Pro Bowl So Bull?

With spring around the corner and football season wrapping up, the final two weeks of the NFL season are usually expected to be pretty jam-packed with events and excitement. 

While many people are very excited about this year’s super bowl, which will take place on Feb. 13, there were many mixed emotions about this year’s pro bowl.

The super bowl will feature two four-seed teams in the Cincinnati Bengals(13-7) and the Los Angeles Rams(15-5. The majority of football fans are relieved to see a change of scenery in the super bowl. 

In fact, this year’s big game will not feature Tom Brady, Peyton Manning, Ben Roethlisberger, or the San Francisco 49ers for the first time since 2000. 

However, the beginning of pro bowl week took place from the start of February, all the way to the NFC vs. AFC game on Feb. 7. This week featured many competitive events between the NFL’s all-stars and is typically capped off with a highly entertaining game of the NFL’s best battling it out. 

2022 implemented multiple changes for the pro bowl, and fans are back and forth with their thoughts on it. These rules included no kickoffs(due to a spike in injuries on kickoffs this season), and the teams had to go for a 4th and 15 try from their own 25 after scoring a touchdown.

The first pro bowl skills showdown event was ‘precision passing,’ which was won by Russel Wilson, who set a pro-bowl record with 29 points. The next event was ‘thread the needle,’ in which Mac Jones took the win, evening the score 1-1. The third event was ‘best catch,’ which featured the Diggs brothers, among others. 

Stefon Diggs stunned the crowd by jumping off a truck onto a table and breaking it while still holding on for the grab. He was later outperformed by his younger brother, Trevon, who won the competition with a 360-grab, as the second rookie to win a competition through the first half of pro bowl week. 

The next competition was ‘fastest man,’ which many expected Tyreek Hill to easily win. However, with Hill practically jogging the race that took place just five days after he played in the AFC championship game, rookie Micah Parsons won the race, making a third straight competition won by a rookie. 

In the weekend’s final event, ‘pro bowl dodgeball,’ the NFC took the victory, which was clinched with Justin Jefferson catching a ball thrown by Stefon Diggs, as the NFC won the Pro Bowl skills challenge, winning three out of the four events. 

“The pro bowl week itself doesn’t need any changes because I enjoy all of the events and competitions that they hold. But the pro bowl game itself definitely needs some changes, and I think the NFL needs to do something to make the players try harder in the pro bowl,” said Conner Mulligan, junior student at LHS. 

The NFL shells out a substantial amount of money for pro bowl week, and fans are expecting players to put more effort and grind into this game. While I do believe that the NFL has the right idea with pro bowl week, I think they should add at least one more event, such as a basketball scrimmage, into the mix. 

On top of that, the NFL needs to offer cash to players in the pro bowl to force them to put more effort into the game and each play.