Super Bowl Prop Bets

Why pick the spread and the over/under when so much more is available for the Super Bowl? Here's the best bets from the long list of prop bets available from bodog.


The first 1st down in the game will happen on a Pass or Run play?
Passing Play (First 1st Down) -180
Rushing Play (First 1st Down) +150

Both of these teams will come out passing and stay passing. The first first down of the game will likely come on the first play, Peyton Manning to Dallas Clark for 12 yards.

What will be the result of the first coaches challenge in the game?
Play Overturned -115
Play Stands -115

Way fewer than half of challenges are overturned. I can't believe we are getting even money for this.

Total number of pass interceptions made in the game by both teams
Over/Under (Total Pass Interceptions) 2½
Over +160
Under -200

The odds are rightfully against a high number of interceptions here but too many times we see great quarterbacks have bad games. We could even see both guys play well and still combine for three interceptions. The extra juice makes the over attractive.

Will there be a lead change in the second half
Yes (Lead Change 2H) +140
No (Lead Change 2H) -170

I think this will be a close game so I'm expecting the lead to change hands in the second half, probably more than once.

Total points scored by both teams
0-7 Points (Both Teams) 500/1
8-14 Points (Both Teams) 100/1
15-20 Points (Both Teams) 40/1
21-25 Points (Both Teams) 30/1
26-30 Points (Both Teams) 18/1
31-35 Points (Both Teams) 12/1
36-40 Points (Both Teams) 10/1
41-45 Points (Both Teams) 7/1
46-50 Points (Both Teams) 6/1
51-55 Points (Both Teams) 6/1
56-60 Points (Both Teams) 6/1
61-65 Points (Both Teams) 7/1
66-70 Points (Both Teams) 8/1
71-75 Points (Both Teams) 12/1
76-80 Points (Both Teams) 15/1
81 or more Points (Both Teams) 5/1

I think the chances are excellent this game will be in the 50s. So I am taking both 51-55 and 56-60 at 6 to 1 each.

Will the Game Total Be Odd or Even
Odd (Game Total) -135
Even (Game Total) +105

Not sure why odd seems more likely but I'll take even.

How long will it take Carrie Underwood to sing the National Anthem? Clock starts as soon as Underwood sings first Note and Stops when she sings her last note.
Over 1 Minute and 42 Seconds EVEN
Under 1 Minute and 42 Seconds -130

She just doesn't seem like the type to drag out her moment with long oversung notes. I expect a cool efficient performance from Ms. Underwood. And I also expect excessive promotion of her upcoming appearance on "How I Met Your Mother" from Jim Nantz who recently did a guest spot of his own.




What Color will the Gatorade be that is dumped on the Head Coach of the Winning Super Bowl Team?

Lime Green 10/1
Yellow 5/6
Orange 11/2
Red 8/1
Blue 25/2
Clear/Water 37/20

Yellow is the safe bet here but as the odds-on favorite its not worth the risk. Taking into account the odds you have to go with orange here.




Who will the Super Bowl MVP of the Game thank first? Wager is on Interview done with the Super Bowl MVP on field during the Trophy Presentation only.
God 3/2
Family 8/1
Teammates 1/1
Coach 12/1
Does not Thank Anyone 23/10

Drew Brees and Peyton Manning aren't Jesus people so God doesn't seem likely here. I'm betting on family but I could see other options (Brees - New Orleans fans, Manning - teammates) or if some wildcard MVP is selected we don't know what he will say. Plus couldn't God just take action on God then give someone the strength to win the MVP? And what if it's Jesus, does that count as God, or is he someone else entirely?

How Many Times will CBS announcers fully mention Hurricane Katrina during the game? Wager is on the number of times announcers specifically say - Hurricane Katrina - during the Game (from kick off until final whistle).
Over/Under 2 1/2
Over -190
Under +155

I don't think the oddsmakers considered that Jim Nantz is doing this game and he loves cheesy shit like this. Plus with Nantz I don't think we are at risk of him saying "Katrina" he's the type of tightass who will say Hurricane Katrina every time.

How Many Times will CBS show Kim Kardashian on TV during the Game? Wager is on the number of times Kim Kardashian will appear on TV during the Game (from kick off until final whistle). Live pictures only, Any Taped Pictures or Past Video does not count towards wager.
Over/Under 2 1/2
Over -125
Under -105

If Reggie Bush scores we will see at least three distinct shots of Kim Kardashian. Sometimes they tone this type of thing down for the Super Bowl so this is iffy but I am going over.

Note: you can also bet on the number of times they will show Archie Manning, Eli Manning or Tony Dungy.

What color top will Kim Kardashian be wearing at the Super Bowl? Wager is on color of top and not on jacket if seperate top and jacket are shown.
Black 4/7
White 13/4
Any Other Color 7/4

I think there is a good chance of her going with a black jacket and white top and since the odds are favorable for white, I'll bet on white. Plus, we know she loves black in her bottom, not in her top.



Will they show a replay of Tom Benson celebrating the missed field goal against Tampa Bay from the regular season?
Yes +250
No -325

No TV producer worth his salt would pass up the chance to show this awesome video to 150 million people.

Juvenile Jokes Force a Magazine to Change Its Name

In 1920 when the Hudson’s Bay Company began publishing a magazine for its 250th anniversary, The Beaver: A Journal of Progress probably seemed to be a good title. The company, which controlled much of the landmass that is now Western and Northern Canada, owed much of its early fortune to the trade in beaver pelts.

The Beaver, which was initially a bit of in-house boosterism, evolved into a respected magazine about Canadian history. The Bay, as the company is commonly known, shifted from fur trading to department stores. And last week Canada’s National History Society, the nonprofit group that now publishes The Beaver, decided that the Internet required the magazine to undergo a name change.

To be more precise, the title was doomed by a vulgar alternative meaning that causes Web filters at schools and junk mail filters in e-mail programs to block access to material containing the magazine’s name.

The trouble went beyond Web pages. The magazine found that its attempts to e-mail classroom aids to teachers were thwarted by its name, as were attempts to contact many readers.

The last issue as The Beaver, which announces the name change to Canada’s History, was mailed to subscribers last week.

My Entire Four Years at Syracuse Boiled Down to Two Minutes

How to Report the News

An Ad You Won't See During the Super Bowl

A gay dating website, mancrunch.com, had its ad rejected by CBS.



CBS said its standards and practices department rejected the ad. Gay groups are claiming discrimination but CBS also says it has very few ad slots left and it couldn't verify Mancrunch's financial status.

While I disagree with this decision because it seems like it was made because the ad shows two guys kissing, I also doubt Mancrunch's motives. I know a lot of gay men will watch the Super Bowl, but for the relative dollars it seems like Mancrunch would be better off advertising on the Oscars. I think they knew this ad would get rejected which allowed them to claim discrimination and get their ad out there without paying a dime.

What's Lindsey Vonn's Position?

Sports Illustrated's Winter Olympics Preview features U.S. skier Lindsay Vonn skiing down a mountain. At least that's what it looks like to me, but to some women it looks like a sex position, not a ski position.
"women are more likely than not to be in sexualized poses and not in action - and the most recent Vonn cover is no exception" according to a women's sports website.

No Good Deed Goes Unpunished

Papa Poop is a frequent blood donor and he asked me to meet him at CitiField for the Mets Blood Drive.
I took the train out there after work to do the good deed, get a ride home (he would take Chase out for lunch while Mrs. Poop and I slept) and get two free tickets to a Mets game in April.



When registering I was asked to do "Alyx" which is a special form of blood donation in which they take just your red blood cells.

So I got hooked up to the machines and the guy told me that when the pressure cuff is tight I should squeeze to pump my blood, but then the cuff would loosen, I should stop squeezing and it would send the platelets and other stuff back into my vein. We would go through three cycles of this.

But after the first cycle I did feel the cuff release pressure and I stopped squeezing but I may have been holding my fist too tight. I started to feel excrutiating pain and my arm swelled to three times the size. I thought it was unusual but figured it was what happened when they put blood into your vein. When the nurse turned around he was like "holy shit, didn't you feel that?" He explained I must not have relaxed my arm enough and the blood blood was trying to get out, while the machine was pumping it back into my arm, and the needle slowly pulled out of the vein, and pouring into my arm under the skin. He wrapped my up real tight and this is what my arm looked like the next day.



The regretable thing is that they were unable to use any of my blood which went right in the garbage. I still got my free tickets but I think I was punished for years of laughing at hematomas.

LSD No-Hitter: Urban Legend or Baseball History?

One of the greatest urban legends of all-time is the story of Pittsburgh Pirates pitcher Dock Ellis saying he threw his 1970 no-hitter while high on LSD.
I have always rejected this story but baseball people take it as fact.
A new video takes Ellis's own description of that day and adds an animated imagining of what Ellis must have been seeing that day.



There is no way his story is true. Possible theories include: he was so high he thought it was the same day but it really was one day or two days after he dropped acid that he pitched the no-hitter. Or maybe like David Wells he just exaggerated and instead of recanting like Wells he kept adding on his own lie until he believed it himself. Or he made the whole thing up so he would be remembered.

Love is Blind

Meredith Whitney and Jonathan "Bradshaw" Layfield
She's one of the most respected analysts on Wall Street, he's a professional wrestler. Ok, he does profess to know about stocks but I really can't believe this pairing works.

I'm Amazed Tim Higgins Never T'd Up Roach

USC coach Kevin O'Neill fired team manager Stan Holt after he cursed at the officials over foul calls in the Trojans' game vs. Oregon. The box score shows 17 fouls against USC and 11 charged to the Ducks, but since Holt spoke up too frequently and too audibly, he was charged with a technical foul late in the second half of a close game. After that T, Oregon went on a 10-0 run and won the game, 67-57.

O'Neill pulled a George Steinbrenner after the game, firing Holt on the spot.

The call came with 4 minutes 35 seconds left and Oregon leading, 49-47. Stan Holt, a third-year manager, was deemed responsible.

"The referee told me he was screaming obscenities at him," O'Neill said. "That's on me and that will be rectified. It already has been. He's gone. If somebody's getting a technical foul, it's going to be me."
After Holt was slapped with the technical, the Oregon student section chanted "You're fired!" at him, causing Holt to leave the team bench and head into the bowels of the arena. Then, after the game, Trojan Dwight Lewis admitted Holt's technical changed the momentum of the game, and O'Neill apologized to the team for Holt's technical while Holt "stood 30 feet from the locker room" and was protected from reporters.

According to ESPN's Pat Forde:
Generally speaking, managers are expected to behave like Victorian-era children: seen but not heard. They do a ton of work behind the scenes, but the in-game sideline job description goes something like this:

Have water ready. Have towels ready. Have greaseboard ready for timeouts. Set up chairs for timeouts. Form human wall between timeout huddle and fans/TV cameras so they cannot see or hear coach ripping players for poor performance. Pick up shattered pieces of greaseboard after coach slams it to the floor during timeouts. Move back chairs after timeouts. Ardently cheer for your team without getting in anyone's way. Stoically endure sullen behavior of benched players when you try to hand them water. Don't lose anyone's sweats. Don't talk trash with enemy fans.

And do not, under any circumstance, get T'd up.

Roach was a team manager for SU, Boeheim's right-hand man and he never ever said a word during games or around the team at all, earning him the nickname Roach.

Song of the Week

"Lifetime" - Prophet Jones
Another song at least tangentially inspired by the late, great Teddy Pendergrass.

"I'm not talking bout a 30/70
I'm not talking bout a 60/40
I'm talking bout a 50/50 love"

Breaking Bad's Genuis Extends to Marketing

Not only is "Breaking Bad" the best show on television, the show's producers are now extending their genius to marketing.
It all started when someone at WeatherProof noticed President Obama wearing one of the company's coats on a trip to China.
WeatherProof bought the rights to use the picture from the Associated Press and pasted it on two giant billboards in Times Square.
The ad attracted a lot of attention because it featured the President and used his image without his permission.
The White House asked the company to take it down but since Obama would almost never sue over this WeatherProof kept the ad up for at least a month even though legally had it been sued it almost certainly would have lost the case.
And that's where "Breaking Bad" comes in.
The show took advantage of this publicity stunt and put a billboard near the WeatherProof one featuring Walter White (Bryan Cranston) photoshopped into the same picture of the Great Wall of China, in the President's place.
It also doctored several other key elements of the WeatherProof billboard all of which will hopefully bring attention to the premiere of the show's third season on March 21.

What Do You Give Me For? Rep. Henry Waxman and Punxsatawney Phil

What Do You Give Me For Rep. Henry Waxman and Punxsatawney Phil?

Mama Poop is Gonna Plotz

I have made an agreement with two other Syracuse alums at my office that if SU wins the national title this year we will all get the "Family Forever" tattoo Andy Rautins has on his side.



It's called an ambigram, when viewed one way it reads family, from the other side it spells forever.

I think Mama Poop would kill me but maybe she wouldn't mind if I got the Canadian Maple Leaf. If you've ever watched a Syracuse game you know Rautins played for the Canadian National team and was coached by his father Leo.



Then there's is Rautins's other tattoo, "Andrius" on his arm, which evidently is the Lithuanian form of Andrew.

Worst Person in the World: John Edwards

Former Senator John Edwards and his wife Elizabeth are now legally separated. News of a lovechild he had with former Rielle Hunter wasn't the tipping point. The child was born nearly two years ago and a couple weeks ago Edwards finally admitted paternity. The allegations in a new book "The Politician" written by his former top aide Andrew Young may have done it.
Here are some of the accusations in the book:

-When Hunter, a videographer hired by the Edwards campaign, became pregnant, Edwards persuaded longtime “body man” Young to claim he was the father. Young went into hiding with his wife, their three children — and Hunter.

-Young describes his alleged discovery of a compromising videotape of Edwards and a naked, pregnant lover, identified by Young as Hunter.

Donations: “S–t, they love me — they would do anything for me,” John Edwards would say after getting a big donation, Young writes. If refused, he would say, “What the hell — why are they wasting my time? I’m going to be president. I don’t have time for this s–t. Everyone wants to give me advice. I don’t want their advice. I want their money.”

Made in USA: Young says Edwards is an Atkins-dieter who hated making appearances at state fairs where “fat rednecks try to shove food down my face. I know I’m the people’s senator, but do I have to hang out with them?” Before a SEIU candidate forum in Las Vegas, Young says Edwards made him cut out a “made in the USA” label from Young’s own suit to sew in place of Edwards’s “made in Italy” label.

Edwards’ hair: “Naturally thick and lustrous, his hair was a fixation with him. He insisted on using just one kind of shampoo — HairTec Thick & Strong Shampoo for Fine, Fragile Hair,” Young writes. He says that for years he or Edwards personally paid for the expensive haircuts rather than publicly list them as campaign expenses. He blamed the gaffe – Edward’s campaign committee picked up the tab for two $400 haircuts — on “new, inexperienced staff.”

A confrontation: Shortly after John Edwards and Hunter returned from a trip to Uganda in 2006, Elizabeth Edwards answered a cell phone call to hear Hunter who “launched into a romantic monologue,” Young writes. According to Young’s account, Elizabeth confronted her husband who “confessed to having had a one-night stand but didn’t say with whom.” He called Hunter in front of his wife to end it, but later called her back to say he didn’t mean it.

Thoughts of leaving: Young says that Edwards would confide in him about how he thought about leaving “crazy” Elizabeth, but how she plays better with American voters than he. “I cringed when he said this,” Young writes.

Time together: While Elizabeth was on a book tour for “Saving Graces,” Hunter allegedly spent time at the Edwards home. Young writes that Hunter slept in their bed and entertained the children. He also writes that he listened as Edwards told her that one day they would form their own family and have a wedding where the Dave Matthews Band would play.

Hotel reservations: Keeping the affair running throughout the campaign wasn’t easy. “When I knew where the senator was staying, I made reservations in my own name, faxed copies of my credit card and state identification card, and told the hotel staff that my ‘wife’ would be checking in on my account,” Young writes. He said he paid for much of Hunter’s expenses out of his pocket, and Edwards promised reimbursement when they found wealthy campaign donors or when Elizabeth died and he no longer had to cover up such costs. “I’ll take care of you, Andrew,” he quotes Edwards as saying. “You know I’m good for it.”

Incurable cancer: Elizabeth Edwards said publicly that she discovered her cancer had returned shortly after a rib broke from a strong hug from her husband. Young writes that she broke her rib while she was moving boxes and her husband was in Iowa planning a tryst for Hunter’s birthday. Young writes that Edwards got the call and hurried home – and sent flowers to his angry mistress.

Hunter’s pregnancy: According to Young, Hunter called him in May 2007 to say she was pregnant. Young says that when he informed Edwards, the senator told him to “handle it,” to which he replied: “I can’t handle this one.” Young writes that Edward unloaded on Hunter as a “crazy slut,” said they had an “open relationship,” and put his paternity chances at “one in three.” Young says that Edwards asked him for help persuading Hunter to have an abortion. Young writes that Hunter believed the baby to be “some kind of golden child, the reincarnated spirit of a Buddhist monk who was going to help save the world.”

A move: Right before the Iowa debate, Young says Edwards asked him to take his family and Hunter and move away – all on the dime of trial lawyer friend Fred Baron. On Dec. 15, 2007, Young released a statement claiming paternity.

The decision to hide: Young writes that Edwards promised “He would make sure I had a job in the future,” and told him: “You’re family. A friend like no friend I’ve ever had.” Young goes on to say that Edwards concluded “that if I helped him, I would make Mrs. Edwards’s dying days a bit easier. ‘I know you’re mad at her, Andrew, but I love her. I can’t let her die knowing this.’”

The Universe Punishes Some Obnoxious High School Kids for Trying to Play a Joke on the Girls' Basketball Coach

A group of high school kids intended to play a prank on girls' basketball coach Joel Branstrom. They told him if he hit a half-court shot blindfolded he would win tickets to the Final Four. Never expecting him to make it they planned to cheer a miss to make him think for a minute he had done the improbably.



Luckily for Branstrom and those obnoxious kids the same Universe that punished them rewarded the coach who through some mysterious benefactor will get his final four tickets.

A 45-Year-Old Stuffed Animal

An amazing look at the enduring stuffed animal that has been on top of Mama Poop's dresser for as long as I've been alive.
These two pictures were taken roughly 45 years apart.