Betting on the 2010 NFL Pro Bowl?
For the first time since 1980, the Pro Bowl will be played somewhere other than Honolulu.
That’s right, the 2010 NFL Pro Bowl between the AFC’s and NFC’s best will take place Sunday, Jan. 31, 2010, at Dolphin Stadium in South Florida. It will feature some intriguing match ups too. Nowhere will that be more evident than when the NFC wide receivers try to shed the AFC’s starting cornerbacks.
With the Jets’ Darrelle Revis and the Raiders’ Nnamdi Asomugha pestering and shadowing DeSean Jackson, Miles Austin, and Sidney Rice, the NFC may find it difficult to get any sort of big play in the passing game. Throw in Ed Reed at free safety and Brian Dawkins at strong safety, and the NFC’s offensive coordinator Jason Garrett may want to consider calling Barry Switzer to get some quick pointers on the wishbone.
On the contrary, you have to like the NFC stable of quarterbacks over what the AFC is running out there. Matt Schaub will start for the AFC and will be backed up and at some point, replaced by Vince Young and David Garrard.
Meanwhile, the NFC is running Aaron Rodgers onto the field first, and then Donovan McNabb, and eventually Tony Romo. The NFC quarterbacks should be able to carry the day, providing they have any open receivers.
The running back duel will be the other place of greatest intrigue. The AFC’s Chris Johnson, the guy who makes greased lightning look like a lumbering lineman, was the first back in the NFL to rush for more than 2,000 yards in a season since Terrell Davis in 1998. Let a linebacker take a play off to see if he can tell whether his wife and girlfriend are sitting too close together in the stands, and we may be watching a new Pro Bowl record for longest run from scrimmage.
The NFC quarterbacks will be sticking the ball into the gut of the man who was the greatest running back in the league until Johnson came along, the one they call All-Day. Adrian Peterson may be running angry, which will be nothing new, but would be an anomaly for a Pro Bowl. He will still be sore about losing to the Saints. He will still be a little embarrassed about putting the ball on the ground three times in the NFC championship game. And he will be in no mood to be outshone by some kid from Tennessee.
With the substandard quarterback situation on the AFC side and the NFC having trouble finding open receivers against those shut-down AFC corners, look for the MVP to emerge from the unlikeliest of places, the kicking game.
In a year when kickers were misfiring on key kicks like scud missiles in the Middle East, the Pro Bowl hero will arise from the AFC bench, tighten his shoelaces and drill the game-winning field goal.
Indeed, this will mark the birth of a new tradition in the 2010 edition of the NFC-AFC Pro Bowl.
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