The Pro Bowl just got a lot more bearable.
The Pro Bowl Skills Showdown is back, and hopefully this time it stays for good, because it has brought with it some much-needed excitement to the Pro Bowl.
The Pro Bowl itself has steadily been losing popularity with the fans. Despite its star power, in theory, the game is never extremely interesting, and many of the biggest stars choose not to play due to fear of injuries. The most recent Pro Bowls have seen a drop in viewership each year, but the Skills Showdown may be able to at least slow the Pro Bowl’s descent into obscurity.
The Skills Showdown pitted twenty of the AFC’s and NFC’s best players against each other in five different events: best hands, power relay, drone drop, precision passing challenge and a dodgeball game.
The best hands challenge and the drone drop were receiving challenges, won by Jarvis Landry and Odell Beckham Jr. respectively, and it is honestly fun to watch superhuman athletes try and catch a ball dropped from a hundred feet in the air, or make one handed catches look easy.
The precision passing challenge was the classic “see how many targets you can hit with a flying projectile,” and it proved entertaining, with Phillip Rivers taking home the gold for the AFC.
The power relay was more of a brute strength task, and allowed offensive and defensive lineman to prove themselves in a few pushing and pulling activities. The event culminated with Ezekiel Elliot jumping through a foam brick wall, doing his best Kool-Aid man impression.The final challenge was a dodgeball game, which pitted the NFC against the AFC. This was more of a one sided match, with the NFC handily defeating their conference rivals. It gave casual and die-hard fans alike to watch NFL quarterback Alex Smith throw a dodgeball like he had never seen one before.
This skill challenge is important for a couple of reasons. Number one, and most obviously, it makes the Pro Bowl a little bit more exciting. It pits some of the best athletes in the world against each other in games that you would never see them play. It adds another dimension to the Pro Bowl that maybe will attract more of the top stars, who have less of a chance getting hurt throwing dodgeballs than they do in a legitimate game.
It also is beneficial to the league as a whole. The “No Fun League” may be able to shed their nickname if it keeps headed in this direction. It also allows players to positively interact with each other, and their enjoyment showed through during the events. It is just good, plain fun.
This is truly an opportunity to make the week before the Super Bowl mean something. Hopefully they will continue to run with this idea, working out the kinks and adding a few new events to get the most out of this opportunity. A return to a few of the old school events could help as well, like a timed race portion or bench press may attract some of the classic fans who don't love something like the drone drop. Maybe even add a celebrity flag football game. It would be interesting to see Dwayne Johnson and Kevin Hart go head to head- even more interesting if it was tackle football, but still interesting nonetheless.
Roger, I hope you hear all of our requests. Keep the Skills Showdown. Make the NFL fun again.
