NFL Skills Showdown Recap

Ten Pro Bowlers from the AFC and NFC competed in a skills challenge in advance of the Pro Bowl on Saturday in Orlando, Florida at ESPN's Wide World of Sports. The event pitted the players in five different games; the best hands challenge, the power relay, the wide receiver drone drop, the precision passing challenge, and the highlight of the event, a dodge ball game.

The best hands challenge and precision passing challenge were pretty basic and uneventful. The drone drop was a very inventive idea introducing new technology into the game of football. Odell Beckham Jr., one of the NFL's most popular players among its younger audience won the event catching a football dropped from a drone from an astonishing height of 125 feet! His performance just proves what amazing things you can do when you are not preoccupied with kicking nets.

Everyone that was going to watch the Pro Bowl was interested in one event especially, the dodge ball game. Just think what it would be like watching your favorite NFL players playing the game that you used to in elementary school!

One humorous part of the dodge ball game was when Alex Smith, the quarterback for the Kansas City Chiefs, went to throw a ball at the NFC team. It did not go well, as you can see in the YouTube clip above. Thinking that Smith was an NFL quarterback, the NFC team all stepped back in anticipation of the throw, only to see it land harmlessly in front of them. The internet, as it is wont to do, proceeded to mercilessly make fun of Smith.

The good news for Smith is that he is under contract for the Chiefs for 2017, a contract that will cost the team $16.9 million! It's a good thing that he signed this contract years before his pitiful dodge ball performance.

Recap: AFC and NFC Championship Games

Both the AFC and NFC Championship games turned out to be blowouts for the Atlanta Falcons and the New England Patriots. Atlanta beat the Green Bay Packers by a score of 44-21. The 23 point loss was nothing compared to the hit that Falcons rookie cornerback Brian Poole put on him (video courtesy: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCojyGFb8W2xxSsJ5c_XburQ). The Green Bay defense had no answer for the tandem of Falcons quarterback Matt Ryan and wide receiver Julio Jones.

The Packers were supposed to be the hottest team in the NFL coming in to the game but they had various injuries on the offensive and defensive sides of the ball. Most notable of these injuries was their wide receiver Jordy Nelson, who suffered multiple broken ribs and a punctured lung in the Packers' previous playoff game against the New York Giants.

The AFC Championship game between the New England Patriots and the Pittsburgh Steelers was not any closer. Tom Brady will play in his record-setting seventh Super Bowl in two weeks in Houston Texas. This is a great accomplishment for a sixth round draft pick out of the University of Michigan. No one could have predicted this when Brady was the backup quarterback for Drew Bledsoe at the beginning of his career. However, some will continue to point out that he was suspended for the first four games of this season because of his supposed role in the deflategate saga. I do not feel that the air pressure of footballs played any role in him making it to seven Super Bowls.

Hopefully the fact that both the Patriots and the Falcons won in such a convincing fashion means that the Super Bowl will be a good game. Both quarterbacks are playing at a high level with entirely different personnel. The Patriots' defense has been ranked at the top of the league for almost the entire season. It would be disappointing if the only reason people are watching the Super Bowl in the second half is for the commercials.