Culture
2025 Pro Bowl Games rosters: Jayden Daniels, Sam Darnold headline first-time participants
Washington Commanders quarterback Jayden Daniels, Minnesota Vikings quarterback Sam Darnold and Las Vegas Raiders tight end Brock Bowers headline the list of first timers for the 2025 Pro Bowl Games, which the league announced Thursday.
The Baltimore Ravens lead all teams with nine Pro Bowl selections, while the Detroit Lions (seven players), Minnesota Vikings (six), Philadelphia Eagles (six), Dallas Cowboys (five) and Kansas City Chiefs (five) each placing at least five players on the roster.
The four teams without anyone making the Pro Bowl’s initial roster are the New York Jets, Miami Dolphins, New Orleans Saints and Tennessee Titans.
While he hasn’t participated in the Pro Bowl since 2021, as the Chiefs have won the last two Super Bowls, Kansas City quarterback Patrick Mahomes wasn’t selected for the first time in his seven years as a starter.
This year’s Pro Bowl Games will be held in Orlando, Fla., with the skills challenges occurring over two days at separate locations. The first part of the skills competition will happen in the Nicholson Fieldhouse on UCF’s campus on Jan. 30 and air at 7 p.m. ET on ESPN. The second part of the event, including the flag football game, will be at Camping World Stadium on Feb. 2. It will air on ESPN and ABC at 3 p.m. ET.
The NFL added a trivia element to this year’s skills competitions, which include traditional games of dodgeball and tug-of-war. “Passing the test” will have each quarterback answer five trivia questions about other Pro Bowlers from the 2024 season. Correct answers will give passers more time to attempt to hit targets.
Peyton and Eli Manning will coach the AFC and NFC teams again. The NFC defeated the AFC for the second straight year of the Pro Bowl Games in 2024.
Here’s a look at each conference’s initial rosters:
AFC
Offense
*Starter
Quarterback
- Josh Allen, Buffalo Bills*
- Joe Burrow, Cincinnati Bengals
- Lamar Jackson, Baltimore Ravens
Running back
- Derrick Henry, Baltimore Ravens*
- Joe Mixon, Houston Texans
- Jonathan Taylor, Indianapolis Colts
Fullback
- Patrick Ricard, Baltimore Ravens*
Wide receiver
- Ja’Marr Chase, Cincinnati Bengals*
- Jerry Jeudy, Cleveland Browns*
- Nico Collins, Houston Texans
- Zay Flowers, Baltimore Ravens
Tight end
- Brock Bowers, Las Vegas Raiders*
- Travis Kelce, Kansas City Chiefs
Offensive tackle
- Dion Dawkins, Buffalo Bills*
- Laremy Tunsil, Houston Texans*
- Rashawn Slater, Los Angeles Chargers
Offensive guard
- Quenton Nelson, Indianapolis Colts*
- Joe Thuney, Kansas City Chiefs*
- Trey Smith, Kansas City Chiefs
Center
- Creed Humphrey, Kansas City Chiefs*
- Tyler Linderbaum, Baltimore Ravens
Defense
Defensive end
- Myles Garrett, Cleveland Browns*
- Trey Hendrickson, Cincinnati Bengals*
- Maxx Crosby, Las Vegas Raiders
Interior linemen
- Cameron Heyward, Pittsburgh Steelers*
- Chris Jones, Kansas City Chiefs*
- Nnamdi Madubuike, Baltimore Ravens
Outside linebacker
- Nik Bonitto, Denver Broncos*
- T.J. Watt, Pittsburgh Steelers*
- Khalil Mack, Los Angeles Chargers
Inside/middle linebacker
- Roquan Smith, Baltimore Ravens*
- Zaire Franklin, Indianapolis Colts
Cornerback
- Derek Stingley Jr., Houston Texans*
- Patrick Surtain II, Denver Broncos*
- Marlon Humphrey, Baltimore Ravens
- Denzel Ward, Cleveland Browns
Free safety
- Minkah Fitzpatrick, Pittsburgh Steelers*
Strong safety
- Kyle Hamilton, Baltimore Ravens*
- Derwin James, Los Angeles Chargers
Special teams
Long snapper
- Ross Matiscik, Jacksonville Jaguars*
Punter
- Logan Cooke, Jacksonville Jaguars*
Kicker
- Chris Boswell, Pittsburgh Steelers*
Return specialist
- Marvin Mims Jr., Denver Broncos*
Special teamer
- Brenden Schooler, New England Patriots*
NFC
Offense
Quarterback
- Jared Goff, Detroit Lions*
- Jayden Daniels, Washington Commanders
- Sam Darnold, Minnesota Vikings
Running back
- Saquon Barkley, Philadelphia Eagles*
- Jahmyr Gibbs, Detroit Lions
- Josh Jacobs, Green Bay Packers
Fullback
- Kyle Juszczyk, San Francisco 49ers
Wide receiver
- Justin Jefferson, Minnesota Vikings*
- Amon-Ra St. Brown, Detroit Lions*
- CeeDee Lamb, Dallas Cowboys
- Terry McLaurin, Washington Commanders
Tight end
- George Kittle, San Francisco 49ers*
- Trey McBride, Arizona Cardinals
Offensive tackle
- Lane Johnson, Philadelphia Eagles*
- Penei Sewell, Detroit Lions*
- Tristan Wirfs, Tampa Bay Buccaneers
Offensive guard
- Landon Dickerson, Philadelphia Eagles*
- Tyler Smith, Dallas Cowboys*
- Chris Lindstrom, Atlanta Falcons
Center
- Frank Ragnow, Detroit Lions*
- Cam Jurgens, Philadelphia Eagles
Defense
Defensive end
- Nick Bosa, San Francisco 49ers*
- Micah Parsons, Dallas Cowboys*
- Rashan Gary, Green Bay Packers
Interior linemen
- Jalen Carter, Philadelphia Eagles*
- Dexter Lawrence, New York Giants*
- Vita Vea, Tampa Bay Buccaneers
Outside linebacker
- Jonathan Greenard, Minnesota Vikings*
- Andrew Van Ginkel, Minnesota Vikings*
- Jared Verse, Los Angeles Rams
Inside/middle linebacker
- Fred Warner, San Francisco 49ers*
- Zack Baun, Philadelphia Eagles
Cornerback
- Jaylon Johnson, Chicago Bears*
- Byron Murphy, Minnesota Vikings*
- Jaycee Horn, Carolina Panthers
- Devon Witherspoon, Seattle Seahawks
Free safety
- Xavier McKinney, Green Bay Packers*
Strong safety
- Budda Baker, Arizona Cardinals*
- Brian Branch, Detroit Lions
Special teams
Long snapper
- Andrew DePaola, Minnesota Vikings*
Punter
Kicker
- Brandon Aubrey, Dallas Cowboys*
Return specialist
- KaVontae Turpin, Dallas Cowboys*
Special teamer
- KhaDarel Hodge, Atlanta Falcons*
Required reading
(Photo of Jayden Daniels: Lee Coleman / Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
Where do you turn when you need advice? A chatbot? A life coach? A wise and trusted friend?
How about a poet? Poets may not be famous for making the best life choices, but because they subject the mess of human existence to the discipline of language, they can be as helpful as any therapist or mentor.
Good poets know the rules and when to break them, which is something they can teach the rest of us.
To wit:
Giving advice is a peculiar literary undertaking. It flourishes in certain popular genres — graduation speeches, newspaper columns, country and western songs and poems like this one — but what, in these contexts, is it really for?
I’m thinking of situations when you don’t urgently need help but nonetheless enjoy reading answers to questions you may not have thought to ask. What interests you isn’t the content of the advice — you could get all the life hacks you want from A.I. — so much as the voice of the person dispensing it.
Wendy Cope is an English poet, born in 1945, who has been a fixture of her country’s literary scene since the 1980s. More recently, her short, buoyant poem “The Orange” has been widely memed online, bringing her to the attention of new readers beyond Britain.
Cope favors rhyme, meter, brisk jokes and tart aperçus. She addresses romance, friendship and the petty absurdities of modern life with disarming good humor. The last line of “The Orange” is “I love you. I’m glad I exist.” Somehow she makes it the opposite of cringe.
This isn’t the kind of poetry you would describe as “confessional.” And yet …
Question 1/7
Stop, if the car is going “clunk”
Or if the sun has made you blind.
Don’t answer e–mails when you’re drunk.
Tap a word above to fill in the highlighted blank.Want to learn this poem by heart? We’ll help.
Fill in the missing words below. You can always refer to the reading by A.O. Scott and full
text above.Let’s start with the first stanza.
A strong sense of place can deeply influence a story, and in some cases, the setting can even feel like a character itself. This week’s literary geography quiz highlights places where authors were born (or lived) that later became locations in their books. To play, just make your selection in the multiple-choice list and the correct answer will be revealed. At the end of the quiz, you’ll find links to the works if you’d like to do further reading.
AMERICA, U.S.A.: How Race Shadows the Nation’s Anniversaries, by Eddie S. Glaude Jr.
For those of us in the national memory-keeping business, anniversaries hold near-totemic power. Satisfyingly round units of time, ideally bearing fancy, Latin-derived names, serve as the overburdened pegs on which to hang think pieces and museum exhibits, revisionist documentaries and maudlin public ceremonies. The arbitrary nature of such occasions is precisely what gives them their charge, inviting us to set aside complacency and submit to a comprehensive check-in.
In his new book, “America, U.S.A.,” Eddie S. Glaude Jr. presents an intriguing variation on the genre, seeing the country’s 250th birthday as an anniversary of anniversaries: 50 years since the malaise-ridden, schlock-heavy Bicentennial. A century since the subdued Prohibition-era Sesquicentennial. A century and a half since telegraphed reports of George Armstrong Custer’s defeat by the Lakota and Cheyenne at Little Bighorn rudely interrupted the Gilded Age Republic’s 100th birthday party.
If an anniversary offers a snapshot of a moment, the core of Glaude’s book is an old-timey photo album, a collection of notable episodes from earlier national reckonings, long-ago glances in the mirror. An estimable scholar of Black history, politics and religion at Princeton — best known for “Begin Again,” his 2020 meditation on James Baldwin’s relevance for our times — Glaude focuses, as his subtitle puts it, on “how race shadows the nation’s anniversaries.”
Such celebrations, he contends, have never really been the moments for honest self-reflection they are often advertised to be. Instead, the nation usually shatters the mirror, refusing to accept what it prefers not to see. “American anniversaries are often moments to turn a blind eye to the evils of the past and the present,” Glaude writes, “to suppress the fact of America’s divided soul.”
It’s a clever concept, and, needless to say, perfectly timed. Last year, Glaude notes, the Trump administration executed a hostile takeover of the government’s studiously bipartisan 250th anniversary planning. It is now preparing a program that is certain to conceal more than it reveals about the country ostensibly being celebrated.
Glaude, in no mood for celebration, argues that such omissions and evasions also defined commemorations in the past. In 1875, Frederick Douglass predicted “one grand Centennial hosannah of peace and good will to all the white race of this country.” He was right: The nation reached 100 years old at a crucial moment in the post-Civil War fight over racial equality, with white Northerners ready to give up on Southern Reconstruction. The occasion would help the once-warring sections to reunite around a shared commitment to white supremacy. On May 10, 1876, at the opening of the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia, the police tried to bar Douglass from the grandstand, until a white politician vouched for him.
The 150th anniversary came soon after a resurgent Ku Klux Klan successfully pushed for a restrictive immigration law aimed at keeping America a “Nordic” nation. At the lavishly funded, lightly attended celebrations in Philadelphia, Black veterans of World War I were excluded from marching in the opening parade. A writer with The Associated Negro Press wondered “what was in the breast of those black men who fought to make America safe for Democracy and on Monday stood on the sidelines, forgotten, as the Nordic strode by in all his vain pride.”
By 1976, when the nation marked its Bicentennial, the violence of the ’60s had destroyed any semblance of consensus. Vietnam and Watergate had eroded trust in the government. The commission initially tasked with organizing the anniversary was disbanded amid reports of corruption. Corporations filled the vacuum, Glaude explains, with “star-spangled whoopee cushions; patriotic toilet seats; Liberty hamburgers; red, white and blue beer cans.” The author, around 8 years old at the time, dimly remembers donning a pair of tricolor trousers.
A half-century later, Glaude is refreshingly honest about the depths of his despair. “I do not love America, and never have, especially now,” he writes in one of the more startling opening sentences I’ve read in some time. He dismisses this year’s Semiquincentennial as reaching back “to a storybook America that requires either the banishment of Black people from view or the reduction of our role in the country’s history, so as to affirm America’s ongoing quest to be a more perfect union.”
Undoubtedly true. But Trump doesn’t own the country, at least not yet, nor the 250th anniversary of one of the most radically liberatory and confusingly contradictory events in world history — an inspiration, as Glaude shows, even to critical observers of the American experiment, like Douglass. Far from the revanchist MAGA-palooza in Washington, I suspect this summer’s unasked-for invitation to national soul-searching may surprise us yet.
Despite his despair, Glaude concludes that “the past still offers resources for us to freedom-dream.” So, too, does this book.
AMERICA, U.S.A.: How Race Shadows the Nation’s Anniversaries | By Eddie S. Glaude Jr. | Crown | 270 pp. | $31
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