Who do you blame when one of the game’s most prolific wide receivers goes without a catch for the first time in 185 consecutive games? As it turns out, everyone is to blame, including the New Orleans Saints defense.

Pro Bowl veterans didn’t fare too badly either, and they established their presence from the opening drive.

Thirty-one NFL players made their Pro Bowl debuts this year, and most of them proved on Sunday that they belong.

In September 2007, Staff Sergeant Jamie Medinger was hit by an improvised explosive device (IED) that left him with broken bones, a dislocated knee and a leg full of shrapnel.

Cardinals QB Kurt Warner, Titans QB Kerry Collins, Vikings RB Adrian Peterson, and Vikings DTs Kevin and Pat Williams visited wounded soldiers who are recovering from injuries suffered in Iraq or Afghanistan.

The AFC Pro Bowl team welcomed three new members to practice on Thursday, as the three all-stars from the Pittsburgh Steelers -– James Farrior, James Harrison and Troy Polamalu -– practiced for the first time this week.

Down the hall from the NFC locker room at the players’ hotel, the NFL auction headquarters would have a beautiful view — if it weren’t for the boxes stacked to the ceiling.

The NFC all-stars got back to work Wednesday, practicing at Kapolei High School, on another cool (OK, relatively cool — this is Hawaii) morning.

Each Pro Bowl team is led by the coach of the team that lost in that conference’s championship game. John Harbaugh, the rookie coach whose Baltimore Ravens fell to the Pittsburgh Steelers 23-14 in the AFC Championship Game, said he wasn’t able to fully get over that loss until Super Bowl XLIII had been played. A Super Bowl that Harbaugh didn’t even watch.

For the second year in a row, Pro Bowl players practiced at Kapolei High School, a few miles from their hotel. The football stadium is still under construction, as the press box was only half standing, and crews in hard hats building new bleachers stopped what they were doing to watch the AFC all-stars pour onto the field for the first of three practices leading up to the Pro Bowl on Sunday at Aloha Stadium.

Detroit can dress it up any way it wants, try to fool Jacksonville as much as possible, keep things secret as long as it wants.