Americans beat Nationals to level Pro Bowl rivalry

National Football League top passer Matt Schaub threw for two touchdowns and run leader Chris Johnson scored the winning points Sunday as the American Conference beat the National 41-34 in the Pro Bowl. Houston's Schaub, who threw for a league-best 4,770 yards this season, and Tennessee's Johnson, who ran for an NFL-best 2,006 yards and had an NFL record 2,509 total yards from scrimmage this season, shined among the all-stars. "It means a lot to me to come out here with all the other top-notch guys and get some credit," Johnson said. Schaub was named the Most Valuable Player after throwing a 33-yard touchdown pass to Texans teammate Andre Johnson, the NFL's leading receiver, and a 23-yard touchdown to Brandon Marshall to give the Americans a 14-3 lead.

"It's a huge honor against all these other great players to be named the MVP," Schaub said. "It has been a great experience." The American Conference leveled the all-time rivalry with the Nationals at 20 triumphs each. "It's a no-defense game, so you're going to have a lot of scoring, but that's what we wanted to see," Nationals coach Wade Phillips said.

After Johnson scored the final points on a two-yard run with 5:59 to play, the Nationals marched downfield but James Harrison intercepted a Tony Romo pass to end their final drive and the Americans ran out the clock for the victory. The NFL all-star showdown was played in Honolulu from 1980 through 2009 in the week after the Super Bowl but moved this year to a week before the Super Bowl and to the site of the title spectacle as an experiment. Despite pre-game rain and many absent stars, including players from Super Bowl foes Indianapolis and New Orleans, a sellout crowd of 70,697 watched so the game might stay a week before the Super Bowl when it returns to Hawaii in 2011. "I think you should stop or end your season when you reach the pinnacle," NFL commissioner Roger Goodell told the Miami Herald.

"It's anticlimactic when you come back with the Pro Bowl the week after the Super Bowl." Maurice Jones-Drew of Jacksonville scored on a four-yard touchdown run to give the Americans a 31-24 lead 3:39 into the third quarter and Miami's Dan Carpenter added a 26-yard field goal 6:12 later to boost the lead. The Nationals pulled within 34-31 on a seven-yard touchdown run by DeAngelo Williams with 82 seconds remaining in the third quarter and an interception by Asante Samuel set up a 40-yard field goal by David Akers that leveled the score at 34-34 with 11:43 to play. Vincent Jackson of San Diego grabbed a pass from Jacksonville's David Garrard and completed a 48-yard touchdown pass play with a dive across the goal-line for the Americans to equalize at 24-24.

The play came just 51 seconds after Philadelphia's DeSean Jackson took a screen pass from teammate Donovan McNabb and rambled for a 58-yard touchdown for the Nationals in the opening seconds of the second half. Green Bay's Aaron Rodgers connected with Steve Smith of the New York Giants on a 48-yard touchdown pass and flipped a seven-yard screen pass to Jackson, who raced into the end zone, as the team's battled to a 17-17 deadlock at halftime. The American Conference defensive unit had two starters of international heritage, Baltimore tackle Haloti Ngata and Oakland cornerback Nnamdi Asomugha. Ngata, a starter in his Pro Bowl debut at age 26, is of Tongan ancestry.

He has 184 tackles and three interceptions in four NFL seasons. Asomugha, 28, is a Nigerian-American who has 291 tackles and 11 pickoffs over seven seasons. He runs a charity helping widows and orhpans in Nigeria.