New Pro Bowl festivities announced, including dodgeball and long-drive competitions

The National Football League has announced its Pro Bowl festivities in Las Vegas that will replace the annual game next February.

There are 10 total events for the Pro Bowl, with five on Feb. 2 and the other five three days later, one week before Super Bowl LVII in Glendale, Ariz.

Day one will consist of both a precision passing competition as well as a best catch contest, but that’s hardly where the fun starts.

There also will be a dodgeball tournament — round one will be the AFC offense against its defense, as well as the NFC’s offensive and defensive players going at it. The winners will face off in the finals. Four players from each conference will also grab their golf clubs for a long-drive competition. 

There also will be a “Lightning Round” consisting of three contests in it alone. The first is a water-balloon toss, followed by catching punts from a JUGS machine. The final part of the challenge is called the “Thrill of the Spill,” where players from each conference will aim at targets attached to a bucket hanging above the opposing conference’s coach – the first team to dump the bucket on the other coach wins.

BILLS’ DAMAR HAMLIN DISCHARGED FROM BUFFALO HOSPITAL AFTER COMPLETING COMPREHENSIVE TESTS

Aside from 7-on-7 flag football games on Sunday, the best catch contest will finish up on Sunday. There are also two separate skills competitions, similar to the skills contest during NBA All-Star Weekend, which will include a tire runs, blocking sleds, and other drill-like events. The conferences punters and long snappers will also complete in a game of “Kick Tac Toe.”

The NFL announced in September that it was doing away with a Pro Bowl game, and instead moving onto more backyard-like events.

“The Pro Bowl is something that we’ve been looking at for a while, really continuing to evolve,” NFL executive Peter O’Reilly told The Associated Press at the time “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.

“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.”

The Pro Bowl game featured the best players from both conferences going head-to-head in one final All-Star event to put the cap on the season. The Pro Bowl debuted in 1951 and has been played in Los Angeles, Hawaii, Miami, Phoenix, Orlando and Las Vegas.

Fox News’ Ryan Gaydos contributed to this report.