An Eagles-focused guide to Tuesday’s Pro Bowl Games: Flag football, Birds legends and more

The Eagles won’t play a regular-season football game for at least another 225 days, but a handful of Eagles players are slated to compete in a version of football on Tuesday at 8 p.m. on ESPN.

The Pro Bowl Games are back, taking place in the Super Bowl host area, San Francisco, in the lead-up to the title game on Sunday. Five Eagles players are expected to participate in the festivities, which will have a different format than the Pro Bowls hosted in Orlando over the last couple of years.

Here is a breakdown of the event and the contingent of Eagles players participating:

Originally, five Eagles players were named to the Pro Bowl, including two first-timers in Cooper DeJean and Quinyon Mitchell. Zack Baun, Jalen Carter, and Cam Jurgens, who are each two-time Pro Bowlers, rounded out the rest of the group. Carter was the lone starter at his position.

Players were selected by a consensus vote by fans, players, and coaches. Each group’s vote carried equal weight in determining the players selected to the Pro Bowl.

The Eagles’ five original-ballot Pro Bowlers were tied for second in the NFL with the Dallas Cowboys, Detroit Lions, and Los Angeles Chargers. The Baltimore Ravens, Denver Broncos, San Francisco 49ers, and Seattle Seahawks had a league-high six players.

However, Mitchell opted out of the event. Nahshon Wright, the 27-year-old Chicago Bears cornerback, was named Mitchell’s replacement on Jan. 26. Additionally, Carter was not listed on the final roster on Saturday, indicating he had opted out, too.

Jalen Hurts was added to the roster on Jan. 30 as a replacement for Los Angeles Rams quarterback Matthew Stafford, bringing the Eagles’ delegation back up to five members. Hurts was listed as a fifth alternate when the original rosters were announced in December. The 27-year-old quarterback previously earned Pro Bowl honors in 2022 and 2023.

The Pro Bowl site is downsizing this year from Camping World Stadium in Orlando to the Moscone Center in San Francisco. The event itself is downsizing, too.

In recent years, the Pro Bowl included a flag football game as well as various skills competitions. This time around, the event will consist solely of a flag football game between the NFC and AFC teams. The league, via a press release, framed the event as an opportunity to “preview the elite athleticism and competition of the sport” ahead of its debut at the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles.

Both teams have their own coaching staffs led by San Francisco 49ers greats. Jerry Rice, the Hall of Fame wide receiver, and Steve Young, the Hall of Fame quarterback, will serve as head coaches for the NFC and AFC teams, respectively.

Eagles fans ought to recognize a couple of the Pro Bowl assistant coaches. Former Eagles wide receiver DeSean Jackson and quarterback Michael Vick are the offensive coordinators for the NFC and AFC teams, respectively. Jackson, who serves as head coach at Delaware State, and Vick, the head coach of Norfolk State, last coached against each other in October at the Linc.

Torrey Smith, a receiver on the 2017 Eagles team that defeated the New England Patriots in the Super Bowl, is the AFC’s “flag adviser,” according to the NFL. Jason Kelce, a seven-time Pro Bowler with the Eagles, will be on the call for the flag football game for a second straight year on ESPN.

This is the first time that Eagles players will have the opportunity to compete in the Pro Bowl since 2024. In 2025, Pro Bowlers Baun, Carter, Jurgens, Landon Dickerson, Lane Johnson, and Saquon Barkley were busy preparing for the Super Bowl.

According to Stathead, the Eagles have had a total of 313 Pro Bowl selections since 1938, back when it was known as the NFL All-Star Game. Since 2022, the Eagles have had at least four original-ballot Pro Bowlers per season, including 2023 when they tied a franchise-best eight selections (last accomplished in 1960).

This year’s Pro Bowl will be the first without Johnson listed on the roster since 2021. In his 13 seasons with the Eagles, he has earned six Pro Bowl nods, tied for fifth in franchise history.

San Francisco will host the Pro Bowl for the first time in the event’s history. However, this is not the first time that the Pro Bowl will be part of the festivities leading up to the Super Bowl. In 2010, the Pro Bowl moved to the site of the Super Bowl, Sun Life Stadium in Miami, the Sunday before the big game. The 2015 Pro Bowl also took place at the same venue as the Super Bowl at University of Phoenix Stadium in Glendale, Ariz., earlier that week.

The Pro Bowl was famously held in Hawaii for 35 years, but it departed indefinitely in 2017. The league has made various attempts to tweak the event, as it has been criticized for its lack of quality play and entertainment value. According to Sports Media Watch, last year’s Pro Bowl averaged 4.7 million viewers, which made it the least-watched iteration over the last three years since the introduction of the flag football format.