this first series of January games.

The decision was made to relaunch the All-Star games under the "Pro Bowl" moniker by the league's 13 owners, meeting in Philadelphia over the first weekend of June 1950. Three organizations submitted bids to host the event — the Los Angeles Newspaper Publishers' Association, the Al Malaikah Shrine of Los Angeles, and promoters from Houston, Texas — with NFL Commissioner Bert Bell expressing the view that the league was "morally obligated" to return to the Los Angeles newspaper publishers over the other potential sponsors.

Bell specified that provision must be made that each participating player should receive at least $500 plus traveling expenses for the game to be formally approved by the league office. The door was left open by Bell to co-sponsorship of the event by the publishers and the Shriners, with a July 1 deadline for a working agreement to be hashed out. Ultimately, no such joint sponsorship followed.

Rosters

The 31-man Pro Bowl squads consisted of the following players:

Roster Notes: :Selected but did not play :Replacement selection due to injury or vacancy

Number of selections by team

Note: these numbers include players selected to the team but unable to play as well as replacements for these players, so there are more than 31 players in each conference.

|}

References

References

1. (January 15, 1951). "Graham paces Americans to 28–27 win in Pro Bowl". [[Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel.
2. (January 15, 1951). "Browns' Americans win Pro Bowl game, 28–27". [[Pittsburgh Post-Gazette]].
3. (December 14, 1950). "Pro Bowl names linemen". [[Pittsburgh Press]].
4. (January 14, 1951). "Pro all-stars clash on coast". [[Pittsburgh Press]].
5. "The 1951 Pro Bowl". Bolding Sports Research.
6. [https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-los-angeles-times-pro-bowl-tilt-appr/164961558/ "Pro Bowl Tilt Approved for Los Angeles,"] ''Los Angeles Times,'' June 4, 1950, part 2, pp. 9, [https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-los-angeles-times-pro-bowl-slated-j/164962226/ 12].
7. "1951 Pro Bowl". [[Pro-Football-Reference.com]].
8. (December 21, 1950). "National loop names backs for Pro Bowl". [[Pittsburgh Press]].
9. (December 19, 1950). "Bears supply six linemen for Pro Bowl". [[Pittsburgh Press]].