Sunday, January 30, 2011

Four critical factors that will decide today's Pro Bowl

You can feel it. Open your windows. That brisk chill, that rumbling sound -- it's not the mechanical leviathan plows of winter. It's the human rumble of excitment for the 2011 Pro Bowl, featuring football's greatest stars -- minus the best teams, injured players and those faking it because of the arrest warrant stemming from their last visit to Hawaii -- playing for

The greatest pride of all:

Dominance of their NFL conference.

But who will win? Four elements of game analysis:

1. Hangovers. Which side got most hammered last night? Who played Charlie Sheen? Prostitution arrests can reduce depth, though both conferences will bring buckets of bail money. Still, a key is which team parties hoggiest and hardest. Pictured right is Giants coach Collapsin Tom Coughlin, dancing at the 2009 Super Bowl pregame beer pong party. ADVANTAGE: TOSS UP.
2. Seahawks. The NFC has no Seattle Seahawk. Not one. In other sports, every franchise must be represented on an all-star. It's called the Atlee Hammaker Rule. Apparently, Seattle spent big and kept its players home. Amazing. Even though the NFL has now gone through 140 players, looking for 22 who'll play, not one Seahawk -- from a team that made it through the first round of playoffs -- made the cut. ADVANTAGE: NFC.

3. Turnovers. The team with most turnovers will lose. Last week, personnel shifted like female leads in a Mickey Rourke movie. The Cowboys, who sucked, now have six all-stars. Six. ADVANTAGE: AFC.

4. Ganja. When Tom Brady pulled out, his handlers went with him, and I gotta believe the AFC lost some primo weed. Still, it's hard to imagine Peyton Manning's troops reduced to stems and seeds. ADVANTAGE: TOSS UP.

1 comment:

  1. I assume the only reasons there are no comments here (apart from this one) is that we're all still recovering from the AFC's miraculous near-comeback from a 42-0 deficit to lose by a mere 13 points, thus making the result respectable and probably beating the spread on numerous gambling websites.

    It WAS the AFC that came back, right? Or was it the NFC? Now I don't remember....

    ReplyDelete

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