Rejected Pro Bowl Skills Challenge Events

By Mike Range

After a mere 71 years of disinterest, the NFL finally came to its senses and discontinued the Pro Bowl game in favor of a Skills Challenge, featuring events like:

Longest Drive 

Not the 12-play, 94-yard type drive, like you would see in, you know, football, but a GOLF drive.

High Stakes

Punt catching, highlighting the game's most exciting play - the fair catch.

Splash Catch 

The water balloon toss game you last cared about at your fourth-grade year-end picnic.

With those making the cut, it's hard to imagine how these didn't:

Brock & Roll 

 Participants are tasked with unrolling Brock Purdy from the hundreds of feet of bubble wrap the 49ers keep him encased in since Trey Lance and Jimmy Garoppolo's injuries.

Hands Up

Defensive backs violently tackle a receiver before the ball is within fifteen feet of them, then see how quickly they can raise both hands to convince the referee they never touched anybody.

QB 40-Yard Cash 

 The league's highest-paid players are timed in a 40-yard shuttle run, where they have to transfer one year's salary in twenty-dollar bills from one end to the other. (At 110 pounds per million dollars, and accounting for the penalty assessed to those whose quarterback rating was lower than the number of millions they "earned" this season, Russell Wilson was expected to finish sometime during the third quarter of the Super Bowl).

Sideline Reporter Gauntlet 

Coaches have sixty seconds to see how many times they can say "We did some good things, we have some things we need to improve."

You Betcha

A random 2022 NFL game is fast-forwarded on TV, during which players take turns yelling "Stop!" The winner is the first one to beat the odds and somehow pause the broadcast on a frame that DOESN'T show Kevin Hart extolling the euphoric bliss of joining DraftKings.

So You Think You Can Sack 

A dummy made of interlocking popsicle sticks (no adhesive!) is placed ten yards behind the line of scrimmage, and defensive players have to sack the "quarterback," but gently enough to not break it or any of the 27 eggs attached to it (bonus points awarded for attempting to sack the mannequin wearing the #12 jersey and its 45 eggs).

Can You Hackett? 

Enter any event and perform poorly enough to be told to leave before it's over.