For the second time in his eight-year career, Dallas Cowboys tight end Jason Witten has been named first-team All-Pro. Witten is a seven-time Pro-Bowl player.

The 28 year old Witten caught 94 passes for 1,002 yards, leading all tight ends in both categories. Only All-Pro wide receivers Roddy White of the Atlanta Falcons and Reggie Wayne of the Indianapolis Colts caught more than 94 passes in 2010. This was the third time Witten surpassed 1,000 yards receiving. He also scored a career high nine touchdowns.

Witten’s 617 career receptions ranks him fourth all-time among NFL tight ends. He only needs 45 catches to surpass Ozzie Newsome and move into third place on the list.

The Dallas Cowboys have a rich tradition at the tight end position, boasting such players as Mike Ditka, Billy Joe DuPree and Jay Novacek.

Ditka is in the NFL Hall of Fame. He played in Dallas the last four years of his career. DuPree played all of his eleven years for the Cowboys. Novacek was in Dallas for six seasons, and one of quarterback Troy Aikman’s favorite targets. Of the three, only Mike Ditka ever surpassed 1,000 yards receiving in a season . He did that his rookie year with the Chicago Bears.

With 6,967 yards receiving, Jason Witten has already passed all of his predecessors for career yardage. Witten, so far, has 36 career touchdown receptions. The only Cowboys’ tight ends to catch more in a career was Mike Ditka and Jay Novacek. It took Ditka 12 years to catch 43. Novacek caught 41 TDs in 11 seasons.

Of course, the tight end position and the passing game in general were very different in Ditka’s day, and the 9’0s Cowboys of Jay Novacek featured Emmitt Smith, the NFL’s all-time leading rusher for a reason. Those Cowboys believed in establishing the run early and closing out games by pounding the ball on the ground. Jason Witten is the beneficiary of a more wide-open, pass-oriented offensive scheme.

Still, Witten has done what he has done and no one can take that from him. Plenty of tight ends play on passing teams. But there is only one Jason Witten.

In a down year that saw the Cowboys make a midseason coaching change for the first time in the club’s 51 year history, Witten was a rare bright spot. Even after his friend and quarterback Tony Romo suffered a season-ending injury in week 6, Witten continued to shine.

He caught touchdown passes from three quarterbacks in 2010.

While his team tries to re-group and get on the right track under new head coach Jason Garrett, Jason Witten just keeps building the kind of resumé that should land him in the NFL Hall of Fame when he is done.

Something smelled fishy along the NFC’s offensive line in the fourth quarter of the Pro Bowl last night. The smell was so rank it raised a troubling question: did Pro Bowl 2010 feature two offensive linemen laying down on the job, giving defenders a free pass to the quarterback?

Tony Romo haters will point out that he is the perfect Favre clone: he makes all those magical plays all season long and then the final pass he throws for the season is to a member of the opposing team. Favre did it against the Vikings in the NFC title game. Romo did it in the Pro Bowl.

How apropos that Romo replaced Favre on the Pro Bowl roster. If you cannot get Favre, then Favre Light will have to do.

Wade Phillips and Jason Garrett detractors (count me in on at least half that equation) will see Phillips and Garrett coaching the losing team while their quarterback throws the deciding pick and say, “Where have we seen this before?”

We block like girls.

More astute observers, however, might note that, after three quarters of no one really getting near an NFC quarterback, Romo suddenly found himself under siege. It was all fun and games until the final quarter, and suddenly the quarterback is running for his life…in a Pro Bowl game?!

If it was just a case of the AFC defense sniffing victory and the winner’s $45,000 check, then that’s fine. Watching professionals play pitch and catch against matador defenders gets a little ho-hum anyhow.

Here is a conspiracy theory for you: offensive tackles Jason Peters of the Philadelphia Eagles and David Diehl of the New York Giants found it impossible to block defenders once hated foe and Cowboys quarterback Tony Romo was depending on their protection. Is it coincidence that the Pro Bowl linemen suddenly looked like automatic doors at the local super market? Is it possible that they didn’t mind giving the AFC defenders some free shots at the man most likely to stand between their team and the NFC East title next year?

The question here is whether they are that sorry as human beings…or that sorry as offensive linemen.

Of course Romo credited the AFC defense for smelling victory and kicking it into high gear. He said, “I think Ray Lewis got them to pick it up.”

What else is he going to say? That Peters and Diehl blocked like third grade girls in plaid skirts and ankle socks? That it was a conspiracy to maybe get a little revenge for their own bitter 2009 seasons…or worse? That they seemed to protect McNabb just fine?

Truthfully, I doubt they are that sorry as human beings. They probably just suck at football (wink, wink). I am sure DeMarcus Ware, Anthony Spencer, and company will be glad to see a similar effort from Peters and Diehl when the Cowboys face their respective teams in 2010.

Or it could be that fishy smell means something else entirely. Maybe the problem wasn’t that the Pro Bowl was played in the wrong place (Miami rather than Honolulu), but that it was scheduled for the wrong time of the month for Diehl and Peters.

I hear those fourth quarter cramps are the worst.

The Pro Bowl is just days away, and for the first time since I was a starry-eyed kid, I am actually into it.

Let’s face it: while the NFL stands alone among the major American professional sports organizations in matters of marketing, branding, and quality control, it lags far behind the others when it comes to packaging and selling its annual all-star game.

Major League Baseball’s All-Star game is rich with history and tradition. It has the fan-friendly Home Run Derby. These days the game even has meaning, as the winning side secures home field advantage for their league’s representative in the World Series.

The NBA has the dunk contest and the three-point shootout, each of which has produced high drama and quality entertainment over the years. Who can forget when the 5’7″ Spud Webb— a guy who would be short if he were seen in a super market and is practically an ankle-biter on an NBA court—won the slam dunk contest, or Larry Bird’s back to back to back wins in the three point shootout? The game itself is usually about half-speed these days. There is no defense. But everybody loves a roundhouse rim-rocker. So, it’s all good.

Even the NHL manages to have an entertaining all-star game. I would tell you more about it, but I have never watched it. I hear Canucks and people in Detroit tune in, though. Of course, the quality of professional football in Canada and Detroit might have something to do with that

Then there is the NFL Pro Bowl, the game every player wants to be named to, but hardly anybody wants to play in.

“It’s my party, and I will ditch it if I want to.”

What do Peyton Manning, Drew Brees, Brett Favre, Phillip Rivers, Tom Brady, Steven Jackson, Wes Welker, Larry Fitzgerald, Jake Long, Andre Gurode, Dwight Freeney, Robert Mathis, Brian Cushing, Jairus Byrd, Lance Briggs, Jonathon Vilma, Charles Woodson, Darren Sharper, Reggie Wayne, Dallas Clark, Jeff Saturday, Jonathan Stinchcomb, Jahri Evans, and Jonathan Goodwin have in common?

They were each named to their conference’s Pro Bowl team, but will not be playing.

Some players will not be there because of injury or impending surgery. Others will miss because of the always-difficult-to-diagnose-and-impossible-to-cure phantom injury. The guys with the best excuse, though, will not be there because, a week later, they are participating in the only game left that really matters: the Super Bowl.

It’s a Brave New World.

The NFL has taken a bold step this year. For the first time since 1980 (that’s 30 years—or, if you are a dog or a Brown’s fan, 210 years), the Pro Bowl will not be played in Aloha Stadium in Honolulu, Hawaii. It will also not be played the week following the Super Bowl.

The league that introduced the slow-motion replay, the booth review, and the Icky Shuffle has done it again. They have jumped out of the box and kicked it into the Pacific. They have decided to stop flogging their dead horse and get the defibrillator.

Welcome to the pre-Super Bowl Pro Bowl., an idea whose time has come.

The Nay-Sayers are nay-saying.

Many are frustrated with the change and insist it will never fly. Players do not like it because it means no trip to Hawaii, which was the only real positive for every participant who is not named the game’s Most Valuable Player. Fans in Indianapolis and New Orleans do not like it because it means their favorite players will not be participating.

Traditionalists don’t like it because, well, it is breaking tradition. Bleeding hearts dislike it because they feel sorry for Hawaii, the only state stuck way out in the Pacific Ocean with no team within a day’s drive to go see on a random Sunday in the Fall.

Here is what I have to say about that…

To the players: Poor, pitiful you. All you youthful millionaires don’t get to go away on a holiday to the islands, with the expenses paid by us little guys buying $100 team jerseys with your names on them and $300 tickets to freeze our butts off in the dead of winter, watching you play the game we love for a living. Here is an idea: don’t get the 3-D big screen Sony in your next Escalade and take your family on a nice vacation to Hawaii instead.

To the fans in Indianapolis and New Orleans: I will trade places with you. My team gets to play in the Super Bowl and your guys are free to frolic on the field this Sunday. Deal?

To the traditionalists: The Pro Bowl in Hawaii is only a tradition if you were born after 1980, in which case you are much too young to be an authority on traditions or to be tied to them in the first place.

To the bleeding hearts: How does someone who lives in New Jersey or Wisconsin manage to feel sorry for people living in Hawaii? So they don’t get to go to a nearby stadium and watch their favorite NFL team play ball. Guess they will have to somehow manage with their dazzling sunsets, endless beaches, and girls in grass skirts.

Three reasons to embrace this change.

I like the new format, and here’s why:

1. The game won’t be an after-thought that no one has the energy to think about in the first place. Once the Super Bowl is done, every fan of the NFL has that hollow, empty feeling in the pit of his stomach. He knows he will have to try to fill it with basketball, baseball, and, worse, quality time with his family. Most of us will have watched the ultimate championship celebration take place without our team participating once again. We will watch another team’s fans go crazy and burn their city to the ground, while we sit home, all safe and warm and worn out from hope slowly dying. The last thing we want is some consolation prize of a meaningless game featuring a couple of players from our team that we are not happy with at the moment anyhow.
2. The game won’t feel so elitist. Sure, Hawaii is great for the players. But the plumber who had to settle for a 36″ flat screen to watch his favorite team on because his daughter needed braces and the doctors cannot seem to cure his son’s acne issue experiences a major disconnect watching guys who run around and play grab-ass for a living stroll about a tropical island.
3. The Pro Bowl will become part of the Super Bowl hoopla. If your team is not playing in the big game, those two weeks of endless interviews, media days, and secret practices in undisclosed places are pretty much a whipping. Now, the Pro Bowl will come just in time to break up the party. Fans of all 32 teams will have someone to cheer for and a reason to feel proud, if only because they are watching the game their favorite player ditched.

Do not forget about the game itself.

The 2010 Pro Bowl will feature intriguing match ups. Nowhere will that be more evident than when the NFC wide receivers try to shed the AFC’s starting cornerbacks. With the Jets’ Darrelle Revis and the Raiders’ Nnamdi Asomugha pestering and shadowing DeSean Jackson, Miles Austin, and Sidney Rice, the NFC may find it difficult to get any sort of big play in the passing game. Throw in Ed Reed at free safety and Brian Dawkins at strong safety, and the NFC’s offensive coordinator Jason Garrett may want to consider calling Barry Switzer to get some quick pointers on the wishbone.

Conversely, you have to like the NFC stable of quarterbacks over what the AFC is running out there. Matt Schaub will start for the AFC and will be backed up (and at some point, replaced) by Vince Young and David Garrard. Meanwhile, the NFC is running Aaron Rodgers onto the field first, and then Donovan McNabb, and eventually Tony Romo. The NFC quarterbacks should be able to carry the day, providing they have any open receivers.

The running back dual will be the other place of greatest intrigue. The AFC’s Chris Johnson—the guy who makes greased lightening look like a lumbering lineman—was the first back in the NFL to rush for more than 2,000 yards in a season since Terrell Davis in 1998. Let a linebacker take a play off to see if he can tell whether his wife and girlfriend are sitting too close together in the stands, and we may be watching a new Pro Bowl record for longest run from scrimmage.

The NFC quarterbacks will be sticking the ball into the gut of the man who was the greatest running back in the league until Johnson came along, the one they call All-Day. Adrian Peterson may be running angry, which will be nothing new, but would be an anomaly for a Pro Bowl. He will still be sore about losing to the Saints. He will still be a little embarrassed about putting the ball on the ground three times in the NFC championship game. And he will be in no mood to be outshone by some kid from Tennessee.

And the Most Valuable Player is…

With the substandard quarterback situation on the AFC side and the NFC having trouble finding open receivers against those shut-down AFC corners, look for the MVP to emerge from the unlikeliest of places: the kicking game. In a year when kickers were misfiring on key kicks like Scud missles in the Middle East, the Pro Bowl hero will arise from the AFC bench, tighten his shoelaces and drill the game-winning field goal.

Yes, my friend, Nate Kaeding, the San Diego goat, will be the hero in Miami. And Chargers’ fans will be madder than ever at him.

Look for gnashing of teeth in San Diego, high drama in Miami, and the birth of a new tradition in the 2010 edition of the NFC-AFC Pro Bowl.