The Pro Bowl is the game where only the best players in the NFL are invited to play. The game is held in Aloha Stadium in Hawaii on January 26th, 2014. This year they are doing something new with the Pro Bowl. “It was fun to watch especially seeing six browns players playing in it”, said junior Nick Mysyk.
Usually the teams are divided into AFC and NFC. This year, however, they are having a draft to select the players that were invited to play in the game. The captains of the new teams are Deion Sanders and Jerry Rice, who are both Hall of Famers. The draft was be held on January 22nd and was live on ESPN. Whoever was selected to play in the game that made it to the Super Bowl does not play in the Pro Bowl because they are preparing for the biggest game of their lives. Who replaced them? Well, there are always five reserves that are picked and the reserves take the spots of the players that can’t play. “I really liked the new format of the game this year”, said head football coach Mitch Hewitt.
To elaborate more on the new draft system, an AFC player and an NFC player can be on the same team if picked by the same captain. The coaches in this year Pro Bowl are the Carolina Panthers head coach Ron Rivera (NFC) and The Indianapolis Colts head coach Chuck Pagano (AFC). The Cleveland Browns had the most players going to Hawaii. Browns players include, Josh Gordan, Tj Ward, Joe Thomas, Joe Haden, Alex Mac, and Jordan Cameron. In recent years, the Pro Bowl’s television rating has gone down because of the lack of intensity the game is bringing. Players aren’t going as hard as they would if it was a regular season game. Plus some players do not even play in the game because they do not want to get hurt and do not want the risk of not being able to start the next season. At times, they can make plays where everyone’s draw is dropped but the last couple of years the game has been pathetic.
In this years game Jerry Rice’s team won the game on a two point conversion with 44 seconds left to take the lead 22-21. “It was cool actually seeing guys giving effort and hitting in an all star game because in the past the players havnt tried there hardest but that wasn’t the case this year”, said senior Jason Janda.