This week the NFL’s first-ever Pro Bowl Games will be featured on ESPN, and on Wednesday, all the competitions and its competitors were announced. Events start Thursday at 7 p.m. ET with five skills challenges, and the games will conclude at 3 p.m. Sunday with more skills events and a trio of flag football games.
Peyton Manning will coach the AFC team while Eli Manning will coach the NFC. The goal of the skill competition is to accumulate points for your conference, and you get points by winning competitions. The conference with the most points at the end of the weekend will be crowned the winner of the inaugural Pro Bowl Games. Here are the events and its competitors:
Best Catch Competition (First round Thursday; finale Sunday)
This competition will include two wide receivers in each conference squaring off to see who can perform the most impressive and creative pass catches. Thursday’s first round will see highlight reels from players shot at iconic venues around Las Vegas, and then, fans will vote online whose catches were best. The event starts at 7 p.m. ET.
Precision Passing (Thursday)
Each conference will send three quarterbacks to compete in a one-minute accuracy competition.
Longest Drive (Thursday)
This competition will test a player’s ability in driving a golf ball.
Lightning Round (Thursday)
This next event appears to be an inventive one and may be a little confusing with it having three parts. The first part called “splash catch” and is a water balloon toss. The second part revolves around players attempting to catch punts from a JUGS machine. Finally, the remaining players from each conference will take aim at targets attached to a bucket hanging over the head of an opposing coach. The first team to dump a bucket on a coach wins.
Dodgeball (Thursday)
Dodgeball will be the centerpiece of a multi-round tournament with four teams of five players. It will begin with the offensive and defensive teams playing interconference games, with the winners advancing for an NFC-AFC finale.
Kick Tac Toe (Sunday)
Each team’s kicker, punter and long snapper will compete in a tic-tac-toe competition with a special teams twist.
Flag Football (Sunday)
The flag football finale will be three games with skill position players along with centers, who snap and kneel as is customary in seven-on-seven competition.
Gridiron Gauntlet (Sunday)
This will be a side-by-side relay race where players will climb walls, go under tables, navigate a tire run and push a blocking sled with a coach on it.
Move the Chains (Sunday)
This competition will have two teams from each conference compete in a best-of-three weighted 10-yard wall pull.
