Pro Bowl Thoughts

Yes. They played the 2015 Pro Bowl. A lot of people attended the game. A lot of people watched on TV.

It was a pretty good one. Entertaining. It came down to the end. Team Irvin defeated Team Carter 32-28.

The effort was side early in the game. It brought back terrible memories of the game from a couple of years ago. The defenders looked to be more interested in dancing with the ball carriers than taking them to the ground. Fortunately that only lasted about one series. The rest of the game provided the effort that everyone should expect from an all-star football game.

The game was basically decided when the teams were selected last Wednesday. It was decided when Michael Irvin selected Matt Ryan as his third quarterback. That left Cris Carter with Andy Dalton.

Dalton was terrible. In an All-Star football game there should be no three-and-outs. Dalton had possessions of 6, 3, and 4 plays until the final failed drive. All of his completions were check-downs or screens. He has the likes of Antonio Brown, Jordy Nelson, TY Hilton, and his own Bengals teammate A.J. Green and he's dumping the ball to Alfred Morris. Even that last drive was driven more by Morris running the ball than Dalton passing the ball. Dalton must have been very rusty. He hasn't played in a while.

If Team Carter had managed to hold their lead it would have been largely due to J.J. Watt. His interception late in the first half and fumble recovery early in the second half turned into a 14-point swing for his team. Those two plays and several others were enough for Watt to be named defensive player of the game.

Matthew Stafford took home the offensive player of the game award. He completed 15 of 25 passes for 316 yards and two touchdowns. He did all of that in just over a quarter's worth of work. That's quite a bit of work in a very short amount of time. A lot of Stafford's yardage came from tossing the ball up to his Lions teammate Golden Tate and Odell Beckham Jr.

The NFL experimented with uprights four feet more narrow than usual. Adam Vinatieri clearly didn't care much for the narrow target. The nearly automatic kicker missed two extra points and a short field goal. He did make the last extra point that made it a 4-point game. That was a big one.

The win for Team Irvin sets up a matchup next year between Michael Irvin and last year's winning captain, Jerry Rice. That Pro Bowl will be in Hawaii.

In non-Pro Bowl news, Cleveland Browns receiver Josh Gordon took several steps closer to completely dismantling his NFL career. He failed another drug/alcohol test. This time it was reportedly for alcohol. This should bring him a year-long suspension. Another year-long suspension.