Super Bowl LIII Predictions and Prop Bets

I'd say it's the most wonderful time of the year... but as I was starting to prep this Naperville was still facing subzero temperatures and wind chills that can only be described as "stupid cold."

But the biggest game in American sports over the course of a calendar year is upon us once again, and that means Adam and I have work to do!

In what has become another annual tradition, we've continued to make football picks into the postseason, and we expand that come Super Bowl Sunday to include some of the prop bets. We touch on a lot of the in-game stuff, of course, but I also like to dabble in some of the specials.

So below, Adam and I will give our Super Bowl picks, and then we will continue on to the prop bets.

Super Bowl LII Predictions and Prop Bets

And so as Super Bowl Sunday approaches, I need to do one final look at an NFL football game for this season. And as has become tradition, Adam will be joining me once again.

He beat me fair and square in the regular season in our Pigskin Pick 'Em contest, but we always do a special for the Super Bowl with some of the prop bets that you can make. We won't be wagering money; instead we're doing this with a point system: bet 100 points to win however many based on lines from Bovada.

Those will follow below. But first, here's how we're both predicting the Super Bowl to go.

Super Bowl LI Predictions and Prop Bets

It's become a true tradition unlike any other: Super Bowl weekend, and Adam and I are scratching gambling itches without spending any money... or at least I am.

I don't remember what last year's results on this were, but two years ago I won pretty much solely based on the Gatorade bath taken by Bill Belichick. Hopefully I won't need that this year to win. Like in prior years, we're going to make our picks for the game and enjoy a few prop bets; many are game-based, but we're also going to do some extra curricular ones because those are fun.

But first, here are our Super Bowl LI predictions.

Super Bowl 50 Predictions and Prop Bets

I dropped off a little bit for the NFL playoffs. I had meant to write something for Wild Card Weekend, and spaced it off by the time games started that Saturday. At that point, I didn't want to do write ups for the following rounds, but I definitely intended to do one for the Super Bowl. It is after all, for all intents and purposes, a national holiday.

That said, I can't just go and do this on my own. I need my NFL partner in crime back for this one. Adam Quinn, who was victorious in the 2015 COAS Pigskin Pick 'Em by a sizable margin, is back to pick the Super Bowl with me.

Of course, because it's such a big game, we're also getting back into the fun part from last year: the prop bets. I ended up winning based solely on nailing the Gatorade bath color, but Adam was pretty on the money with his other bets, so it was a pretty close contest.

We are going to do this the same way we did it last year. Each bet that we lay will be putting 100 points on the line, with a chance to win however many are available from betting those 100 points. We will each pick the game based on the Vegas line and go through a number of props ranging from Super Bowl MVP, touchdown and yard-related bets, and some of the fun novelty ones.

Before we get into those, however, here are my and Adam's picks for the Super Bowl.

Thoughts From Super Sunday

Photo by Matt Slocum (AP)

Super Sunday delivered once again. We had a great game with some spectacular plays, and a phenomenal finish. Congratulations to the New England Patriots on their fourth quarter comeback and fourth Super Bowl title.

In the midst of all the chaos, I wanted to do a rundown of the best and worst of Super Sunday. I had the day off of work because of the North Central-Wheaton doubleheader on Saturday, though given the giant snowfall we had in Chicago, I wouldn't have made it in anyway. I got to prep for the game, watch it in its entirety, and got to spend the whole day with my wonderful wife and our two cats. So below, here are the best and worst moments from yesterday.

Super Bowl XLVIII Preview

Every August, 32 teams convene in different places around the country with a singular goal in mind: making the postseason field of 12 and win two or three games, depending on seeding, to make it to the biggest sporting event in America that should really be a national holiday. Today, two of those teams' dreams will be realized as they take the field in East Rutherford, New Jersey. But only one can come out on top.

This year's Super Bowl itself was mired in controversy months, if not years, ago, when the NFL decided to hold it in the metro New York area. Obviously, hosting in a northern city in general carries risks (but then again Dallas had a freak snowstorm three years ago, so location isn't everything) but holding it in an open air stadium up north caused a lot of bickering. Me, I liked the thought of playing a Super Bowl in the elements. Apparently though, the elements won't be much of a factor if at all. Say what you will about The Weather Channel, but their forecast is calling for a kickoff temperature in the mid-40s, dropping a bit as the game goes on, and a slight chance for some rain. Not what we usually see on Super Sunday, but a far cry from the doomsday some predicted.

I kept waiting for ESPN to run prop bet picks for the past two weeks, but it never materialized, so I'm bypassing that this year. Let's just stick to what's important: the game. Line for picking is taken from Vegas Insiders.

Looking Ahead: 2013 NFL QB Power Rankings

I spent most of my weekend at home sick and missed out on getting to North Central for basketball, but I was feeling better on Sunday in time to watch what really turned out to be a fun Super Bowl. I'm happy for Ray Lewis getting to go out with a ring, and given the whining out of San Francisco and 49er fans around the country. Short, simple note: given A), the way the officials called the whole game; and B), the fact that there was definitely some mutual contact on that 4th and goal play, it was a good no call. The players were allowed to play (maybe to a fault, given some of the fighting that occurred) and in a mutual contact situation, don't throw a flag. Simple as that. Baltimore clearly outplayed San Francisco for most of the game and made the critical last stand at the end.

So with the NFL season now complete and I look for other stuff to write about, I was finally coaxed into a thought I had been having when I saw ESPN's SportsNation having fans rank the 32 starting quarterbacks in the NFL (I'm assuming as of Week 17 for the non-playoff teams). SportsNation collectively showed a pretty good knowledge of the quarterbacks, and you can see their picks compared to mine here. I will go through my list below. I place a pretty high priority on postseason success, some of which relies on more than the quarterback, but at the same time quarterback play is a major indicator of how good a team is.

Ironically, Nathaniel had the same idea for today. It's like we're best friends or something.

Like Bill Simmons did with his QB rankings, I will put them in tiers, only I'm basing mine on quarterbacks from my Madden Franchise Mode that I am now a full 7 seasons through. The stats I include below (coming soon) for each tier are based on actual quarterback play over the course of these players' time in this virtual NFL.

Super Bowl Predictions and Prop Bets

Disclaimer: These bets are being used for the purposes of competition on ESPN.com's Super Pick 'Em. No money is being wagered for the purposes of this competition. You know, the whole "gambling being illegal" thing.

I was looking for something to do in conjunction with my Super Bowl prediction this year, and happened to notice on ESPN's website that they are hosting a game to pick some of the fun prop bets they've picked out, and I figured why not. Those will be featured below (after the jump), but I do want to focus on the most important part of the weekend: the Super Bowl itself. The line for this week's game comes from footballlocks.com.

Baltimore Ravens vs San Francisco 49ers (-3.5)
With a neutral site game, you can fully get what Vegas expects out of a matchup between two teams, since home field generally gives you 3 points to play with. I think the line sounds about right in the grand scheme of things, even if you go by some books that have the line at 4.

I really like the intrigue this matchup brings, and it goes beyond the already kind of worn out "HarBowl" moniker that this game has been given. The Niners were an elite defensive team that could out-physical most teams but had a question mark at quarterback in Alex Smith, but that question was definitively answered when Smith suffered a concussion and Colin Kaepernick Tom Brady'd Smith and the Niners have turned into probably the most complete team coming into the playoffs. On paper, the Niners are the better team. But that's what makes sports fun: games aren't played on paper.

The Ravens looked going into January like they'd be a fairly early out since they struggled to close out the regular season and didn't seem to have the momentum that most recent Super Bowl champs have had. Then Ray Lewis announced his retirement effective at the end of the season, and it gave the Ravens a little something extra to play for, like #Chuckstrong did in Indy for much of the year. When you combine that and his rejuvenation for this final run with the kind of tear Joe Flacco is on, this team is dangerous. San Francisco has shown they can be thrown on when the game is competitive. Aaron Rodgers did it for a while in the divisional round, and Matt Ryan did it in the first half of the conference title game. Niners fans would be delusional to think the Ravens can't move the ball through the air.

That's what makes this matchup so interesting. When you combine all these factors, it seems like we're bound for another game decided on the final possession. When it comes down to the winner, I have to go with the better team, but that emotional factor will likely allow Baltimore to at least cover the spread here.

Prediction:49ers 24, Ravens 21

Record So Far
6-4 straight up (1-1 last round)
139-126-1 against the spread (1-0-1 last round, 5-4-1 playoffs)

The Unofficial National Holiday

The biggest single day of sports is the first Sunday in February every year. For a weekend stretch of sports, nothing beats the opening rounds of the NCAA tournament, but the Super Bowl in and of itself is the biggest game all year.

I've put off thoughts about the game to come until just about the last possible minute. If you go by my original prediction, I only got 3 of 11 winners right. On a week by week basis I did much better; I correctly picked 6 of the 10 games correctly. It only makes sense that I predict the Super Bowl.

I foresee this as an offensive battle of epic proportions between two elite quarterbacks. Tom Brady is finally back on the biggest stage where he has excelled throughout his career. He will be somewhat limited offensively with Gronkowski recovering from an ankle sprain, but he still has Welker and Hernandez. Meanwhile Eli Manning has vaulted himself into elite status (while not on the same plane as Brady, but still elite) by making his teammates better. He has excellent receivers in Nicks, Cruz, and Manningham.

The other reason this will be a shootout? The Giants defense is ranked 27th, the Patriots 31st. Personally, I hate those numbers as the main statistic when it comes to measuring defense, so based on scoring allowed, the Patriots were 15th (21.4 PPGA) and the Giants 25th (25 PPGA). Still not great, so it strengthens the argument that we're going to see a shootout.

The toughest part? Predicting the score. I scoured the archives of Facebook to try to find my prediction for Super Bowl XLIII, only to be shot down by lack of status updates from back that far. But I have friends who are witnesses to the fact that I correctly predicted Steelers 27, Cardinals 23 and who will gladly back me up in this claim if asked. (And I'm also pretty sure there's audio evidence from the WONC archives I could dig up too... but I digress.) I did it once, so there's no chance in hell that I'll ever correctly predict the score again. But that won't stop me from predicting.

It'll be a high scoring game, and turnovers/sacks will have an impact, but it also seems like whoever has the ball last will win the game. My official prediction is Giants 34, Patriots 28. I figure New England will score a lot and can come up with some big plays to hold the Giants to field goals, but Eli is deadly late in ball games. Then again, so is Brady, but this game just has a similar feel to Super Bowl XLII... you know, except this year it's the Patriots everyone is doubting, myself included.

Whatever your plans are for the big game, enjoy yourselves, have fun, and be safe. And start crafting proposals for Super Bowl Monday becoming a new national holiday. You know, because no one will want to do anything the day after the big game.