There’s only one way Champ Bailey will stop coming to the Pro Bowl if selected.
“If they start taxing me, I’m going to stop coming,” the Denver cornerback joked.
Bailey will become the third player ever to play in 12 NFL all-star games, tying the mark set by Randall McDaniel and Will Shields, when the 2013 Pro Bowl kicks off on Sunday at Aloha Stadium.
Unlike many of the NFL’s top players, Bailey has appeared in every Pro Bowl he’s been selected to in his 14-year career.
The reason is pretty simple.
“I had a veteran tell me a long time ago, if you are willing to stop coming, you stop coming,” he said.
“Any time I am invited to do something this special, I’m coming. Unless I’m really hurt, that’s the only way I would miss this game.”
Outside of his rookie year after he was selected seventh overall in the 1999 NFL Draft, the only other season Bailey didn’t get named to the Pro Bowl was in 2008 when he missed seven games with a groin injury.
He started every game in his first five seasons with the Washington Redskins before he was traded to the Broncos in a deal for running back Clinton Portis.
Bailey played in all 16 games this year for the ninth time, and recorded his 52nd interception, tying him for 26th all-time, one behind Ty Law and Deion Sanders.
The Broncos earned the No. 1 seed in the AFC but were eliminated by the Baltimore Ravens at home, blowing a touchdown lead late in the fourth quarter before losing in double overtime.
“It sucks,” he said. “You find a way to get over it, just keep working. It’s the life of a football player. If you don’t win your last game, especially a big one, you feel like the season is a failure because you put so much work into it.”
The Broncos led 35-28 with 31 seconds left in regulation when their secondary gave up a 70-yard touchdown pass from Joe Flacco to Jacoby Jones. Jones inexplicably got behind Denver safety Rahim Moore, who took a poor route to the ball and mistimed his jump, allowing the Ravens receiver to go untouched down the field into the end zone.
Bailey said he’s talked to Moore since and just reminded him of the roller-coaster ride the NFL can be.
“He’s good,” Bailey said of Moore. “He’s a football player. He understands there are peaks and valleys.
“Sometimes when you’re riding the high you can get too high and you can get too low. You’ve got to stay even keeled and that is pretty much what I told him. Don’t worry about it, come back to work and you’ll be fine.”
The Ravens won consecutive games on the road to reach the Super Bowl, where they are four-point underdogs to the San Francisco 49ers.
Bailey wouldn’t predict an outcome but said Baltimore’s ability to create turnovers is what has gotten the Ravens this far.
“They got hot at the right time and that is what it’s all about,” Bailey said. “We knew going in we had to create turnovers and that’s the one thing they have been able to do. That’s why they are in the championship game.”
Denver coach John Fox and his staff are serving as coaches for the AFC this week. Five of the seven Broncos players selected to the game made the trip, including quarterback Peyton Manning, who entered the league one year before Bailey and has been selected to the same number of Pro Bowls.
Bailey needs one more interception to set a Pro Bowl record for a career with five.
