Nurse the Hate: Guaranteed Super Bowl Winners!

I have not seen a Super Bowl with the ability to watch the actual game with any focus in years.  In the recent past I have reliably gone to some sunny island where the native population gamely tries to throw a party with random football decorations and make “game day food” like bleak chicken wings and sad sandwiches.  I feel especially badly for exploited island people who have no idea about the sport and are forced to wear unrelated football shirts while they bring sunburned overfed Americans drinks and the aforementioned bad chicken wings.  I do feel very Colonialist and slightly smug when a tiny brown woman in a Buccaneers shirt and a fake smile brings me Kalik Beer and awful wings whenever I beckon.  It is painful to admit.  I had to break the cycle.  I have done the same thing so many times, it’s a minor relief to be in this frozen hell so I can watch the game this year.

My vacation resort game plan was to try to secure one of the best seats in the party room where the hotel had set up their unreliable and out of date projection TV.  It does seem unrealistic to think a hotel in Belize or Turks & Caicos will have state of the art big screen TVs with hi def when much of the country doesn’t have running water, but I’m an American so I don’t care.  Give me my Super Bowl in all its bombastic glory.  I always get pissed at the TV situation.  As I want a good vantage point, I stake out this seat a couple hours before kickoff and begin drinking immediately as I have nothing else to do.  By the time the game rolls around I’m pretty buzzed up.  By halftime, I am clearly impaired.  I have almost no memory of any second half highlights of Super Bowls from 2005-present.

The only thing I have a grasp on is that the Patriots always win unless they are playing the Giants.  As I have scanned some pregame information on the World Wide Web, it has come to my attention that the Patriots are playing the Eagles with their backup quarterback.  This isn’t good.  What also isn’t good is that Belichick and Brady have had two weeks to pick apart the Eagles defense.  Tom Brady watches twenty year old game film for entertainment.  It’s fun for him.  Nick Foles is probably playing Xbox.  Edge Patriots.

I have also been reading about all sorts of “big bets” being placed by “sharp bettors” on the Eagles.  Here’s what I know about big money Vegas sports gamblers.  They never let anyone know what they are up to as Sports Books do not want any part of their action.  Those guys cost the sports books money.  The books cut them off, or limit their bets to a small amount that won’t hurt the casino.  The “sharps” need to find individuals to place action across several casinos so they can hide behind their identities to amass a large enough wager to move their needle.  It’s how they make their living.  When I see mainstream news sources talking about “big money, smart money” laying on the Eagles, I am immediately suspicious.  Edge Patriots.

I don’t like the 4.5 line.  I am going to invest in the Patriots on the money line.  The Patriots will likely get outplayed for 57 minutes and then run down the field in the last seconds to win by three.  Eagles fans will get their hearts ripped out.  Brady will win the MVP.  Obnoxious Boston fans will trumpet the win as if they themselves won the game.  It's a movie I have seen many times before.  We all know how this one ends.  Brady gets the girl.  Please note that I have no football rationale here, only that until the Patriots lose a game like this I will keep betting on them.

The real action is on the preposterous side bets.  These include:  Total tweets by Donald Trump, Over/Under 5.5.  How long will it take Pink to sing the anthem?  Over/Under 122.5 seconds.  Will any player be forced to leave the game with concussion symptoms and not return?  Yes/No.  What will the Nielson TV rating be?  Over/Under 45.5.  Who will have more?  Ohio State points in game vs Illinois or Gronkowski receiving yards?  Who will have more?  Newcastle goals +.5 or Patriots/Eagles First Quarter field goals?   As you can see, there are plenty of options on the board.

I am currently weighing the following...  

* Nick Foles more pass attempts (-6.5) than LeBron James points in game vs Houston tonight.  I think the Eagles are going to dink and dunk their way around the field which means plenty of passes.  If, God willing, the Eagles fall behind by two scores, then this thing is a lock.  Foles has thrown an average of 35 passes in his last four starts.  That means LeBron can score 28 and I'm golden.  What the hell, why not?

*  Player to score first TD...  The two tight ends have good odds here.  Ertz is 12-1 and Gronk is 8-1.  I might even take a flier on a Cleveland Doomsday Scenario of Kenny Britt at 50-1 as that would be a nice exclamation point on the Browns historic 0-16 season.  Any of those guys hit, and I'm playing with house money.

*  Tom Brady's first pass will be a completion -250.  Most players will have butterflies in this global event.  Brady has planned on being here when they announced Minneapolis as the site years ago.  He probably booked a suite for his wife in town four years ago he was so confident in playing this game.  "Honey?  Ritz or Four Seasons?  We need to be in Minnesota in February 2018 when I go win the Super Bowl..."  Is there any chance he doesn't throw a methodical 10 yard completion out of the gate?  As his Dos Equis ad states, "I'm Tom Brady.  I don't always play in the Super Bowl, but when I do, it's every year."

*  Belichick's shirt color blue 4/9.  The Patriots are going to wear their white jerseys.  Normally the head coach would roll out in a crisp white shirt with the team logo on it.  The Hoodie is not that guy.  Belichick will pick up a sweatshirt off the floor.  My guess is that will be one of his reliable blue shirts.  My only fear is that he puts on a cut up gray one that he finds in the cab on the way over to the stadium.  He had blue on for the last two games where they wore their white jerseys though.  God damn guy will probably show up in a red shirt just to screw me.

Though I am bittersweet at not being sunburned or as my associate Mr. Lanphier recently stated "swimming with sea monsters", I am looking forward to total focus on this game and the astounding variants of action available.  Super Bowl Sunday is the largest caloric intake day of the American year.  I just hit my weight loss goal I had set in January, so with any sort of luck I can completely undo that and lose a tremendous amount of money while doing it.  The sky will be a little grayer, the wind a little colder on Monday.  Unless, of course, Belichick wears that blue shirt...