NFC wins flag football contest at NFL Pro Bowl
For Kirk Cousins, it wasn’t quite the NFL-record 33-point comeback against the Indianapolis Colts to win the NFC North.
However, Cousins was the quarterback for the third and final flag football game at the Pro Bowl on Sunday in Las Vegas for a reason.
NFC coach Eli Manning wanted Cousins in that spot to decide the overall winner, and the Minnesota Vikings QB responded by throwing three touchdowns passes to rally the NFC to a 35-33 victory over the AFC in the Pro Bowl Games and end that conference’s five-game losing streak.
Cousins completed 15 of 19 passes for 150 yards in the NFL’s reformatted allstar contest, which gave the NFC the victory.
Based on the earlier flag games and skills competitions, the AFC took a 21-15 lead into the final flag football game.
The Pro Bowl changed its format this season, eliminating the traditional game and replacing it with three flag games played on a 50-yard field and a series of skills competitions.
Each of the first two flag games was worth six points and each skills event was three. The total points were accumulated to form the score entering the final flag game.
“I thought it was awesome,” San Francisco 49ers running back Christian McCaffrey said. “Guys had fun. It got intense there at the end.”
Las Vegas Raiders wide receiver Davante Adams noticed the NFC took the game more seriously than expected, such as sending Dallas Cowboys safety KaVontae Turpin at the quarterback.
“Hopefully, next year the NFC will actually play some man and not sit back in Cover-2 the whole time and blitz one of the fastest men in the league,” Adams said. “Interesting technique by them, but it was still a good time.”
The change to a flag game took some getting used to, but Cousins said that also made it more fun.
“You’re kind of drawing stuff up in the dirt,” he said. “It’s not as defined of a plan, so some of our guys were coming into the huddle saying, ‘Hey, I think if we did this.’ You try to listen to them and incorporate it. So it was fun, but also a little hectic.” McCaffrey agreed. “Learning the rules was a little tricky because this was so different,” McCaffrey said. “But I think everybody learned pretty quick and had fun.”
• The Carolina Panthers have agreed to terms with Ejiro Evero to be their defensive coordinator.
Evero, 42, was the Denver Broncos’ defensive coordinator last season.