Want a Pro Bowl that is more like "real" football?

Here’s one possible solution.

All or nothing.

Instead of paying each winning player $50,000 and each loser $25,000, make it $75,000 and zero.

"No, no …," said Cardinals receiver Larry Fitzgerald, whose NFC team had just lost 59-41 despite his three touchdowns in what could be the NFL’s aloha game at Aloha Stadium. "Gotta split that, everybody’s gotta get some."

Well, OK, then, "some." Make it $70,000 for each winner and $5,000 for each loser.

Why so harsh?

If you saw the first quarter Sunday, you know exactly why. For a while, it looked like Fitzgerald was the only guy out there actually trying.

The first three plays included two by Steelers receiver Mike Wallace catching passes and sitting down on the turf instead of going for more yards … an effort that might have necessitated contact with a defender.

Wallace’s catch-and-no-runs sandwiched a bizarre running play in which Maurice Jones-Drew was dropped for a 2-yard loss by the Cowboys’ Jay Ratliff, after the entire offensive line played pat-a-cake with the entire defensive line.

It was bizarre. The replay looked like slow motion … except it wasn’t.

Most of the first quarter was reminiscent of a University of Hawaii no-tackling practice, when June Jones was coach. I kept waiting to hear his voice saying, "Stay on your feet! Stay on your feet!"

It was so bad it got some of us wondering why we want to fight to keep this event here. Fans started booing seven plays into it. And you can’t blame them.

While most of us understand the Pro Bowl is more an exhibition of something that resembles tackle football than the real thing, is a little more intensity really too much to ask?

Chargers safety Eric Weddle is already there, as far as being amped. He’s got the right idea.

"They have to adjust to what I’m doing," he said, after grabbing two interceptions for the AFC and otherwise pestering the NFC offense. "If I don’t go hard, that’s where injuries come."

Weddle said he likes the idea of all or nothing with the money, but the 27-year-old first-time Pro Bowl player added it’s a decision for "older guys" to make.

The Pro Bowl will never have the intensity of a regular-season or playoff game. I personally don’t mind seeing punters throw passes and quarterbacks drop-kicking; the players enjoy it.

Most NFL fans, though, seem to want something a bit more serious from the Pro Bowl.

The trick plays are fun. But it’s reasonable that when you pay to see the best against the best to expect something close to their best effort. Not a game of pat-a-cake, or some guys playing at one speed and the rest at another.

Reach Dave Reardon at dreardon@staradvertiser.com or 529-4783.