6 events the NFL should add to make the Pro Bowl great again

No one cares about the Pro Bowl, but the NFL is taking a page from ESPN 8’s book to breathe life back into the event.

Step I: add dodgeball.

The league will dodge, duck, dip, dive and dodge its way through Pro Bowl weekend in an attempt to drum up interest in professional sports’ least interesting All-Star Game. Last year’s game earned its lowest ratings in the past decade, despite going up against regular season NBA games and the Pro Bowlers Association’s stretch run.

Dodgeball is just one of four new skills competitions, which include something called the “Power Relay Challenge” and the Best Hands competition, which will examine which conference, AFC or NFC, features the league’s softest skin and strongest nail beds. Though that’s a solid start to gleaning interest from an increasingly mundane weekend of non-mattering football, there’s potential for so much more.

The league needs some extra selling points, too. Not just in its quest for higher ratings, but in order to lure its top players to Orlando. Middle Florida is a significant step down from the game’s standard location in Honolulu. Lions standout Darius Slay might not even bother making the trip now that the destination is a landlocked city best known for throngs of screaming children and overrated theme parks.

We’ve got some ideas to get Slay and NFL fans across the world back on board. Here are the sports/games/feats of strength SB Nation’s NFL writers would add to Pro Bowl weekend. For best results, remember the rules of “the Ocho.” If it’s almost a sport, we’ve got it here.

David Lynch churned out so many great things in the 1980s and early 90s. Twin Peaks. Blue Velvet. And his finest creation, American Gladiators.*

Gladiators was the first show I remember ever taping on my four-head VCR, frantically adjusting the tracking to watch Rico Constantino tame the Eliminator and win his season of the Saturday morning staple. Moderately athletic, often be-permed men and women would take on larger, more athletic better-permed men and women in a series of vaguely athletic endeavors no one outside of military service would ever find useful.

It was awesome, even if the overly produced late-2000s version was a massive disappointment. And it needs to come back, preferably on a live broadcast that eschews the reality TV constraints needlessly thrust on the reboot.

The contest is practically made for football players. Powerball is essentially one giant tackling drill. The whole point of (half of) breakthrough and conquer is literally to gain 15 yards. The biggest variable? How do you choose Gladiators to compete against NFL players — essentially the largest, most athletic people on earth?

You let the players draft their biggest and best in an AFC-NFC showdown. Imagine Tyreek Hill skittering between obstacles as Aaron Rodgers fires tennis balls at his face from a cannon. Or Von Miller and Michael Bennett picking up the pugil sticks and whomping one another until one plummets to a pile of crash pads. Or Dontari Poe swinging down a rope and sending Johnny Hekker into low-earth orbit as the world’s most terrifying human cannonball.

The possibilities are endless and each one is amazing. The NFL has the opportunity to cram elite athletes into nonsensical games made for children. It’s the logical extension after dodgeball.
- Christian D’Andrea

*likely untrue

NFL players are obviously great athletes. But often times during game broadcasts, you hear that players may have played another sport, and many seemingly have played basketball. I would like to see these guys get on a basketball floor, and compete.

There’s plenty of players in the NFL that have played at the collegiate level, like Jimmy Graham, Antonio Gates, Julius Peppers, Martellus Bennett, Vincent Jackson, Connor Barwin, Julius Thomas, and more. Even guys like Mike Evans played well at the high school level.

But Gates was particularly good. He averaged 20.6 points and 7.7 rebounds in his final season at Kent State, where they went to the Elite Eight.

It’s not a football event by any means, and most coaches would likely be against it because of the greater risk of injury. But to watch the players go out there and display their athleticism against others who did the same but chose football could be an eye-opening experience for fans.

With as physical as these guys have become accustomed to playing, they’d definitely need game officials for their own safety, as opposed to pick up games.
- Harry Lyles Jr.

Just last month, a Double Dare reunion special aired, and host Marc Summers said that he was all for bringing the show back. And what better place to revive a Nickelodeon show than in Florida? Plus, who isn’t dying to see guys the size of Tyron Smith trying to fit — and move — inside the One-Ton Human Hamster Wheel?

Cam Newton could easily find (and probably end up wearing) a flag in Granny’s Attic:

Get the coaches involved, too. Mike Zimmer and John Harbaugh, expert nasalologists, would be able to handle a giant nose filled with fake snot.

It’s not just about putting elite athletes through a silly obstacle course of physical challenges, though. Don’t forget the trivia questions. I’d be all for a battle of the minds between Aaron Rodgers and Martellus Bennett to see who knows that Eric Stoltz was the original Marty McFly or that the Blorenge is located in Wales.

And finally, the players should win the same prizes as the original Double Dare contestants did in the 80s and 90s. British Knight sneakers, Kay Bee Toys gift certificates, and Casio everything — let’s do it.
- Sarah Hardy

Ping pong might seem a bit boring compared to American Gladiators or Double Dare, but I watch the Atlanta Falcons play ping pong against each other every week in the locker room, and trust me on this one. Watching professional athletes compete in anything, including ping pong, is a wonder to behold.

Julio Jones is so damn good at ping pong that it’s unreal. He’s got long arms, he’s fast, and his reflexes and instincts are nearly superhuman. We actually have Falcons ping pong power rankings, and I don’t see anyone unseating Julio this season. He’s the Dallas Cowboys of the Falcons ping pong landscape.

I could watch NFL players, and specifically Jones, play ping pong for hours. I actually do watch NFL players play ping pong for hours, and it’s a delight.

Look, almost anything is better than the actual Pro Bowl game, so ping pong seems like a reasonable enough supplement to these festivities. I have also watched Falcons players square up against each other in dominoes, and I would also watch that over the Pro Bowl any day.
- Jeanna Thomas

Dodgeball is already one type of schoolyard game and I love the trend. The NFL school embrace it and go full elementary school P.E. with the Pro Bowl.

Other options include:

Just about everybody has played or seen a game of dodgeball, but the ridiculous athleticism of NFL players is what makes it fun. Seeing that same athleticism applied to something like kickball? Sign me up.

Marshawn Lynch already gave us a preview of what that would be like:

Watching that athleticism get channeled into something like hide and seek? Yes, please. Take a second and imagine 6’5, 333-pound Oakland Raiders offensive lineman Kelechi Osemele trying to hide behind a tree or something.

Dodgeball is a great start, and the NFL should continue the trend by going full kids games.
- Adam Stites

Dance off

I don’t think anyone could beat Odell Beckham Jr. However, enough players probably think they could that there’d be no shortage of contenders forced to get creative with their moves.

Gentlemen, let’s dance!
- Ryan Van Bibber