EA Sports NFL Quarterback Challenge
The NFL's Quarterback Challenge is an annual competition of National Football League quarterbacks, currently sponsored in part by Electronic Arts, produced by NFL Productions, the NFL Network and CBS Sports. The first NFL Quarterback Challenge took place in 1990. It was previously sponsored by 989 Sports and called the 989 Sports Quarterback Challenge.
The 2005 EA Sports NFL Quarterback Challenge was filmed in May in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, at the Bahia Mar Beach Resort, which was formerly part of the Radisson Hotels & Resorts chain under the name Radisson Bahia Mar Resort.
An area on the west side of the Bahia Mar Beach Resort was reserved for the competition and covered with an artificial kind of turf, which was developed by Montreal-based company FieldTurf and regarded by players on the CBS Sports TV program as softer than competitor Textile Management Associates' AstroTurf. The playing area was surrounded with cloth advertising signs for the National Football League Players Association, Electronic Arts' EA Sports, T.G.I. Friday's, VISA, Microsoft's Xbox and Tiffany & Co.. Other sponsors of the TV program were CBS Sportsline, Wilson Sporting Goods, Foot Locker's Champs Sports, PepsiCo's Diet Pepsi, Upper Deck, the Harbor Beach Marriott Resort, and some others.
A group of customers of the resort and an invited group of middle-school students spectated the competition. The hosts of the program were Rich Eisen of the NFL Network and Boomer Esiason of The NFL Today, and the reporter was Bonnie Bernstein of The NFL on CBS. The participants of the 2005 EA Sports NFL Quarterback Challenge were Drew Brees, Jake Delhomme, Joey Harrington, Matt Hasselbeck, Byron Leftwich, Carson Palmer and Ben Roethlisberger. The competition was divided into two days.
The first day had three events. In the EA Sports Speed & Mobility event, the quarterbacks had to zigzag around football-player dummies and throw a football at a bull's-eye in the shortest time. The T.G.I. Friday's Alumni Accuracy event was a separate event for retired quarterbacks Boomer Esiason, Dan Marino, John Elway and Bernie Kosar. In that event, the quarterbacks had to throw footballs at bull's-eyes attached to moving golf carts, and John Elway won. In the T.G.I. Friday's Accuracy event, the active quarterbacks had to do the same as the retired quarterbacks in the previous event, but, additionally, they had to make a final pass to a wide receiver, which was either Torry Holt, Joe Horn, Chad Johnson or Keenan McCardell. The first day ended with a tie between Jake Delhomme and Carson Palmer, who had 100 points.
The second day included the Long Distance Throw event and the Prilosec OTC No Huddle, in which the quarterbacks had to make passes to the wide receivers in the shortest time and with as few mistakes as possible. The winner after two days was Jake Delhomme with 260 points.
Previous winners of the competition are: 2004 Matt Hasselbeck 2003 Brad Johnson 2002 Jeff Garcia 2001 Trent Dilfer 2000 Jake Plummer 1999 Jake Plummer 1998 Jim Harbaugh 1997 Vinny Testaverde 1996 Neil O'Donnell 1995 Randall Cunningham 1994 Randall Cunningham 1993 Jeff Hostetler 1992 Dan Marino 1991 Dan Marino
[edit] External links
- NFL.com - NFL News, Stars and legends to compete in QB Challenge
- News - CBS SportsLine.com, Quarterbacks Up for "EA Sports NFL Quarterback Challenge"
- Schedules - CBS SportsLine.com, NFL
- Bahia Mar Resort | Bahia Mar Beach Resort Fort Lauderdale Florida
