NFL Pro Bowl open thread

Ed: Last week I won the championship round predictions by picking the Broncos and the Seahawks, while Jazz picked the 49ers in the last game. For that, what do I get? I get to write the Pro Bowl open thread post (7:30 pm ET, NBC). I’m telling you, I just can’t win. Maybe I should have picked the Patriots …

Jazz: You win some, you lose some. Of course, a review of last week’s championship games would be incomplete without noting that while Ed picked the Seahawks, he was unaware that he was actually picking the dynamic duo of the Seahawks and the refs. But that’s just sour grapes on my part and to the victor go the spoils. For what it’s worth, I only picked the 49ers to cheer up IrishSpy

Ed: So this year, instead of the lame selections of the best players not on the two best teams in the league by the fans, we got the lame selections of the best players not on the two best teams in the league by … Jerry Rice and Deion Sanders. It’s so much fun that ESPN still didn’t have the roster listings last night for either team. And if you didn’t care much for the Richard Sherman post-game interview last week, you probably hated the “draft” that produced the teams — that took TWO DAYS. “The faux trash talk made for an unfunny and never-ending broadcast,” wrote Todd Archer of ESPNDallas. I don’t doubt it.

Jazz: I have to agree with Ed on this part. The decision to move the Pro Bowl to the week before the Super Bowl (where none of the real qualifiers for entry will dare risk an injury, assuming they show up at all) along with the remix of the draft, has turned this into a game that we really, really, really don’t give a hoot about. This is opposed to the traditional Pro Bowl format when we simply didn’t care. This game is essentially little more than an awards ceremony for the top performers and a chance for them (and the media) to have a free trip to Hawaii. I’ll have to be pretty bored if I even wind up watching it.

Ed: So here’s my prediction for the game, which will be even more goofy than usual thanks to the weird playground-friend-distribution system. There will be no defense at all, as the rules will make it all but impossible to stop the passing game, and everyone will avoid getting hurt as usual by playing something between high-school tackle and semi-pro touch football. I’m setting the over-under at 125 points, and I’ll pick Team Rice to win, just because … Jerry Rice.

Jazz: That’s a pretty bold prediction, and of course it will turn out to be wrong. My scientific analysis of the two teams and the conditions they are meeting under have led me to predict that the Deion Sanders team will prevail, and the total score will be 72. How did I determine that Team Sanders will carry the day? Easy Peasy… Ed didn’t pick them.

Back to you.

Ed: Well, that method has proven reliable lately, so … it’s a fair cop. Maybe next year, the NFL can rename this the Festivus Bowl and dispense with the “game” altogether. They can offer us Feats of Strength, followed by the Airing of Grievances, although without Sherman the latter might not be as much fun.  Don’t expect anything near that level of entertainment out of today’s Hawaiian luau. Instead, this week’s Bad Lip-Reading of the NFL will provide more entertainment in less than four minutes than will the Pro Bowl. And I’m totally taking the Super Bowl thread next week, Jazz.