February 5, 2010
Mythical Picks - Super Bowl Weekend 2010
Hold your applause; maintain a modicum of decorum there. This is indeed the final edition of Mythical Picks for the 2009/2010 football season. The assault on your sensibilities is coming to an end.
Moving closer to that end, I had some hits and some misses in the Mythical Picks two weeks ago:
1. I liked the Jets/Colts game Under 40. It went Over. Miss!
2. I liked the Jets +8 points. They did not cover. Miss!
3. I said a flyer on the Jets on the money line at +300 was worth a shot. That’s what happens to some flyers; they crash. Miss!
4. I liked the Vikes/Saints game Over 52.5. It went Over. Hit!
5. I liked the Vikes +3.5 points because I said I thought they had a legitimate chance to win outright. The Vikes covered in OT. Hit!
No one looking at those results should be tempted in the least to take any information that is forthcoming here and use it as a way to decide how to make an actual cash-money wager on the Super Bowl this weekend. Anyone doing so would be so stupid that he/she would plant a dogwood tree and then anticipate a litter of puppies.
Errata:
Two weeks ago, I said that Jerry Glanville was the head football coach at Portland State University. He did indeed hold that position until 17 November 2009 when he resigned. Thanks to a reader in Houston Texas for pointing this out to me - - without calling me dumbass or worse. Mea Culpa!
Comments:
The NFL has strived to provide “wholesome” halftime entertainment at the Super Bowl ever since Janet Jackson’s nipple made an ever so brief appearance six years ago. However, there comes a time when fans will have gotten tired of aging rock stars singing old time songs. The NFL will need to have a new idea in its hip pocket. And because I am truly a magnanimous person, I will offer this suggestion to the NFL suits for just such a time:
1. How about a 15-minute segment of Gallagher doing his “Sledge-O-Matic” routine? Instead of an old singer or group of singers doing old songs, have an old comedian doing an old comedy routine.
2. With Gallagher, the only “wardrobe malfunctions” might come from the mouthbreathers you put in the first five rows in front of him who wind up with crushed watermelon rind down their pants.
There is some good news and there is some bad news for the Super Bowl telecast based on the fact that the Saints beat the Vikings two weeks ago:
Good News: There will not be 250 shots of Deanna Favre in the stands with an anguished look on her face. I think Deanna Favre gets more facetime on TV than Katie Couric.
Bad News: We will assuredly get multiple, gratuitous and meaningless shots of Kim Kardishian during the telecast.
I want to go on record before all of the pre-game shows and the telecast of the game to beg with the producers of all those hours of TV time not to succumb to the temptation of the “Katrina Cliché”. Despite how warm and fuzzy it may make you feel, deep down, the “Katrina Cliché” is silly and insulting to the viewers and to the people in New Orleans who are still working to recover from Katrina.
The Saints are not in the game because they have been thinking all year about what a Super Bowl might mean to people who are still living in ramshackle housing in New Orleans. They are in the game because they are a good team and they played to their potential this season. The Saints are not there for the people of New Orleans nor are they there because of the people of New Orleans.
The residents of New Orleans who are still suffering will feel “happy” for about six hours should the Saints win the game but any such joy will erode quickly once the reality of their lives returns to center stage.
By the way, how come none of the TV folks said that Nick Saban and Alabama won the BCS Championship “for” the people of Mobile who were also devastated by Katrina? Are the folks at the University of Alabama heartless because they ignored all that suffering? Just asking…
Because the Jets lost two weeks ago, Mark Sanchez will not be playing in the Super Bowl this weekend. Because he is not playing, he will certainly not complete a pass in the Super Bowl and that preserves a tidbit of Super Bowl Trivia. The answer is a few paragraphs below so you need not fire up the Google contraption:
Who is the last QB from USC to complete a pass in the Super Bowl?
How long do you think it will take into the pre-game extravaganza for the producers to take their viewers to a sports bar in Indy and/or a sports bar in New Orleans so we can all see a bunch of fans mugging for the cameras in addition to getting themselves lubricated so they can watch the game with impaired senses? This is yet another television cliché that has become annoying at the very least.
As I am typing these sentences, there is a monster snowstorm bearing down on the Washington DC area. Tonight, I will get to see another of the horribly stupid television clichés as one of the reporters from the local TV news staff gets sent out to the Beltway around 11:00 PM so that he/she can give everyone a report that there is a ton of snow out there, it is still falling, the plows are working to try to clear the roads and no one should be out on the roads unless it is a life and death emergency. I know it will be there just as assuredly as I know there will be no new or useful information in the report. The only thing those reports are good for is to find out who is the “low man on the totem pole” on the various news staffs in the local market. The “top dog” is not going out to do that kind of on the spot reporting…
Trivia Answer:
Pete Bethard relieved Len Dawson in Super Bowl I and was the last QB from USC to complete a pass in the Super Bowl.
Predictions:
1. Within 12 hours of completing the game, there will be a report that some parent somewhere tried to watch the game with their kid(s) and they found one of the ads in the Super Bowl horribly offensive. Said parent will righteously assert that the Super Bowl is supposed to be wholesome family entertainment and that the game was ruined for them and their kid(s).
Memo to Offended Parents:
Get over it. And meanwhile, get over yourselves.
Anyone who thinks there will be no “edgy” ads on the Super Bowl will probably also be shocked to learn next April 15th that there are lots of people who don’t mail in their taxes until 10:00 PM on the day they are due.
If you ever need to get a brain transplant, the odds are that the brain will reject you.
2. The “Tim Tebow Ad” – the one that has generated an almost cosmic level of rhetorical gas for the last couple of weeks – will probably be memorable only because of the rhetorical gas that it generated and not because of its content or its production qualities.
The Game:
Saints vs. Colts – 4.5 (56.5): The Saints defense gave up 400+ yards to the Vikings two weeks ago, so I just do not see them “shutting down” the Colts’ offense. Raving Rex Ryan’s defense did not get it done; Garrulous Gregg Williams’ defense will not get it done. In addition, the Saints are going to score too. I like the game Over.
In the last three Super Bowl games, there have been two “Mannings” playing QB for one of the teams; both times, the team with the “Manning” has won. Let that be my segue to the next issue…
Recall the old Johnny Carson routine where he morphed into Carnac the Magnificent. He would take the answer to a question and divine the question that it answered. Now, allow me to channel Carnac the Magnificent for a moment here:
Answer: Peyton Manning
Question: Who dat say dey gonna beat dem Saints? Who dat?
I’ll take the Colts and lay the points.
With regard to the prop bets on the game, let me just say that some of them are such sucker bets that the people writing the book on them should be put in the stocks. For a totally random outcome, they make you lay -110 (or if some place is really generous -105) odds. Want some examples:
Will Peyton Manning (or Drew Brees) total yards passing be an even number or an odd number?
Will the coin flip come up heads or tails?
Finally, Scott Ostler had this item in the SF Chronicle recently. Here is an alternative way to enjoy the Super Bowl:
“According to my personal spam invitation from Hugh Hefner, for my $1,000 general admission ticket to the ‘Game Day at Playboy Mansion’ Super Bowl party, ‘You can expect beautiful playmates gourmet buffet.’ Let’s hope I can also expect better punctuation and grammar.
“Not that I plan to hang with the riff-raff at the Playboy Mansion. For $15,000 I can have a VIP cabana for 10 people. Honey, you don’t have to worry about me and my buddies spilling guacamole all over the den carpet again this Super Bowl!”
But don’t get me wrong, I love sports…
