PRO BOWL SKILLS COMPETITION IS NO MORE

Several readers have asked us via e-mail whether the NFL has ditched the Skills Competition typically held in conjunction with the Pro Bowl. Frankly, we hadn’t noticed because we don’t pay much attention to the Pro Bowl. Since some of you apparently pay some attention to the Pro Bowl, we had to look into it. As it turns out, the Skills Competition was last held in 2007. According to NFL spokesman Greg Aiello, a "[c]ombination of factors led us to discontinue, including logistics such as the field we conducted it on at the players’ hotel no longer exists.” (Aiello explained that the hotel has taken the field back for other uses.) The league last conducted a rookie flag football game on the beach in Hawaii in 1999. That was the year Patriots running back Robert Andrews Edwards shredded his knee so badly that, at one point, amputation of his foot was a possibility.