The 2023 Pro Bowl Games at the home of the Raiders in Las Vegas, Nevada mark a major departure for the NFL. For years, the Pro Bowl has centered around an NFL-style football game that nearly no fans cared about, and the players involved didn’t try all that hard in. Finally, after over 70 years of this charade, the league has decided to scrap the game in favor of Pro Bowl skills competitions and a Pro Bowl flag football game. This should make the product much more fun and fan- and TV-friendly. The league is packing a lot into its Thursday and Sunday presentations of this event, and even the biggest Pro Bowl fans likely won’t be able to watch it all. If that is the case, here are the five best things to watch at the NFL Pro Bowl, and, spoiler alert: the Pro Bowl flag football game is fifth on the list.
5. The flag football game
The Pro Bowl flag football game is worth tuning into on Sunday if for no other reason than it is the first time it will happen. The NFL finally realized playing a “real” football game with players who don’t want to play — and more importantly, don’t want to get injured — doesn’t make much sense.
This style of game should be a lot more fun, and with players out of pads, there will likely be a lot of them mic’ed up for the game. The AFC and NFC players will still get a chance to get the competitive juices going on the field without having to worry about full-fledged contact.
Additionally, the coaching staffs are a big draw here. The AFC has Hall of Famers Peyton Manning and Ray Lewis, along with Mexico Women's National Flag Football team quarterback Diana Flores. On the NFC side, it’s Eli Manning, DeMarcus Ware, and U.S. Women's National Flag Football team quarterback Vanita Krouch.
For fans of ESPN’s Manningcast or the (approximately) 10,127,316 Manning-based commercials on TV, having the NFL’s most famous (and funny) brothers on either sideline should be a good time.
4. Longest Drive
Moving away from football-related activities, the 2023 Pro Bowl Games will also feature a golf long-drive competition. As we’ve learned from The Match, NFL players love their golf, and some are quite good.
While the league hasn’t announced the eight participants yet, you can guess some quarterbacks and skill position players will be involved. However, the real treat in this long-drive event will be if some of the monstrous offensive and defensive linemen step up to the tee box.
Who wouldn’t want to see what the 6-foot-5 Terron Armstead or 340-pound Dexter Lawrence can do to a golf ball?
3. Kick Tac Toe
Finally! The kickers and long-snappers get a little love in the NFL Pro Bowl. This game, where kickers and punters use the balls as markers in a giant-sized game of tic-tac-toe, should be fascinating.
It will show off the incredible power and accuracy these oft-criticized players have in their legs. The finesse these kickers will display on Sunday should also be the portion of the weekend that will dispel the notion many of us hold that if we decided on the couch one day that we wanted to be an NFL kicker, we could do it.
2. Epic Pro Bowl Dodgeball
To paraphrase the movie Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story, “If you can dodge a linebacker, you can dodge a ball.” That’s what the NFL is banking on at the 2023 Pro Bowl when four teams play a knockout tournament in the world’s oldest (don’t fact-check that) gym class game.
Watching NFL players hurl balls at each other from close range will be awesome, and as we all know from our grade school days, dodgeball can get pretty contentious and aggressive pretty quickly.
Also, this is the Pro Bowl skills competition that has the coolest set-up from a teams perspective. First, the NFC defense team will face the NFC offense team, and the same will happen on the AFC side. Then the winners will go head-to-head in the final.
1. Gridiron Gauntlet
The best event of the 2023 Pro Bowl skills competition weekend should be the Gridiron Gauntlet. This is a head-to-head obstacle course event where six players from the AFC and six from the NFC will race each other through a series of obstacles.
According to NBC Sports, the obstacle course sounds like a mashup of NFL training camp and American Ninja Warrior. “Each of the gauntlet’s four parts is 40 yards long, and the course includes breakaway walls, climbing walls, a tire run, and blocking sled carrying a coach.”
With some of the best athletes in the world participating in the NFL Pro Bowl, watching the players run this race should be the most exciting piece of the 2023 Pro Bowl Games.
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