For the second straight year, the AFC took on the NFC in the Pro Bowl Skills Showdown, but this time, the American Football Conference came out on top.
The competition featured six events: a quarterback passing contest called "Precision Passing;" a drill to catch footballs from a drone called "Drone Drop;" a relay race featuring a parachute run, a fumble drill and a 40-yard dash, among other things, called "Gridiron Gauntlet;" a receiver catching drill called "Best Hands;" a kicking drill where kickers attempted to play tic tac toe through kicks called "Kick Tac Toe;" and a dodgeball game called "Epic Pro Bowl Dodgeball."
Here's how the AFC was able to take home the trophy on Thursday night.
QB Precision Passing
Los Angeles Chargers quarterback Philip Rivers ran away with last year's precision passing contest, scoring 20 points. This year, Oakland Raiders QB Derek Carr needed some late-drill drama to edge out Jared Goff to take the crown. After the Los Angeles Rams QB led off the challenge with a hefty 20 points, Carr drilled a two-point target at the buzzer to take the lead. When Seattle Seahawks QB Russell Wilson struggled to put the football through the targets and scored just eight points, Carr's 21 won it for the AFC.
Drone Drop
In the quickest contest of the skills showdown, Miami Dolphins wideout Jarvis Landry was able to haul in a football dropped from 120 feet to get the win. Patrick Peterson had one attempt to better that score, but 130 feet was just too much for the Arizona Cardinals defensive back. The ball sailed to the ground, and Landry scored a win for the AFC.
Gridiron Gauntlet
Derrick Brooks, coach of the NFC team, deserves credit for starting Washington Redskins pass rusher Ryan Kerrigan off on the parachute run, but Peterson almost single-handily won this drill for the NFC.
In the fumble run, Peterson scooped up all four footballs with ease -- something AFC counterpart C.J. Mosley couldn't do -- and that ended up being the difference in the NFC's 10-second win.
Best Hands
Michael Thomas won this event for the NFC, but the story of this competition was Keenan Allen's struggles. The Los Angeles Chargers wideout started off hot, but was doomed by the one-handed catch portion of the drill, and recorded a did not finish when he tapped out after failing to catch a diving ball more than two minutes into his run. "I don't catch one-handed passes," he told ESPN after the struggle.
He later tweeted about the effort:
Landry, last year's "best hands" winner, needed a diving catch to beat Thomas' mark, but couldn't haul it in. Afterward, he told ESPN of losing to Thomas: "I passed the torch to the right man."
Kick Tac Toe
In a tic-tac-toe contest that featured about as many misses as makes, Carolina Panthers kicker Graham Gano, despite a few blocks from the Pittsburgh Steelers' Chris Boswell, was able to record three squares in a row to come down with the win for the NFC.
Epic Pro Bowl Dodgeball
The main event of the skills showdown didn't disappoint. The melee -- which ended up being a winner-take-all event because of the way the scoreboard worked out -- ultimately came down to Landry vs. Green Bay Packers DL Mike Daniels and Gano.
Landry got Daniels out, then dared Gano to throw a ball at him. When Gano obliged, Landry caught it, bringing home the trophy for the AFC.
