Pro Bowl 2015: Andrew Luck, Tony Romo drafted first by captains

Were you planning on watching the Pro Bowl this weekend? No? Well you won’t be able to resist after hearing about the new rules the NFL has put in place! That’s right, the league is making goal posts thinner for the first time since the 1920s!

Bust out the cooler and invite the gang over -- this game’s gonna have more missed field goals than you could possibly dream of!

Hall of Fame wide receivers Cris Carter and Michael Irvin will captain teams that square off in the NFL’s annual postseason exhibition Sunday night at the University of Phoenix Stadium. After shedding the conference format, the NFL is again pitting two legends against each other as alumni captains who handpicked their players in a real-life version of fantasy football. But the all-star game will also feature a few new twists. This year, the Pro Bowl will include narrower goal posts, longer extra points and more timeouts.

Headlining Team Carter is Indianapolis Colts quarterback Andrew Luck, who was drafted with the first overall pick for the second year in a row. Michael Irvin loaded up on Dallas Cowboys stars when he selected Tony Romo and DeMarco Murray with his first two picks, and then drafted five more players from his former team.

It’s finally here -- the biggest game of the season, featuring the best talent in the league. It’s the one you’ve all been waiting for ... the 2015 Pro Bowl! Of course, that’s how the league would like reality to look, and that’s certainly how they try and bill it, but the Pro Bowl has struggled to maintain viewers in recent years.

Whatever the case, the latest iteration of the game continues to evolve as the league tries to find the sweet spot that keeps people interested, and it’s set for Sunday night on ESPN. This year, they had two former players serve as captains to draft the respective teams to play in the Pro Bowl, something they started doing last year. That event drew some attention, though it also did as much last year while the game itself saw its ratings drop.

The Pro Bowl draft is over and the teams have been chosen. The NFL’s version of an all-star game comes to your television this Sunday.

As part of the league’s effort to make the Pro Bowl actually digestible, the rosters are no longer conferenced as they had been for the majority of the game’s lifespan. The rosters were completed Wednesday when Hall of Fame wide receivers Michael Irvin and Cris Carter drafted their players and coaches.

There’s a lot going on with Antonio Brown’s suit. A whole lot. This is the kind of attire the goofy uncle wears in a sitcom when the family travels to Hawaii for that one episode and he happens to find them at the hotel.

It’s absolutely the kind of suit Cosmo Kramer would wear unironically.

“It was hard,” Luck told the Indianapolis Star when asked about the decision. “But once you get out here and you get around the guys and some of your teammates, it feels better. But the morning after the (loss), you get a phone call and they need your decision and they want to make sure you’re not hurt, can you play and all that. I’m sitting there like ... (sighs).”

“I mean, it is a privilege, but I am hurting in a sense. But I realize it’s an honor to be voted in and the fans really enjoy it. So, I did it.”

The legitimacy of the Pro Bowl comes under fire every year by NFL fans and analysts alike, but that won’t stop bettors from putting money on the game’s outcome. The 2015 NFL Pro Bowl will be played on Sunday, and for the second straight year, bettors won’t be wagering on AFC versus NFC but rather teams that were chosen schoolyard-style by two Hall of Famers. This year, the alumni captains were Cris Carter and Michael Irvin.

The rosters were set at the beginning of the week, allowing betting sites to start throwing up different props and the like. Team Carter is getting the edge from Las Vegas Sportsbook, favored by two points over Team Irvin. The over/under is posted at 77.5, a very reasonable line considering the nature of these games.

Jason Garrett and the Dallas Cowboys coaching staff will join captain Michael Irvin in an effort to upend Team Carter in the 2015 Pro Bowl on Sunday at University of Phoenix Stadium in Glendale, Ariz. The game will be shown live at 8 p.m. ET on ESPN.

Naturally, Irvin loaded up on Cowboys, starting with the offense, and will stick with his guys in this relatively new format. Irvin is a Hall of Fame receiver who won three Super Bowls with the Cowboys between 1992-95.

Breakdown: Luck was a no-brainer for Carter. The 2012 first-overall pick has been lighting up the league from day one, making the playoffs all three seasons in Indianapolis. Brees had another prolific year in New Orleans, tying Ben Roethlisberger for the passing crown. Dalton is one of the more curious picks in Pro Bowl history, chosen as an alternate.

Breakdown: Charles is one of, if not, the best backs in the NFL. The Kansas City star can run, catch and block with a gift of top-end speed. Forsett came out of nowhere to earn a Pro Bowl berth this season, rushing for 1,266 yards. Morris has been steady for Washington, gaining over 1,000 yards in each of his three years.

We can’t have a Sunday without football, right? The Pro Bowl is set to kick off this weekend at the site of the Super Bowl in Glendale, Ariz., pitting this season’s best players against each other in the NFL’s version of an all-star game. Several rule changes in the past few years have made the game more exciting, and this year’s contest should be a fun and entertaining showcase of the league’s elite talents.

One of the big changes came last year when the NFL decided to remove the traditional AFC vs. NFC head-to-head format. Instead, the league now picks two honorary captains, who then choose their teams and fill out the rosters via a fantasy draft. This year’s captains are two Hall of Famers, Michael Irvin and Cris Carter.

The Pro Bowl has been of waning interest to NFL fans for years now. Despite a few gimmicky rule shakeups like longer extra points, a new draft format and a public relations campaign attempting to package the game as real life fantasy football, the 2015 game doesn’t look to put a charge back into the fan base.

But if you appreciate the Pro Bowl for what it is -- a group of really good football players screwing around in a pickup game for a couple of hours -- it can still be somewhat enjoyable.

When Jason Garrett and his offensive coordinator, Scott Linehan, take the sidelines to coach the Pro Bowl, it probably won’t feel too different than coaching a normal game. That’s because the Dallas Cowboys coaching staff has a whopping six members of their offense playing for them in the NFL’s annual all-star game.

Unsurprisingly, Michael Irvin, one of the alumni pickers for the Pro Bowl squads, loaded up on players from his former team. Quarterback Tony Romo, running back DeMarco Murray and three of the offensive linemen who block for them -- Tyron Smith, Travis Frederick and Zack Martin -- are all suiting up for Team Irvin.

After stepping up to fill in for the Denver Broncos, the Baltimore Ravens will man the sidelines for Team Carter during the Pro Bowl on Sunday. John Harbaugh and staff will work with alumni captain Cris Carter when they face off against the Dallas Cowboys’ coaching staff and their Hall of Fame alumni captain, Michael Irvin.

The Broncos, who had the best record of teams eliminated in the Divisional round, were originally slated to coach one team until John Fox mutually parted ways with Denver following the postseason loss to the Indianapolis Colts.

Sparks, who is from Glendale, is best known for her appearance on American Idol in 2007 and for hit songs like “A Broken Wing,” “This Is My Now,” “Tattoo,” “No Air” and “One Step at a Time.” Her singing of the Pro Bowl national anthem is one of several events in her annual Jordin Sparks Experience in Glendale, which also includes an appearance with Entertainment Tonight and a night club party.

ESPN will broadcast the game live from University of Phoenix Stadium this Sunday beginning at 8 p.m. ET. It probably won’t be very exciting. But if you’re a Jordin Sparks fan, at least you have the national anthem to look forward to.

For the second time, the Pro Bowl will be chosen by two Hall of Fame players picking teams rather than dividing by conference. This year, former Minnesota Vikings wide receiver Cris Carter has been tabbed as one of the pickers. The teams were chosen Wednesday during a televised draft on the NFL Network.

While his opponent Michael Irvin started his team with DeMarco Murray and Joe Haden, Carter’s team will have J.J. Watt of the Houston Texans and Antonio Brown of the Pittsburgh Steelers. Watt is the expected Defensive Player of the Year and perhaps even the league’s MVP. Brown led all players in catches (129) and receiving yards (1,698). Both were selected as captains by virtue of their voting totals.

Here’s the full roster for Team Irvin:

HC Jason Garrett

The 2015 Pro Bowl Draft is underway and alumni captains Cris Carter and Michael Irvin made their first official selections during Tuesday’s pre-selection draft.

The majority of the NFL’s most popular players will be drafted on Wednesday during the primetime selection show on NFL Network. On Tuesday, however, many of the players along the lines and on special teams were selected by Irvin and Carter. Each team will eventually include 44 players -- 21 on offense, 18 on defense and five on special teams.

Last year, the NFL did away with the AFC vs. NFC format and began using “captains” to oversee a fantasy draft to fill out the teams. In 2014, Jerry Rice and Deion Sanders were the honorary captains, with this year’s choices being Hall of Fame receivers Michael Irvin and Cris Carter.

Steelers wide receiver Antonio Brown, Texans defensive end J.J. Watt, Browns cornerback Joe Haden and Cowboys running back DeMarco Murray were selected as the four player captains, per ESPN. Brown and Watt will help pick one team while Haden and Murray will help pick the other.

The 2015 NFL Pro Bowl is just around the corner, which means it’s time for the Pro Bowl draft. The rules are the same as last season. Two captains will select their teams in a draft format prior to the game being played on Jan. 25. The teams began to take shape on Tuesday with initial picks, but the majority of the draft will be held on Wednesday, beginning at 8 p.m. ET.

Those four player captains will assist Cris Carter and Michael Irvin, who are the captains on the two sides. The player captains will be assisting them in the draft, though Carter and Irvin will have final say on the rosters. John Randle will be Carter’s defensive co-captain, while Darren Woodson will be the defensive co-captain for Irvin.

Williams will receive $400,000 for making the Pro Bowl, according to Robert Raiola. The bonus is only slightly less than some rookies will make for the full season. For Williams, however, it’s only a small drop in the bucket as part of his six-year, $96 million contract.

A couple other players also cashed in:

Now that the Pro Bowl rosters have been announced, it’s time for our favorite debate of the NFL season -- who was snubbed by the voters? We know it is really hard for the fans, writers and coaches to agree on the best players in the league, so it should be no surprise that several deserving players were not invited to this season’s all-star party.

Last year the NFL made a change to the Pro Bowl format to spur fan interest and create more buzz. Instead of the familiar AFC vs NFC format, the players voted to the game are assigned to teams by “captains” via a fantasy draft. There are 88 players that participate in the Pro Bowl, though not all of them are drafted. Four are chosen as offensive and defensive captains, two are picked by coaches to fill special needs, and others are assigned to teams in order to fill out the rosters after the initial draft selections. This year’s Pro Bowl will take place on Sunday, Jan. 25, 2015 at University of Phoenix Stadium in Glendale, Ariz., one week before the Super Bowl is to be held there.