Jazz: This afternoon we face the daunting, annual task of figuring out why we should bother caring about the Pro Bowl, aside from the fact that it’s almost the end of the season and there’s no other football to watch. Under the new “unconferenced” format adopted last year, we’ll see players from the same conference (and in some cases, the same team) facing off against each other. The big example of that scenario will be receiver T.Y. Hilton and cornerback Vontae Davis of the Colts going head to head. The game will pit Team Irvin against Team Carter, named after the alumni captains selected for the game, Chris Carter and Michael Irvin. They will play in Arizona at University of Phoenix Stadium.
Ed: The Pro Bowl is the NFL’s annual Deflated Ball. It’s the only major-league sport that has their all-star game at a point where arguably the best players are unavailable to prevent injury in the upcoming championship, and everyone else just wants to have fun without risking injury. Given how tough the game is, who can blame them when nothing is on the line? And who can blame the rest of us for watching something more compelling, like the History Channel’s reality-show meltdown in progress? The Pro Bowl has been a joke for so long now that they’ve eliminated the only significant rivalry — the conferences — and now are playing for the honor of … a couple of retired guys. Yee. And haw.
Jazz: I’ll make a pick, I suppose, and it is done in a complete vacuum. Really, it’s hard to say how seriously any of the players will take this spectacle. I’m sure they all like to win, but this is much more of a party than a competitive struggle. So I flipped a coin, and I’ll take Team Irvin.
Ed: Well for the purposes of rivalry — and because I liked Chris Carter a lot more than Michael Irvin as a player — I’ll root for Team Carter. The suspense will be killing me all day long, of course.
Jazz: As a bonus, there should be many sights and sounds to hold our attention. And not that most of you would be lowbrow enough to care about such things, there will be cheerleaders from across the league on the sidelines. You can see a gallery of all of them here. (Yeah, I know… probably nobody will click on that link.)
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