The 2026 Pro Bowl Games are set to take place on Tuesday, and, for the first time since 2022, Kansas City Chiefs players are actually eligible to partake in the event. For the past three years, the Chiefs were the AFC representative in the Super Bowl, meaning they weren't allowed to participate in the Pro Bowl.
Of course, the easy joke here is that players typically don't want to play in the Pro Bowl. That's been pretty obvious this year, given the quarterbacks who are in the event, with Joe Flacco and Shedeur Sanders both getting to call themselves Pro Bowl quarterbacks this year, as the options ahead of them were either ineligible or declined to participate.
Patrick Mahomes is one of those quarterbacks who wouldn't have been able to be in the Pro Bowl due to his injury. It's not just quarterbacks turning down the Pro Bowl, though, as Chris Jones and Travis Kelce also declined the invite to the event ahead of the Super Bowl.
It was known that Kelce declined attending when Bills tight end Dalton Kincaid was named as his replacement. As for Jones, he's never attended any of the Pro Bowls he's been named to, so seeing him decline wasn't a big surprise.
So, who will represent the Chiefs at the Pro Bowl in San Francisco? That would be center Creed Humphrey and right guard Trey Smith, who the team announced as the reps earlier this week.
Chiefs finally send Pro Bowl reps after years of being exempt
The Pro Bowl isn't what it once was, and being named a Pro Bowler doesn't have the same meaning it once did. Chiefs fans also won't care about the event simply because, at this point, we've all grown accustomed to caring about a much bigger event this time of year.
With the Chiefs not being in the big game this year, more of their players could have been participating in the Pro Bowl, but considering the stage they were hoping to be on, it's not surprising that many of them opted not to appear in it. In his defense, Mahomes couldn't do so due to his ACL injury, and now Sanders and Flacco both had the opportunity to appear instead.
What a strange time for the Pro Bowl. Maybe someday, the NFL will do away with it altogether. For now, though, the only two Chiefs set to appear in it this year are Humphrey and Smith. Good for them.