For the longest time, the Pro Bowl has been the least relevant of all all-star games in major American sports, each of them irrelevant in their own way. Beyond the fact that the game doesn’t, you know, count, the Pro Bowl is especially useless because of the inherent dangers of the sport, making it an incredibly stupid thing to do when neither paychecks nor team success are on the line. The one nice thing that it does is send players on a brief vacation together, and this year, they’re finally making use of it with the new, improved Pro Bowl Skills Showdown.
What was once a curiosity relegated to sports nerds and ESPN2 filled with QB target practice and glorified drills has fallen even harder by the wayside. But one idea immediately made it must-see TV for a certain section of us: the inclusion of DODGEBALL, with rosters of players picked by former NFL greats.
That’s right, the Thursday before the Pro Bowl, real NFL players will take each other on in a game of dodgeball, to go along with the traditional QB target practice competition, a catching competition, and almost as intriguing as dodgeball, a straight-up relay race. But who are we kidding? The dodgeball conceit is straight out of Grubb-Rickman Laboratories, and it begs the question — is it better to have a cannon arm for power pegging, or athleticism for great avoidance?
Here’s our off-the-dome teams of five from the AFC and NFC. We know they’re going to have to be picked from the pool of pro-bowlers, but since the teams haven’t been officially announced, we’re just going to take from the whole pool
NFC: Russell Wilson (captain), Cam Newton, Odell Beckham Jr., Julio Jones, Dak Prescott
AFC: Andrew Luck (captain), Marcus Mariota, Le’Veon Bell, Antonio Brown, Tyreek Hill
Here’s hoping the players remember the rules of Dodgeball:
