The 2026 Pro Bowl Games took place on Tuesday night, with the NFC defeating the AFC in a flag football game by a score of 66-52.
For the past several years, the league has abandoned the traditional Pro Bowl game that players took halfheartedly, but they had introduced skills challenges among various participants, including things like dodgeball, relay races, and tests of strength. We kind of knew something was up when a schedule for this year’s skills challenges hadn’t been unveiled, although there were still some references indicating that it would happen. It did not, unless they did it in sequester with footage to be released later. Instead, we just got the flag football game.
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That means we have highlights for the members of the Cleveland Browns who participated, including QB Shedeur Sanders and CB Denzel Ward. DE Myles Garrett did not make the trip.
First, imagine knowing how the Browns’ roster was heading into Week 1, then missing the season, only to wake up and find out this was your crop of quarterbacks representing the AFC (including QB Joe Flacco for the first time):
For the game, Sanders was 12-of-15 for 152 yards, 2 touchdowns, and 2 interceptions. One of those interceptions came on his first drive, when WR Ja’Marr Chase dropped a pass that was taken back by S Kevin Byard. A penalty prevented it from counting as a full pick six.
He also had one run for 10 yards. The quarterbacks rotated their series, but here was an early connection between Sanders and Bengals WR Tee Higgins:
Then, Sanders threw his first touchdown on a 1-yard strike to Broncos LT Garett Bolles in the second quarter:
At the end of the second quarter, Sanders connected with Texans WR Nico Collins for a 26-yard touchdown:
The AFC actually led the NFC 52-36 early in the third quarter. But the AFC was shut out the rest of the game, as the NFC put up 30 unanswered points. Sanders tried to hit Higgins near the end of the third quarter on a 3rd-and-long, but it was intercepted.
Ward finished the game with 1 tackle. We don’t have highlights of his in-game action, but the Browns posted a clip where he ran off the field for a mid-game selfie with a fan:
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