I watched the Pro Bowl. Don't judge me. My biggest takeaway was that the risk of injury is somewhat overstated (including by me). There's so little hitting and tackling going on, these guys are about as likely to get injured rolling around the living room with their kids as in this game.
Yes, Tyler Eifert left the game with a foot injury, but it's not believed to be serious, and Eifert does have something of an injury history -- it's the kind of bump or bruise he could easily have sustained at any offseason activity. Nothing happened in this game that will seriously cause people to look at scrapping it entirely next season, unless you count it simply not being very good.
A few takeaways:
As expected, Team Irvin won big. It had the best quarterback on the field and a stellar wide receiver corps, while Team Rice paid a little too much attention to drafting defensive players who can't or don't actually hit anybody. Khalil Mack is a great young pass rusher, but obviously his skills were wasted in this game.
Running backs didn't run, but produced anyway. I advised against drafting running backs in this game in daily leagues because the teams don't run the ball. That was true; on Team Rice no one ran for more than 20 yards, and on Team Irvin only Latavius Murray (42) rushed for more than 27. But Doug Martin scored, and three different running backs (Devonta Freeman, Todd Gurley and Darren Sproles) caught touchdowns. Point made: there's so much scoring and so little tackling in this game, that running backs can produce without actually running the ball. I made Freeman one of my top two running backs to use in this game for his pass catching ability, but missed on my top back (Adrian Peterson) who had nearly as many receptions (3) as rushing yards (4). In the future, only use running backs who catch passes and then do something after the catch. That being said, Peterson did have a touchdown called back in this game, so the pick wasn't that bad.
The number of players opting out of the Pro Bowl resulted in some pretty shoddy quarterbacking. It didn't seem ideal that guys like Teddy Bridgewater and Tyrod Taylor were Pro Bowl quarterbacks, and indeed there were 7 combined interceptions in the game. It's not all on the passers; there's obviously going to be a lack of chemistry with player working together for the first time. Making a great quarterback used to spreading it around to a dozen different targets like Russell Wilson the top pick was a savvy move by Irvin. (I'm a little uncomfortable by the amount of times in the last week I've associated the words "Irvin" and "savvy," so I'll stop now.)
Tight ends rule in this game. In my preview I thought the tight ends would do pretty well, as they've done in previous years, and so they did. Travis Kelce 91 yards and 2 TDs, Delanie Walker 80 yards and a score. Granted, Eifert and Gary Barnidge got left out of the fun. You can't have everything. In general, though, these guys are good options.
Big passing numbers don't always result in great wide receiver numbers. There are just so many guys involved, you're basically playing roulette with starting wide receivers. Julio Jones, DeAndre Hopkins, Allen Robinson and Jarvis Landry caught touchdowns. Odell Beckham Jr., Amari Cooper and T.Y. Hilton each caught only one pass. Maybe the takeaway is to make sure your receivers work with a guy like Russell Wilson more than Tyrod Taylor, I don't know.
The biggest stories weren't part of the actual Pro Bowl. Calvin Johnson apparently told Jim Caldwell he was retiring. Make sure you move Golden Tate up your early draft board, plus the Lions will really need to add more wide receivers this offseason. In an unrelated (yet kind of related, thanks to the Calvin Johnson rule) bit of news, the NFL apparently believes they're in a good place with officiating what constitutes a catch. This is disappointing news, but given the NFL's typical lack of connection with reality, unsurprising.
The bottom line is that there are worse ways to spend 3 hours than watching the Pro Bowl, but you're taking a lot of chance putting too much stock in anything that happens from year to year. Give me players trying hard and playing full-time in a real game over spot duty guys in an exhibition game any time. And hey, the Super Bowl is only six days away.