5 winners and 4 losers from the rainy, surprisingly fun 2019 Pro Bowl

Well, there’s officially only one game remaining in the 2018 NFL season. You know, the one at the end with the rings and commercials and Tom Brady. This weekend, the Pro Bowl served as the appetizer, holding us over until the main event on Super Bowl Sunday.

On a chilly, rain-soaked Sunday in central Florida, the AFC blew out the NFC by a score that you probably don’t care about and doesn’t really matter, but we’ll tell you anyway: 26-7. If you think that’s a good omen for the Patriots next week against the Rams, there’s probably no real correlation. The AFC has won three years in a row now, which corresponds to both a Super Bowl win and a Super Bowl loss for New England.

But we have an entire week to talk about Rams-Patriots. Instead, let’s take a moment to appreciate all the weird, wild, and omg why that the 2019 Pro Bowl had to offer.

Here are our five winners and four losers:

The Pro Bowl is an easy target for jokes. It basically exists so players can say they were an X-time Pro Bowler and make a little extra money while they wish their team were playing in the Super Bowl the following week. Like, at least preseason football has some stakes.

But if you accept that and don’t pretend the Pro Bowl is anything else, then the Pro Bowl can actually be — dare we say? — fun.

This year was no exception, and the person we have to thank most for that is ... Jason Garrett?!

It started when he lined up Ezekiel Elliott in the shotgun formation so that Zeke could hand the ball off to another running back, Saquon Barkley. But the moment Garrett proved he’s not in fact a robot came later, when he ran a fake punt with Elliott:

Garrett was just getting started, though. He also put Elliott, Barkley, and Alvin Kamara in on defense — and it worked (sorry, Taylor Lewan).

Same thing with receiver Mike Evans, who made a pretty dang good cornerback by coming down with an interception. That also gave us THE most Pro Bowl play ever, and we adored it:

Now that’s a delightfully stupid time!

The AFC took its own turn with position changes. Jalen Ramsey lined up at wide receiver and caught a touchdown pass from Deshaun Watson, while Melvin Ingram got just as many carries (and two more yards) as teammate Melvin Gordon.

We also got one Patrick Mahomes no-look attempt, and even though it wasn’t completed, it wouldn’t have felt right if he hadn’t at least tried:

Next time, JuJu. Next time.

Remember when the Pro Bowl was played every year in beautiful, sunny Hawaii? LOL, not anymore. Now it’s in our theme park mecca of Orlando, just up Interstate 4 from Disney World, Epcot Center, SeaWorld (is that still open?), the Wizarding World of Harry Potter, and uh, The Holy Land Experience.

That also means there’s a good chance of rain. This year, it was 100 percent, all game long. Andrew Luck, bless his dorky heart, at least thought the weather was “a little bit of fun”:

Everyone else probably didn’t enjoy it as much. Amari Cooper and Jarvis Landry each had an egregious shoulda-been-a-TD drop, and there were a total of five interceptions in a game where it’s generous to call defense “optional.”

One of those picks was thrown by wide receiver Adam Thielen, who admitted the weather didn’t treat him kindly.

“I was soaking wet, the ball was soaking wet, and the wind was against me. I’m not a man of excuses, but it wasn’t in my favor, that’s for sure,” he said.

Good news: He can now go back to ... Minnesota. In January. With a polar vortex coming.

Patrick Mahomes made the swear jar a little richer after forgetting he was mic’d up, letting an f-bomb slip, and then hilariously realizing his mistake:

He was named offensive MVP for the game — probably because he threw for 156 yards and a touchdown, but we like to think it was a little bit for his “offensive” language too.

If Mitchell Trubisky or Xavien Howard got injured Sunday, Adams could’ve found himself in the loser column. The Jets safety was already the subject of some criticism after he injured the Patriots’ mascot by tackling him at a Pro Bowl practice earlier in the week.

He parlayed that attention into an unrestrained performance in the Pro Bowl where he was all over the field. He blew up Howard when both AFC defensive backs were trying for an interception, and then he laid out Trubisky on a sack.

A few minutes later, Adams hauled in an interception on another ill-advised trick play from the NFC.

Adams was a deserving winner of the Pro Bowl Defensive MVP Award after playing a meaningless exhibition game like his hair was on fire.

It was a rough year for Jason Witten and Booger McFarland in their first season as the analysts on Monday Night Football. The Pro Bowl gave them one more chance to show how much they learned and grew this season, but nope — it was another reminder to audiences that they’re really not good at this.

Just a few minutes into the game, Witten seemed to suggest that Colts tight end Eric Ebron was one of the favorite targets of Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes all year:

On the AFC’s next drive, McFarland said he wants to see Mahomes become a player who will drop back in the pocket, scan the field, and go through his progressions. What?! The Chiefs quarterback is probably going to be named the NFL MVP next week because he picked defenses apart all year from the pocket. Did Booger not watch Mahomes at all this year?

ESPN will reportedly bring the same Monday Night Football team back next year, and — for some reason — even had the crew replace their popular Coaches’ Film Room during the college football national championship.

The Pro Bowl should have been a low-pressure, easy situation for the team to show next season will be better. It didn’t.

Oh, and Witten broke the Pro Bowl trophy, too.

JuJu Smith-Schuster limped off the field in the second quarter and never returned on Sunday.

The good news is the Steelers have seven months to get him healthy before the preseason starts. The bad news is Pittsburgh needs him as ready as possible now that a potential Antonio Brown-less future looms.

A rainy, 45-degree day in Orlando served as prime evidence why this game should never have been moved out of Hawaii. It also made Sunday a banner day for players to rock the timeless hoodie-under-your-jersey look.

Jarvis Landry and Keenan Allen both sported the sweatshirt layer in Florida, taking advantage of the fact no defender would care enough to drag them down by their hoods. Eric Ebron wore one too, getting it in a selfie he took with Deshaun Watson on the field while the clocked ticked down on the third quarter.

The Pro Bowl is supposed to be a scoring onslaught. Defenses take it easy, don’t tackle much, and play pretty soft coverage.

So why did it take the NFC about 51 minutes to finally get some points on the board? The conference’s first drive of the game got all the way inside the 5-yard line, but the AFC stuffed Kyle Juszczyk on a fourth down to get the goal-line stand. Then the NFC had three consecutive three-and-out drives.

The NFC was down 17-0 at halftime and the second half didn’t start off much better when Mitchell Trubisky threw an awful interception on the first play.

A fourth-quarter touchdown kept the NFC from getting shut out, but the AFC actually played good defense and finished the game with seven sacks and three interceptions.

One week ago, Dee Ford’s offsides penalty prevented the Chiefs from clinching a win over the Patriots — if you recall, as I’m sure you do, the Patriots would go on to win the game and make it to the Super Bowl because that’s what always frickin’ happens.

Ford owned the mistake and said he’d use it as motivation to get better.

Wellll, this is maybe not the best start:

At least this time it didn’t matter.