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Paul Domowitch: For Asante, another game of touch football at Pro Bowl

MIAMI - Eagles fans got a preview of things to come early in last night's Pro Bowl when AFC coach Norv Turner opened the game with consecutive screens to running back Chris Johnson, both of which went to cornerback Asante Samuel's side.

Asante Samuel gave up a 33-yard touchdown to the Houston Texans' Andre Johnson in last night's Pro Bowl. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip)
Asante Samuel gave up a 33-yard touchdown to the Houston Texans' Andre Johnson in last night's Pro Bowl. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip)Read more

MIAMI - Eagles fans got a preview of things to come early in last night's Pro Bowl when AFC coach Norv Turner opened the game with consecutive screens to running back Chris Johnson, both of which went to cornerback Asante Samuel's side.

As he proved on numerous occasions this season, including the Eagles' ugly, back-to-back January losses to the Cowboys, Samuel isn't a big fan of the art of tackling. Hates tackling the way little kids hate spinach.

If he couldn't be convinced to tackle in games that mattered, you can only imagine the attitude he brought to this meaningless all-star game. Johnson picked up 13 yards on the first screen and 12 on the second, and on both plays, the PA announcer wound up closer to the Titans running back than Samuel. The Eagle looked like George Costanza in that "Seinfeld" episode where he was knocking over little kids at a birthday party in his rush to get out the door when a fire broke out.

A couple of plays later, Samuel bit on a pump fake by AFC quarterback Matt Schaub and got beat for a 33-yard touchdown pass to Schaub's Houston Texans teammate, Andre Johnson.

"We ran a pump route and he was all over it," said Johnson, whose AFC squad beat the NFC, 41-34. "Coach Turner said when we get a third-and-6 that we were going to call something like that. And it was a perfect call."

Samuel would get a measure of revenge later in the game when he short-circuited a would-be AFC scoring drive with an interception of Vince Young early in the fourth quarter.

In Samuel's defense, he wasn't the only player uninterested in getting physical. Whether they play this game in Hawaii the week after the Super Bowl or here in South Florida the week before, the NFL's annual all-star game features less hitting than a fight between two of the Jonas Brothers. There was more contact in a second-quarter end-zone skirmish among the dozen or so NFL mascots in attendance than there was in the actual game.

The "battles" between the offensive and defensive linemen looked like something out of "Dancing With The Stars" for much of the game. Eagles left tackle Jason Peters practically had to lay down and get in the fetal position for the AFC's Mario Williams to collect the first of the game's five sacks.

We'll have to wait a few days to find out whether the NFL's decision to play the Pro Bowl the week before the Super Bowl at the Super Bowl site coaxed any more people to watch the telecast.

It's unlikely it beat out the Grammy Awards or "Desperate Housewives" or "Family Guy" in the ratings. The same goes for Winter X Games 14.

The league moved the Pro Bowl up 2 weeks because it wanted to create a little more "buzz" about the game, and it certainly accomplished that, even if most of that buzz was created by killjoys like myself who ripped the league for the move.

The NFL no doubt will point to the attendance as an indication of how smart they were for moving the game down here as a Super Bowl week kick-starter. The announced attendance was 70,696, which is the second-biggest crowd in Pro Bowl history. Only the 1959 game at the Los Angeles Coliseum drew a bigger crowd - 70,697.

Even more significantly, the league managed to extort $8 million from the Hawaiian Tourism Agency in exchange for bringing the game back to Honolulu in 2011 and 2012. Previously, the state didn't pay a dime for hosting the game, other than the cost of leis for the players and the material for Andy Reid's aloha shirts when he coached in the game. The league still hasn't decided when and where it will play the game in 2013.

Earlier in the week, Colts general manager Bill Polian criticized the league for forcing the Pro Bowl players from his team and the other Super Bowl participant, the Saints, to attend last night's game. But all but one of them obliged the league's request to be there for pregame introductions, and all of them were good sports about being there. The only player who wasn't there was Colts defensive end Dwight Freeney, who has an ankle injury that might keep him out of the Super Bowl.

"This is a fun evening," Colts quarterback Peyton Manning said. "We flew down here after our practice today in Indianapolis. Getting to see all these guys, these great players, guys I've gotten to know over the years playing in [other] Pro Bowls, I've formed some special friendships with these guys. It's fun to be here."

Eagles wide receiver DeSean Jackson made the most of his first Pro Bowl appearance. He caught six passes for 101 yards and two touchdowns. He caught a 7-yard TD pass from Aaron Rodgers in the second quarter and a 58-yard pass from Donovan McNabb in the third quarter.

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