Thursday Night Dodgeball
So in case you weren’t aware, the Pro Bowl skills competition is back (Rejoice!) and it’s on tonight! It includes DODGEBALL. Professional football players playing DODGEBALL. NFL DODGEBALL. TONIGHT. DODGEBALL. The AFC team will be led by Jerome Bettis and Ray Lewis, the NFC Charles Woodson and Tony Gonzales (Go NFC, amirite?)
The Pro Bowl itself will still be a hilarious joke but at least they gave us something fun to watch on the side again. It’s depressing that after what feels like a half decade of trying different things to make the Pro Bowl less of a joke (Moving the venue, changing the way the teams work, uniforms, etc) the best thing that ended up happening was basically just going back to the 2006 version and adding dodgeball because why not? It’s the first time I’ve been pumped about the Pro Bowl for years, and it’s not even about the Pro Bowl (Still gonna do my annual Pro Bowl hiking skip).
Dodgeball with NFL players is such a good idea I can’t believe it hasn’t happened yet. I think they are using nerf like footballs for the dodgeballs, which is AMAZING. If you aren’t pumped to see a bunch of hyper athletes grab dodgeballs and immediately pelt the crap out of the fat lineman I don’t think you actually like sports. I can’t wait for the first pro bowl wide receiver to stone hands a throw and get sent out of the game (It’ll be OBJ). The game is going to come down to two incredibly shifty cornerbacks throwing darts and it’ll own. I want to see Ray Lewis get pelted in the face so that he actually has a reason to cry. I want to see Jerome Bettis get targeted immediately by half the other team and have balls bouncing off his fat as he waddles to the sideline. Tell me it won’t be incredible. You can’t, because you know it will be.
They have a few other competitions like the passing challenge and catching challenge, as well as something involving drones dropping balls to catch, so that’ll be stupid but hey, it’ll probably be so dumb that it gets cancelled next year so the drone thing might be worth watching just to see how bad it is.
I speculated about it in a podcast last month or so but I hope the Pro Bowl itself just gets eliminated and replaced entirely with stupid skills crap like dodgeball. How great would it be to see a 3 legged race between tall lanky dudes and short stout runningbacks (Julio Jones and Sproles together, imagine it) or a wheelbarrow race with cornerbacks teamed up with defensive tackles. Just a giant field day for football players. Beach volleyball for the ladies. Bean bag toss (Cornhole for you southerners). Have non-kickers try and kick the longest field goal and non-QBs try to throw the longest passes. What if they had to do that spoon race thing where you put an egg on a spoon, hold it in your mouth, and race without letting it fall? But instead of a race it’s cone drills? What about WALLBALL? Did anyone else play Wallball in gymclass? Wallball was basically dodgeball but you threw the ball at a wall and someone had to catch it or dodge it, if it hit you then you had to stand against the wall as other people pelted you with the ball. Good lord what I would give to see someone like Andy Dalton have to face the wall and get pelted.
Maybe I’m a bully.
Watch the Pro Bowl skills competition tonight, just so it goes well enough ratings wise that they decide to keep it. In fact, watch the skills stuff, and skip the pro bowl, to really show the NFL what we want to see.
its like the shit you did in elementary school gym, but better
I’ve never heard it called “bean bag toss” here in Ohio. [minor detail]
PRO BOWL SKILLS CHALLENGE
I’d never heard of it at all in Ohio. I learned about cornhole in Houston.
Eventually we’re going to have amazon drones be QBs
The Baltimore Arena team will be called the Brigade (after the 1812 war), which would be fine if their wasn’t another team called the brigade 4 YEARS AGO (Kansas City, not named after 1812 war). (LONG ASS ARENA RANT INCOMING)
The entire Baltmore franchise has been a trainwreck since day one. The only reason the team exists is because Scott Butera (league commish) had a panic attack after realizing that there were more teams leaving the arena league than teams staying, so he asked Ted Leonsis (owner of the caps, wizards, and the other new arena, the valor) to put a new team in Baltimore. Completly ignoring the fact that we have 1 person owning 2 teams (Cleveland spiders here we come), we now have a new team being owned by an owner that doesn’t own an NBA/NHL team in that arena. While there’s nothing wrong with that, it proves Butera is a fucking hypocrite because he said that he wants all teams to be owned by NHL/NBA owners in that same arena to avoid rent fees (yes, rent fees). That’s why 6 of the 9 teams who left under butera left the arena league (Vegas was Buteras attempt to get a team in his home city, New Orleans had 6-digit debt, and Portland was taken over by the league 2 weeks before the start of last season). The other thing Butera wanted to avoid was a team that had had less than a full off-season from inception to kickoff like Vegas did his first year. Baltimore will have less than 5 months from inception (Nov.16) to kickoff (Apr.7).
The brigade uniforms show how rushed this team is (blank white helmets; navy jerseys, white pants and numbers for home; white jerseys, navy pants, silver numbers for road), with it looking really similar to the Washington (D.C) Valor.
Out of 5 teams, 3 (Tampa, D.C, and B’more) share some shade of dark blue as their main color. Philly has teal/aqua, and Cleveland has red. This is my last rant until opening night (thursday, April 7th), and they’ll be a hell of a lot shorter than this or last year (only 2 games per week).
Also, fuck phil simms
You have to hope some lineman goes full beast mode and wins
I’d love to see it, but linemen are just too big to miss. Even if a guy can catch, he’s not gonna be able to catch and doge three balls at once.
I think every year they should pick a weird sport and make them participate. I’d love to see them play baseball or soccer or something too. Maybe like a 3 on 3 basketball tournament, or ping pong.
I would be pretty shocked if they scheduled a basketball game, because there would be so much paranoia about the risk of injury. I’m honestly pretty surprised they are playing dodgeball because I would expect that owners and GMs are terrified someone is going to tear an ACL playing. I personally think it’s a fun idea and I am glad they’re playing dodgeball, but basketball might be a stretch.
We used to call Wallball “Butts Up” and it was the most fun, right up until someone had to go against the wall and then got clipped in the ear or the beanbag. And then it was only the most fun for everyone except that guy.
Other games that I would watch if a bunch of active and retired Pro football players were playing:
1. Badminton (you know you’d love it too, should be doubles)
2. Corn-hole (practice those all important shovel pass skills…)
3. Bowling (Wilfork can use himself if he can slide all the way down the lane on his belly)
4. Water polo (water wings will be allowed for Gronk)
5. Diving (because watching a bunch of NFL players desperately try not to belly flop for an hour would be a delight…)
5.
6. Figure skating
If you can dodge a linebacker, you can dodge a ball.
Not having Nantz and Simms sitting like Gary Cole and Jason Bateman was a missed opportunity.
I agree, Cotton
it was a bold strategy
Why is the nfc team being led by 2 mainly AFC players?
What’s with the creepy long necks? Is that a Phantom Menace reference?
What’s this “Phantom Menace” thing you speak of? Can you eat it?
Hmm. Menace…Menace…..rings a bell. Wasn’t that a comic strip in the Sunday funnies?
wait this isn’t just a DP joke, they’re actually going to play dodgeball?
wtf
*Checks all the comments*
*Clears throat*
lol how does obj hold a dodgeball with no hands
“Watch the Pro Bowl skills competition tonight, just so it goes well enough ratings wise that they decide to keep it. In fact, watch the skills stuff, and skip the pro bowl, to really show the NFL what we want to see.”
Exactly this, these were definitely more interesting than watching the Pro Bowl. Thing I disliked though: it was too short, only 1 hour? Looks like only about 1/3 of the pro-bowl players actually participated. Next year they need to do more/longer…
I’ll be honest, I don’t like the sound of this. You know, obvious reasons.
T.Y. Hilton tried his best, he eliminated 4 of the 5 NFC players in that game