Chapter 671: Precision Passing Competition
Cam and Sanchez were eager to show off their skills and compete for the championship. Lu Ke and Romo were joking around and doing a talk show, showing their hosting skills for the first time. Ryan and Dalton were trying their best to pretend they were invisible, like meditating monks.
In just one short interview, Coleman had successfully hyped up the atmosphere.
People originally thought that Cam, Lu Ke, and Dalton, the three rookie players, would butt heads, which would be the biggest highlight of today's individual skills challenge. They didn't expect Cam and Sanchez to start competing first. A strong smell of gunpowder began to quietly spread. But no matter what, today's game seemed to have a lot to watch.
After leaving the quarterback group, Coleman led the camera crew to the wide receiver group.
The viewers in front of the TV gradually found it interesting. This year's NFL Pro Bowl really had a bit of an NBA All-Star Weekend feel. They just didn't know what the actual effect of the skills challenge would be.
After the interviews, the first event to take the stage was the Quarterback Precision Passing Competition.
A row of circular targets was lined up on the field, modeled after the official archery targets of the Olympics. On the large circular board, there were concentric circles. The very center was worth five points, and the points decreased as you went outward, from five to two points. The blank part on the outermost ring was zero points, not one point.
The same targets were lined up, but their distances from the line of scrimmage varied. There were a total of eight targets from left to right. The shortest was six yards, and the longest was thirty yards, covering everything from short passes to long passes.
After the competition started, there was a sixty-second countdown. The quarterback would start passing from the left side, moving at their own pace all the way to the right side. If there was time left, they would return again and repeat the targets, but they wouldn't score points again. They would only take the highest score for each target.
In other words, the perfect score was forty points.
If two players had the same score, there would be a tiebreaker.
This was the first attempt at an individual skills challenge. All the competition rules and methods were still in the exploratory stage, and the effect could only be tested through practice.
After a draw, the order of appearance was Ryan, Sanchez, Dalton, Romo, Cam, and Lu Ke.
Romo leaned over and saw Lu Ke's number six draw. He laughed in a low voice. "I'm starting to suspect that the league is secretly manipulating things and deliberately putting you two at the end. Is this a good thing or a good thing?" He also glanced at Cam, who was showing off his number five draw. His schadenfreude was truly helpless.
As they were talking, Ryan was the first to go on the field.
Ryan turned to the referee and nodded, indicating that he was ready. Then he heard a whistle, and the focus of the entire stadium fell squarely on Ryan's shoulder.
Standing in front of the first target, Ryan picked up a football from the platform behind him, aimed with the end covered in blue powder, and then quickly threw a bullet pass. They heard a muffled "thud," and the football landed accurately in the four-point area.
The first pass was experienced and precise.
Next, Ryan moved quickly sideways and came to the second platform. He grabbed another football and threw it quickly, but the moment the football left his fingertips, Ryan noticed a huge deviation in the pass. This was a fifteen-yard pass, but the landing point was far off, only hitting the outermost two-point area.
There was no time to buffer or adjust because the sixty-second countdown was running fast.
Ryan could only continue to move sideways, but this time the pass was even more ridiculous. Facing a twenty-three-yard pass, the football went far, far off the target, like a rainbow, flying high over the target and toward the stands behind it. His accuracy was completely out of control.
Wind.
It wasn't just Ryan. The other quarterbacks also noticed that there was a strong wind in Aloha Stadium, blowing from right to left and from bottom to top. The entire passing motion and flight path were seriously affected. If the power control was a little insufficient, the parabola of the football would immediately become wild.
As the first one to go on the field, Ryan was at a disadvantage, but there was no turning back now, so he could only grit his teeth and continue the competition.
Matt Ryan has a well-known nickname, "Matt-Ice."
It is said that the origin of this nickname can be traced back to Ryan's high school days. At that time, although he didn't have much experience and was green on the field, he always seemed confident and calm during the huddle before the snap, as if he was not affected by the situation on the field at all. His high school friends thought that Ryan had ice in his veins, and so the nickname "Ice Man" spread.
This was also the case now.
Despite encountering an unexpected natural factor, Ryan quickly calmed down, slowed down his throwing speed, and adjusted his moving rhythm. In the next five targets, his accuracy clearly warmed up.
One three-point shot, two two-point shots, and two misses. All the time was used up, and Ryan didn't have a chance to try a second time. The final score was thirteen points.
After finishing the competition, Ryan stood with his hands on his hips and shook his head slightly. Even though this was an entertainment event meant for fun, the strong wind on the field made his performance suffer a lot, which was truly helpless. He jogged back to the waiting area.
Then, Ryan saw Romo and Lu Ke walking toward him. The two of them had their hands clasped in front of their chests, with bright smiles on their faces. They kept winking at him. Their gloating expressions were very comical, and Ryan couldn't help but chuckle as his shoulders moved.
It was a good-natured joke.
Then, Lu Ke and Romo both raised their right hands, waiting for a high-five.
Upon seeing this, Ryan shook his head helplessly, but still walked forward and high-fived Lu Ke. Then, just as he was about to high-five Romo, he saw Romo suddenly pull back his right hand and puff out his chest, making a pose to bump chests. This startled Ryan, and he quietly moved his gaze away, pretending he didn't see anything and silently walked behind him.
Romo stood there with his chest puffed out, alone and lonely.
A small interlude made the other players who were watching behind them start to heckle, and the scene became very lively.
However, the atmosphere among the other quarterbacks seemed out of place.
Dalton still high-fived Ryan and congratulated him, but Sanchez and Cam watched coldly without any emotion. A visible smell of gunpowder was spreading in the air.
Sanchez focused all his attention on his upcoming appearance and didn't seem to notice the movement next to him. As for Cam and Ryan, they were divisional rivals: one was the Carolina Panthers and the other was the Atlanta Falcons.
If it were at any other time during the Pro Bowl, even if they were divisional rivals, they wouldn't deliberately show it, since it wasn't a real competition. However, today's individual skills challenge involved personal honor, and it was a personal honor that Cam was determined to win. So, it was a fight to the death. Clearly, Cam didn't plan on holding back.
Fortunately, there was no clear boundary between the quarterback waiting area and the other players' gathering area. The large crowd was bustling and lively. The live broadcast didn't specifically capture the tension, but the spectators on-site saw it all and understood it clearly. As they exchanged glances, they each had their own thoughts.
The competition continued, and Sanchez took the stage.
Considering his position on his team, Sanchez was the most eager and serious competitor today. Unlike Cam, who was just fighting for pride, this could very well be a turning point for the entire offseason. It was a chance to prove himself, and he would definitely not let it go easily.
But haste makes waste, and too much is worse than too little.
He was too eager and too tense, which seriously affected his judgment of the wind. He had four consecutive serious misses. The on-site audience started to heckle, as if it were a reality TV show, creating a show effect. They even booed and laughed.
In an actual game, Sanchez was not good at handling problems in a crisis. Now, he was flustered and his rhythm was off, so his subsequent passes became chaotic in the wind. The fifth pass luckily hit the four-point area of the target, and then he had two more consecutive misses.
In the process of missing frequently, Sanchez saved a lot of passing time and quickly made a turn. He threw four more balls than Ryan, but the results were minimal. The final score was eight points, and not to mention winning the championship, he was now a strong contender for last place. Before his competitors even started, Sanchez had already cut off his own path and all possibilities of hope.
Of course, in the Pro Bowl and skills challenge, no one cared about winning or losing, so even coming in last was not embarrassing. But Sanchez still stood there in frustration, holding his head in annoyance, with nowhere to vent his anger.
The continuous strong wind was deeply affecting the competition. The excitement of the individual skills challenge was greatly reduced. Dalton and Romo, who came on after, also performed poorly.
Dalton scored eleven points, and Romo scored ten points.
The temporary leader was surprisingly Ryan, who was the first to go on. This was also a surprise to everyone.
Romo, who was traveling light and enjoying himself, returned to the waiting area with a light step. He had a small sprint and celebrated with Lu Ke by bumping chests. He was not upset about his poor performance at all. His joyful expression showed that he was having a good time, which also successfully caused cheers from the other players and the on-site audience.
Romo looked at Ryan, who was not far away, with a big smile and pointed at Lu Ke, as if to say, "See? This is the standard way to celebrate."
Ryan's face was full of black lines, and he slowly looked away, indicating that he didn't know this guy.
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