Pro Bowl 2018: Time, TV schedule, and news for NFL’s all-star game

With just one week before Super Bowl 52, we’ve reached our annual exhibition showcase. The Pro Bowl features some of the league’s best players, along with alternatives who inevitably replaced most of the starters. It’s being held in Orlando for the second straight year, and will kick off at 3 p.m. ET on ESPN (live stream at WatchESPN).

The game is AFC vs. NFC, which returns for a second year after a strange experiment with fantasy drafts never really took off. As always, there are a handful of players who pulled out of the game due to injury, competing in the Super Bowl, or general disinterest. On the AFC side, big names like Philip Rivers, DeAndre Hopkins, A.J. Green, Joey Bosa, and Khalil Mack won’t be participating. The NFC team will be missing star power in Carson Wentz, Julio Jones, Larry Fitzgerald, and Aaron Donald.

With the New England Patriots and Philadelphia Eagles reaching the Super Bowl, that also eliminates several notable names from the Pro Bowl. Tom Brady, Rob Gronkowski, Zach Ertz, and Fletcher Cox are among a few players who will be sitting this one out while they prepare for the big game.

Thanks to the game’s low-stakes nature, there are a handful of rule changes for the sake of player safety. Kickoffs are eliminated entirely, blitzes and offensive shifts are banned, and intentional grounding is legal. There are also two timeouts allotted per quarter, as compared to three per half, and defenses are required to play in a vanilla 4-3 scheme.

These are just a few of the major rule differences, as the NFL still struggles to balance the desire for both competitive games and a safe playing style. Nobody wants to suffer a serious injury in the pointless exhibition game, but at the same time, fans don’t want to watch them going half-speed and looking like they’re not trying to win.

It’s doubtful that the league will ever find a Pro Bowl format that satisfies everyone, but for now, the game goes on. We can only wait and see what kind of effort the players put in on Sunday.

While the NFL probably isn’t wading into the national title debate, the Knights sure don’t mind getting the words “national championship, undefeated season” in there one more time. They continue to carry themselves like, well, champions. They paid out championship bonuses owed to coaches, hung a title banner, and had a parade. At least one major national title selector actually has the Knights at No. 1 as well, so it’s not just UCF brass blowing smoke.

The rookie has missed some time this season due to injury, but he’s averaged 83.9 yards per game over 11 games, and he’s got eight touchdowns. He’s also got 213 receiving yards and a touchdown catch. Fournette’s per-game average puts him in front of Pro Bowlers LeSean McCoy and Mark Ingram.