The NFL on Monday announced that they are replacing the Pro Bowl with week-long skills challenges and a flag football game. The Pro Bowl, which has been played since 1951, will get replaced with The Pro Bowl Games, which will last for a week.  

Dodgeball events, throwing competitions and a 40-yard dash are likely to be part of the skill challenges event.

  Introducing the 2023 Pro Bowl Games presented by Verizon. 🙌

Las Vegas will host the inaugural edition of the new format. Apart from the skills challenges, the Pro bowl will conclude with a flag football game instead of  a full-contact football game between the best players in the AFC and NFC.

The flag football game at Allegiant Stadium is scheduled for 5 February 2023.

“The Pro Bowl is something that we’ve been looking at for a while, really continuing to evolve. Coming out of last year’s game, we really made the decision based on a lot of internal conversations, getting feedback from GMs and coaches, getting a lot of feedback from players. We think there’s a real opportunity to do something wholly different here and move away from the traditional tackle football game. We decided the goal is to celebrate 88 of the biggest stars in the NFL in a really positive, fun, yet competitive way”,  NFL executive Peter O’Reilly told the Associated Press.

“The feedback very directly from guys who had been in the Pro Bowl recently was to keep the construct of the week, make sure you’re having that multi-day element. It was overwhelmingly positive both from players as well as from clubs”, O’Reilly added.