From Todd C
For the mailbag what’s your favorite Super Bowl party foods, and yes we all like chicken wings.
Todd C. –
Such a great question.
We’ll likely have some if not all of the following:
We go buffalo chicken dip rather than the wings. We almost always make chili (for me) and homemade pizza (for the kids).
The game-day snacks range from easy (Scoops – which are Tostidos with a piece of pepper jack cheese and some salsa microwaved for 45 seconds) to the intricate (the Mrs. 5-at-10 has a wickedly good array of snacks from artichoke dip – not my fav – to a jalapeno popper dip that is amazing). We’ll likely grill some sausages for a cheese and sausage platter as well.
And, as most of you know, plenty of Co-Colas on hand to make wash everything down.
Speaking of that here’s the list of the 10 Super Bowl prop bets/guesses for the very first 5-at-10 Super Duper Bowl Bet-Off.
Here are the rules. Most correct answers out of 10 wins the prize pack, which will include some TFP swag lunch gift card to a fern bar-type establishment and maybe another trinket or three. On the open-ended questions, the Price Is Right rules are in effect. Meaning on question 1 of “How many passing yards will Tom Brady have in Super Bowl LII” if you answer 301 and he throws for 300, the person who guessed 1 is closer than the person who guessed 301. Deal? Deal.
(And yes, the over/unders set by Vegas are one side or the other, but considering the number of folks we expect to play, 10 either/ors could set us up for a lot of ties. As always it’s free to play, so whatcha waiting for?)
1. Tom Brady’s passing yards.
2. Person to score the first points of Super Bowl LII. (Please specify any offensive player or kicker. If you want to say defensive player, that includes everyone else and covers all returns, defensive scores and safeties.)
3. How long in seconds will the national anthem last?
4. Patriots minus-5, who you got?
5. Justin Timberlake’s first song during the halftime performance.
6. Who will be the MVP?
7. Which will be longer: Longest made field goal, the first punt or longer pass completion?
8. The Eagles player with the most yards from scrimmage (rushing or receiving only) will be?
9. How many official sacks will be made?
10. Total points scored, over/under 47.5.
Now these are not part of the contest, but we though these actual Vegas prop bets were pretty intriguing, and offer amazing value for the wager considering the length of time the bet will last:
Number of gold medals won by the U.S. in the 2018 Winter Games is a 0.5 favorite over first-quarter points score by the Patriots and the Eagles.
Nick Foles pass attempts is -6.5 vs. LeBron James’ total points vs. Houston on Feb. 3.
James’ points, rebounds, assists vs. the Rockets is -3.5 over Nelson Agholor receiving yards.
Rob Gronkowski receptions is -0.5 to Jordan Spieth birdies in Sunday’s final round at Torrey Pines.
The list of prop bets from William Hill sports book in Vegas is 14 pages long and includes 938 options. There was almost $140 million bet in Nevada alone on last year’s Super Bowl.
From a slew of you
What do you think of the XFL coming back?
Gang –
I am a little stunned that it’s starting in 2020, and thought Vince McMahon would try like heck to expedite it and be ready for 2019. The more time he gives the NFL to fix its issues, the tougher the climb to success.
Here’s our list of What we want for XFL-mas:
Johnny Football as starting quarterback for head coach Lane Kiffin for the West Texas Shot Takers.
Tim Tebow as starting quarterback with Deion Sanders as corner and defensive captain for head coach Steve Spurrier’s Pensacola Preachers.
Forget concussion tests. Each team has to send out a representative to accept a blow to the head right after the toss of the coin.
The Hollywood Haymakers are comprised completely of actors with the following line-up:
Jamie Foxx (aka Steamin’ Willie Beamon) at QB; L.L. Cool J at RB; Dude who was the DB in We Are Marshall; The man who played Julius in Remember the Titans at OLB and Bobby Boucher at MLB; Kicker Kathy Ireland from Necessary Roughness; Coach Al Pacino; Assistant coach Burt Reynolds.
As for rules, while we feel certain the league will exploit the connotations of the NFL going soft. But the rules and the frustration is a real chance to make some headway against the current model of the NFL.
Try some of these slogans, and while some of the other stuff was for kicks and giggles, these could really appeal to a lot of folks frustrated by the NFL issue:
XFL – where a catch is a catch.
XFL – where tackling is still allowed.
XFL – Gronk would rather play here.
XFL – the league where we all stand for the anthem.
XFL – where replays will not slow down the live action.
Got any others? Will it fail or succeed? If we had to bet we’d go with the former, but there is more of a market for this now than ever before and the answer will in large part will hinge on whether Vince McMahon and his partners are serious about this.
There are only two paths:
Make it as cartoonish and wrestling-like as imaginable. Cheerleaders hitting players with chairs. Players mic-ed up and trash-talking through the entire play and pre-play action. Changing rules and action. Go all the way with heroes and heels. The model has worked for a century with professional rasslin’ it would have a chance as a sports-entertainment-theater type of venture.
Or, try to be all about the football while being everything a growing number of folks hate about the NFL. You will have to make the most of a small-scale TV deal and hope for some good luck. Let college freshmen be eligible if they want a check.
If you try to mix the two, that’s doom. A hybrid of those two has no chance.
In the long run, the best thing McMahon could ever hope for is for the NFL to embrace it rather than hate it and buy a stake of it and turn it into a mid-market AAA system, even though he said that’s not any way part of the design. Especially if you start drafting freshmen and sophomores from colleges and give them one- and two-year deals so they can play football, get paid and show the NFL their stuff.
Sure the competition will be worse than say the SEC, but if you are Leonard Fournette and everyone knew you were pro-ready as a freshmen, would you rather make six figures for two years before entering the draft or win 8 games at LSU?
Think of the benefits of having a AAA league that plays from late May – after the draft – until late August.
There could be one team representing each division, so an eight-team AAA and each team could send its eight practice squad players to the XFL.
Some numbers to remember here friends: 9.5, the rating of the XFL season opener back in 2001. Week 2 was 4.6. Week 7 was 1.6. The championship game was 2.1
So having an identity from the start – especially if that season opener is Manziel vs. Tebow (or Favre or whomever) – and a plan is paramount for this to be anything more than McMahon pee-ing money away.
From Jonmac
Does Tiger have an automatic exemption to the tournaments or does he only have them for those he has won? I can not see anyone not wanting him to play and it seems like any sponsor would give him an exemption…
Jonmac –
We answered this in the comments, but wanted to expound on it and make sure everyone saw the response.
Great question, while almost every event on the Tour would be glad to give Tiger an exemption, he will not need one this year. And he will be exempt for a while moving forward. Before returning to the Hero World Challenge – an event he hosts and can exempt himself into – Tiger was ranked 1,199th in the world. (The other 17 players in that field were ranked in the top 50 for what that’s worth.)
Tiger has a lifetime exemption to the Masters and the PGA Championship as a former champion. He has an exemption into the The Open Championship as a former champion until the age of 60. Tiger has the final year of his 10-year exemption to the U.S. Open this year for winning in 2008.
For 2018, Woods appears pretty set. This is from an ESPN.com article on the matter from earlier this winter:
“Woods is exempt (in 2018) based on his 2013 Players Championship victory, which comes with a five-year exemption. Once that expires, his Lifetime Member exemption would kick in, which gives exempt status to a player who has at least 20 PGA Tour victories. Davis Love III and Vijay Singh are using that exemption in 2018.”
The events that could exclude Woods are the “World Golf Championship” events because they do not offer sponsorship exemptions or lifetime passes. Even though he has won 18 previous WGC events, he’ll have to earn a spot in those.
As for the rest, well, every tournament director everywhere would be falling all over themselves to offer him an exemption. And we’d rather trust a blind Uber driver than a golf tournament director not willing to give Tiger an exemption.
As for Thursday’s opening round at Torrey Pines, Tony Finau leads at 7 under.
The Baylor contigent of Luke List (-3), Harris English (-2), Keith Mitchell (-1) and Stephan Jaeger (-1) are all under par.
Tiger is tied for 84th at even par after Thursday’s opening round.
From Steve M.
Have you noticed, National Signing Day is (less than two weeks) away, and usually this time each year the message boards are going crazy, everyone is excited and can’t wait to see that “last minute” get by their coaches, twitter is overrun with recruits fishing for follows, but this year doesn’t seem to be as much. Did the early signing period take a lot of the excitement away?
Steve M. –
Great question Steve, and as we were preparing to sit down and answer it, we remembered that TFP college football guru and Press Row cohost David Paschall covered this earlier this week as well.
The early signing period has taken some of the umph from the traditional signing day. And while some folks may be uneasy about that – deep breaths recruiting junkies – we must admit that one part of the recruiting business that we though would be against it has really benefitted.
The major recruiting sites such as rivals.com and 247sports.com and their team specific pages likely are reaping some benefits from the early signing period. Yes, there may be less gusto and fanfare, but a December signing day as well as a February signing day means there are two must-have months for those services.
That said, we like the early signing period because we believe it gives the recruits more clarity and eliminates the “Well, we really want you if so-and-so and Johnny Tailback and Louie Athlete and Mr. Whosehispants decide to do something else” states of limbo at several levels.
This week’s Rushmores
Rushmore of in-game dunks: Lorenzo Charles, for the timing way more than the tremendousness of the dunk. Considering that play started the V Foundation for all intents and purposes, Charles’ dunk raised more than $120 million to fight cancer. Dr. J in the NBA Finals rocking the cradle as Michael Cooper gets out of the way. Jerome Lane sending it in. And Michael Jordan over Patrick Ewing. (Side note: We are heart-broken that Len Bias’ reverse dunk at UNC did not make it and that Clyde Drexler’s knees high dunk in the 1983 NCAA tournament was forced to the floor, too. And let’s be really clear here, even though neither is on this list, we’ll take the collective body of work of either Vince Carter or Dominique Wilkins as the best in-game dunkers ever and feel really good about that hand.)
Rushmore of U.S. gymnasts. Mary Lou Retton. Simone Biles. Shannon Miller. Nastia Liukin.
Rushmore of three-name baseball players. Pee Wee Reese. Groover Cleveland Alexander. Oil Can Boyd. Ebbie Calvin LaLoosh.
Rushmore of best movie villains since 1993. Heath Ledger as the Joker. Javier Bardem as Anton Chigurh in No Country for Old Men. Christop Waltz as Hans Landa in Inglorious Basterds. Kevin Spacey as John Doe in Seven. Spacey edged Ralph Fiennes as Amon Goeth in Schindler’s List, but both are pretty excellent in their awfulness. (Pennywise also got consideration but considering we loathe clowns, that’s a no-go. And we’ll never watch “It” anyways.)
On this day, Jan. 26, wow, it was 20 years ago today that then-President Bill Clinton said, “I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky.” (What a perfectly crafted open-ended statement that has tons of outs.)
The world’s largest diamond – 3,106 carats – was found on this day in 1905 in South Africa.
Paul Newman would have turned 93. Dude has a great catalog and a Rushmore of Newman films – Butch and Sundance, The Hustler, Cool Hand Luke, even a personal fav that is Nobody’s Fool, would leave out a good half-dozen excellent other options – would be strong.
Wayne Gretzky is 57 today. Yes we thought he was older too.
Man side thought for the group, if you consider Gretzky the best hockey player, Jordan the best basketball player, Brady the best football player, Federer the best tennis player, man, that’s a load of greatness in one generation, right?
And will ask you this: More of a GOAT, Gretzky or MJ? Discuss.
Less than fan mail
“I was going to read your column this morning but after you referenced Faux News I lost interest.”
And
“Man, I was listening to Press Row when you just blasted some dude for drinking craft beer. Really cool, (subs in ‘buttocks hole”)! Your so COOL!
Almost there
“Why don’t you write something meaningful instead of all this junk?”
Do we have time for one more
“What do you know about anything? You make me sick.”
Good talk friends.