NFL Roundup: Pro Bowl will go on

The NFL Pro Bowl lives to be played again.

After considerations to suspend or cancel the annual game, the NFL Players' Association announced that the 2013 Pro Bowl will be played at Aloha Stadium in Honolulu, Hawaii.

The game is scheduled for Jan. 27 -- one week before the Super Bowl XLVII -- and air on NBC.

"The players have made it clear through the NFL Players Association that they would like the opportunity to continue to play the Pro Bowl in Hawaii," NFL Executive Vice President of Football Operations Ray Anderson said in a statement. "We will support the players on this initiative to improve the Pro Bowl."

The Pro Bowl has been held in Hawaii from 1980-2009. In 2010, the game was played the week before the Super Bowl for and moved to South Florida. The Pro Bowl returned to Hawaii in 2011 and 2012.

NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell had previously expressed displeasure with the game's lack of competitiveness, and said in February that cancelling this year's game was an option.

"We're either going to have to improve the quality of what we're doing in the Pro Bowl or consider other changes, or even (consider) eliminating the game, if that's the kind of quality game we're going to provide," Goodell said in February after backlash from players, coaches and fans about the poor effort in the 2012 event.

Anderson said the players are committed to improving the game's quality.

"We have had many discussions with the players in recent years about the Pro Bowl and they recognize that the quality of the game has not been up to NFL standards," Anderson said in the statement. "We look forward to working with the players toward the goal of improving the competitiveness of this season's game."

---Carolina Panthers' quarterback Cam Newton told Yahoo! Sports that he was a bad teammate during a his Rookie of the Year 2011 season, mainly because he had a difficult time adjusting to a 6-10 season.

"I was very immature," Newton told Yahoo! of his reaction after losses. "I'll be the first one to tell you, the pouting and the moping, I kind of overdid it. I know that. I was a bad teammate. I shut off to some people who gave unbelievable effort. ... That's where I have to mature."

Newton helped turn around the Panthers' from the league's worst in 2010 to the fifth-highest scoring team in 2011. But despite becoming the first player in NFL history to pass for 4,000 yards and run for 500, Newton said he would be hard on himself after an interception or bad play.

"Half the time it wasn't me shutting people down because I was thinking they weren't giving the same effort as me, it was me knowing there were things I could do that could have changed the outcome of the game," Newton told Yahoo!. " ... I put a lot on me to be able to respond. When things are going wrong, I wanted to have the ball in my hand, just like any warrior, any competitor who has played this game. When you don't get the results you want, I didn't go about it the right way."

-- Brian Banks might still just get his chance to play for Pete Carroll.

According to an ESPN report, Banks was invited to work out for the Seahawks on June 7. Carroll recruited Banks, a highly ranked high school player in California who intended to play for Southern Cal before pleaded no contest to a rape charge. Banks spent more than five years in prison; he was accused of rape in 2002 after he'd been offered a scholarship to USC.

Recently the high school acquaintance who brought the original charges confessed the sexual encounter was consensual, reaching out to Banks and admitting she felt overwhelmed by guilt.

"I'll make 'em happy," said Banks of what to expect at his first NFL workout. "After all I've been through these last 10 years, I can still do some things that will impress you."

Banks has been offered a job by the Arizona Diamondbacks but said he's in the best shape of his life. The Chiefs, Redskins and Dolphins are reportedly also interested in taking a look at Banks.

The 6-4, 240-pound linebacker said he anticipates running the 40 in the 4.6 to 4.7 range.

"I feel confident that any team that gave me an opportunity would see I can play football," Banks said. "But this (overtuned case) had to come first. There is no football without freedom."

-- Donald Driver is still dancing with the one that brought him to the NFL.

The Packers and Driver, 37, will be together for at least one more season according to the veteran receiver entering his 14th season with the Packers out of Alcorn State.

Driver posted the news via Twitter: "Tweeps: when I said I will be a Packer for life. It is now true. Packer for life."

He was due $4.25 million in 2012 but Driver said he was willing to negotiate the contract to remain with the Packers. General manager Ted Thompson wouldn't commit to any specific roster decisions when pressed about Driver in the offseason.

With Greg Jennings, Jordy Nelson, James Jones and Randall Cobb under contract, Driver wondered aloud after the season-ending loss to the Giants in the postseason whether there was room for a grizzled veteran on the roster.

He's the team's all-time leader in receptions and receiving yards with 735 receptions for 10.060 yards.

--Justin Blackmon was the first receiver drafted in the 2012 draft, but that doesn't mean he's immune to the steep learning curve rookies face entering the NFL.

Blackmon, a two-time Biletnikoff Award winner as the top receiver in college football at Oklahoma State, missed most of Jacksonville's rookie minicamp with a mild foot injury. He's back on the field, but acclimating to the pro offense of first-year coach Mike Mularkey has been challenging.

"When he knows what he's doing, he's very good," said Mularkey. "When he doesn't, he's lost."

Mularkey said the problem for Blackmon is play-to-play awareness and learning where and how to execute each call.

What Mularkey wants to see Blackmon, the fifth overall pick in the 2012 draft, do more frequently is stop and ask questions, not drift further away from what he should be doing. Mularkey said he told all players on the first day of camp never to go to the line of scrimmage not knowing what to do.

"I would prefer you say, 'Hey, I'm not sure what to do.' Ask, so the play doesn't get totally blown out of proportion. I'd much admire and respect a player that doesn't know what he's got and turns around and asks than I do a guy that walks out there and stands at the line of scrimmage, where he's in a three-point and doesn't know what to do."

Mularkey quickly developed sixth overall pick Julio Jones into a consistent force with the Falcons last season. The Jaguars don't have an established quarterback -- Blaine Gabbert is ahead of Chad Henne on the current depth chart -- as Mularkey did with Matt Ryan in Atlanta, and also lack an established veteran with experience in the offense. Because Mularkey is installing the offense on the fly, even longtime pro such as Laurent Robinson are ingesting it for the first time.

"There's two different speeds," Mularkey said. "He's had a ton thrown at him, he's been put in there more than anybody else, so he's had more chances to have mistakes. I think he knows our feelings on it."

-- Mike Jenkins might want out of Dallas, but Cowboys owner Jerry Jones has no intention of granting the cornerback's wish.

The Cowboys gave Brandon Carr $50.1 million over the next five years to leave the Chiefs and then traded up to nab LSU's Morris Claiborne with the No. 6 overall pick in last month's NFL Draft. And with veteran Orlando Scandrick already an accomplished nickelback, Jenkins would like an opportunity to compete for a starting job elsewhere.

The Colts have reportedly shown interest, but Jones indicated Jenkins might as well keep his suitcase in the attic.

"There's nothing that I can conceive that would help us more as a football team and help us accomplish where we're going to be next year than having Jenkins on the team," Jones told reporters Wednesday. "I'm sure not interested in anything in the future. I'm all about what we can do (this) year."

Jenkins has skipped the team's voluntary offseason program, and is due to earn $1.05 million in the final year of the rookie contract he signed as a first-round pick in 2007.

"He can come in here and maybe be a part of something very special, a concept that's very special when you have that kind of talent, that kind of size in corners," Jones said. "He could have a year that could put him in great shape for his future and certainly have done what he was contracted and what he's paid to do and what he should be doing, and that's help the Dallas Cowboys win a world championship."

Jenkins also underwent offseason shoulder surgery. He played through pain much of last season after suffering a dislocation.

"We want Mike Jenkins around our football team, just like we want everybody around our football team," coach Jason Garrett said last week. "We had 60 guys on our roster for most of the offseason, and we had 59 at the facility working out involved in our offseason program. We have 90 guys on our team now, and we pretty much had 89 guys around here doing everything we wanted them to do."

---The lawsuit filed by retired NFL players against the NFL Players Association was dismissed Tuesday by Judge Susan Nelson Richard, in St. Paul, Minn.

Hall of Fame defensive end Carl Eller, who played for the Minnesota Vikings, was the lead plaintiff for the retireed players. They claimed that the Players Association, which had decertified during the lockout, couldn't bargain with owners on their behalf because the decertification meant that they weren't a working union.

"(T)here can be no dispute that a better package of benefits was in fact obtained for the retired players in the 2011 CBA as compared to those in the former CBA. No jury could reasonably find that the active players did not do better by the retired players in the 2011 CBA," Nelson wrote in her ruling that was released by the Players Association.

Added Cornelius Bennett, Chairman of the NFLPA Former Players Board of Directors: "We are pleased with the decision by the court yesterday, which affirms the NFLPA's tireless commitment to supporting all former NFL players. We will continue our work to unite every member of the former player community, because when we stand together with a common agenda based on common principles, we can better protect our rights and advance our interests."