Ladies and gentlemen, Super Bowl weekend is finally here, which is kind of a big deal, because five months ago, I was only about 10 percent sure there would even be a Super Bowl.
If I'm the Buccaneers and Chiefs, I'm locking every single one of my players in a sterile room for the next 48 hours and throwing away the key. I take that back, they probably shouldn't throw away the key, because those guys need to be able to get out of that room to play on Sunday.
With the Super Bowl roughly 48 hours away, that means it's time to get your last-minute Super Bowl bets in. If you're "Mattress Mack," that means betting $3.46 million on the Buccaneers to cover 3.5 points. Of course, this is the guy who once lost $13 million betting on the 2019 World Series, so doing the opposite of what he does might be your best play here.
Before we get to today's newsletter, I have some good news and some more good news (We don't do bad news here). The first bit of good news is that this isn't your final newsletter before the Super Bowl and that's because you'll be getting a special SUPER BOWL LV edition of the newsletter in the early afternoon on Sunday.
The other piece of good news is that we're having a Super Bowl giveaway here at CBSSports.com and there's still time to enter. It's free to enter and if you win, you'll take home more than $3,600 in electronic equipment from Westinghouse, including a 75-inch TV. To enter the contest, be sure to click here.
Also, I have even more good news: if you're wondering whether or not you'll be able to stream the Super Bowl for free this year, the answer is YES. All you have to do is bookmark this link. That will take you to the CBS Sports App, where you'll be able to watch the game and get the app at no cost. There is nothing better than free.
Speaking of free, I've got the rest of the day free, so I'm going to go eat some corn dogs now that it appears I've found a corn dog guy. Didn't realize this newsletter was so big in the corn dog world. Alright, let's get to the rundown.
1. Today's Show: Super Bowl LV best bets
If it's Friday, that can only mean one thing: It's time for our weekly best bets podcast. If you're new to these parts, the best bets podcast involves Will Brinson giving $100 in hypothetical money to his three guests -- R.J. White, Kenny White and Pete Prisco -- and asking them to bet it on this week's slate of games. Of course, since it's the Super Bowl this week, Brinson was feeling extra generous, so he gave everyone $200 in hypothetical money to bet with. I'm guessing Brinson will also be betting non-hypothetical money on this game. I know I will and I'll let you know what I'm betting on Sunday.
Anyway, here are some of the bets the guys decided to place with their hypothetical money:
Will Brinson
$50 on Chiefs (-3) to cover against Buccaneers ($50 bet wins $41.67)
$10 on Patrick Mahomes scoring the first TD ($10 bet wins $160)
$10 Tom Brady/Patrick Mahomes both over 299.5 pass yards ($10 bet wins $16)
$24 on Patrick Mahomes to win MVP ($24 to win $20)
$5 on alternate point spread: Chiefs (-20.5) to cover vs. Buccaneers ($5 bet wins $27.5)
Pete Prisco
$150 on Chiefs-Buccaneers OVER 56 points ($150 bet wins $136)
$50 Mahomes OVER 332.5 passing yards ($50 bet wins $50)
R.J. White
$24 on Chiefs (-3) to cover against Buccaneers ($24 to win $20)
$28 on both teams do NOT make a field goal of 35 or more yards ($28 bet wins $20)
$10 on Mike Evans being the FIRST player to score ($10 bet wins $140)
$1 on Anthony Sherman scoring the LAST touchdown of the game ($1 bet wins $100)
$33 bet on UNDER 14.5 points for the largest lead of the game ($33 bet wins $30)
Kenny White
$44 on longest field goal being UNDER 46.5 yards ($44 bet wins $40)
$10 on combo of Brady to lead in passing and Kelce to lead in receiving ($10 bet wins $80)
$30 on Tom Brady to win MVP ($30 bet wins $60)
$20 on OVER 2.5 players having a pass attempt ($20 bet wins $30)
$20 on game being decided by exactly three points ($20 bet wins $70)
Remember, these are just some of their best bets. If you want to know how each guy spent their entire $200 allotment in the Super Bowl, be sure to click here so you can listen to the entire episode of the podcast.
2. Tom Brady has been really bad in the first quarter of the Super Bowl
If I've learned one thing from watching Tom Brady play in nine Super Bowls, it's that you probably shouldn't expect his team to get off to a fast start. In what is probably the most inexplicable stat of Brady's career, he has never led his team to a touchdown in the first quarter of a Super Bowl. In nine games with the Patriots, Brady to managed to score three points TOTAL in the nine first quarters (That's 0.3 per game if you're scoring at home, which you might actually be doing since doing things at home is literally the only thing anyone has done for the past 11 months).
In 17 career first quarter drives in the Super Bowl (that began AND ended in the first quarter), Brady's team has 11 punts, two interceptions, two missed field goals, one safety and one field goal. That reads like the 12 Day of Christmas except if all the animals in the song died.
Brady was asked about his first quarter failures this week and he didn't really have much of an explanation.
"I haven't thought about that much," Brady said. "You'd obviously love to get off to a fast start. Hard to explain why or why not that hasn't happened. I'm sure they're all a lot of individual things, why that's happened or not."
Since Brady has a 6-3 career record in the Super Bowl, that clearly means he's doing something right in the other three quarters and he definitely is.
Here's a quick look at his per quarter touchdown-to-interception production in nine Super Bowls:
First quarter: Zero touchdowns, two interceptions
Second: Seven touchdowns, one interception
Third: Five touchdowns, one interception
Fourth: Six touchdowns, two interceptions
Brady also had more passing yards in the final TWO MINUTES of the game in each of those nine Super Bowls combined (538) than he does in every first quarter combined (485). That might be the most mind-boggling stat because he's played 135 minutes worth of first quarters in the Super Bowl compared to just 18 minutes for the end of game stat. Basically, if you're a Buccaneers fan, you might want to cover your eyes in the first quarter.
3. Super Bowl LV bold predictions
As you may or may not have noticed, we love making bold predictions here. Yesterday, you got bold predictions from the podcast crew, but since we're wrong 50% of the time, we thought it would make sense to find someone smarter than us to also make some bold predictions, so I rounded up Cody Benjamin. Cody writes the Wednesday newsletter here and since I trust him to write that, I also trust that his bold predictions will pan out. Of course, if they don't, we'll find someone else to write the Wednesday newsletter.
Here are Cody's three bold predictions for Super Bowl LV:
1. Tom Brady and Patrick Mahomes combine for 800 passing yards and six or more touchdowns.
2. Buccaneers-Chiefs becomes second Super Bowl ever to go to overtime.
3. Buccaneers lead in fourth quarter, but Chiefs win game
If you'd like to read Cody's explanation for each of his predictions, be sure to click here.
4. Super Bowl LV picks
In case you haven't noticed, we love to make picks here at CBS Sports. As a matter of fact, I even love to make picks about who's going to have the best picks each week. This week, I'm probably going to have the best pick, but I'm not going to share my pick with you every day, because that would get boring. Instead, I'm going to give you a pick from two different people. First, you're getting a pick from Jared Dubin, who wrote our comprehensive Super Bowl review (which you can read here) and you'll also be getting a bonus pick from Falcons quarterback Matt Ryan.
Ryan played the Buccaneers twice and the Chiefs once over the final three weeks of the season and he also lost a Super Bowl to Tom Brady, so he seems like the perfect guy to give a pick.
- Jared Dubin pick: Chiefs. The 10 teams to beat the Chiefs in the Mahomes era have averaged 36.4 points per game. That means you've got to score five touchdowns if you want to give yourself a good chance of beating Kansas City. You don't do that by leaning on Leonard Fournette and Ronald Jones. You do it with Tom Brady, Mike Evans, Chris Godwin, Antonio Brown, and Rob Gronkowski. That's Tampa's best shot and I don't think it's going to be good enough. Dubin's pick: Chiefs 33-27 over Buccaneers.
- Matt Ryan pick: Buccaneers. As much as it pains me to say that, I felt like (Tampa Bay's) defense was one of the most difficult for us to go against all year, we had to face them twice. I think offensively, they've gotten better the entire year and I think they're playing their best football right now, but I think it's going to be a close game. Both of those teams are really good, but if I had to pick one, I think I'd choose Tampa. Ryan's pick: Buccaneers over Chiefs.
Ryan gave his pick to the guys over at 680 the Fan in Atlanta and if you want to read more of what the Falcons quarterback had to say about the Super Bowl, be sure to click here. You can also check out our picks hub for the Super Bowl by clicking here.
5. Roger Goodell holds annual Super Bowl press conference
It's been a while since anyone has heard from NFL commissioner Roger Goodell, but that changed on Thursday when he showed up in Tampa to hold his annual Super Bowl press conference. Goodell didn't break any major news at the event, but he did talk about a couple of key subjects, so let's take a look at a few of them.
- He finally admitted Tom Brady is the best player ever: "Tom Brady has shown that he's probably the greatest player to ever play this game. His ability to rise to the big occasions, and make everybody rise around him."
- NFL not sure if 17-game schedule will be implemented in 2021: "We are looking at the 17-game schedule. ... We've already agreed to that in the Collective Bargaining Agreement. There's still more work to be done on that. Once the [Super Bowl] is done, we'll turn our focus a little bit more to that. Even though we have that option, we're going to continue to talk."
- NFL is hoping to have international games next season: "We are planning for international games in [2021]. That's the approach we're going to take. We obviously are going to stay in close contact with our partners in the U.K. and in Mexico and make sure that we are doing that safely. If at any point in time we don't think we can execute on it safely, we will make that determination."
For a full breakdown of everything Goodell talked about, be sure to check out Tyler Sullivan's story by clicking here. Sully broke everything down into nice digestible nuggets. I knew there was a reason I've always liked Sully.
6. NFL awards being handed out on Saturday
If there's one thing that always seems to get lost in the shuffle on Super Bowl weekend, it's the fact that the NFL hands out all of its major awards the night before the Super Bowl.
This year, that means if you want to know who's going to win MVP, you'll need to tune-in to the NFL Honors show, which will be airing on Saturday at 9 p.m. ET on CBS. The show is actually pre-recorded, so you might see a few of the awards leak out before you're able to watch the event on television.
During the two-hour ceremony, which will be hosted by Steve Harvey, we'll see every award handed out from MVP to coach of the year to offensive and defensive rookies of the year.
Here are all the details on how you can watch:
Show: 2021 NFL Honors
Date: Saturday, Feb. 6
Time: 9 p.m. ET
TV: CBS
Stream: CBS All Access
During the show, the NFL will also be making one other big announcement and that's the identities of the players who will make up the Pro Football Hall of Fame's class of 2021. One person who will definitely be getting in is Peyton Manning and that fact alone should make the show worth watching. To find out who will be joining Manning, you'll need to tune-in.
7. The Kicker!
I'm not a meteorologist, but based on what I've seen from the weather reports heading into the weekend, we could be in for some interesting weather for the Super Bowl. The bad news for the Chiefs and Buccaneers is that it's expected to rain in Tampa, but the good news is that most of that rain should be tapering off by the time the game starts at 6:30 p.m. ET.
With that in mind, here's the current weather report for each game:
Chiefs vs. Buccaneers in Tampa
Projected weather: Cloudy with occasional rain early, but should be clearing up before kickoff
Projected temperatures: 72 degrees (high), 55 degrees (low)
Chance of rain: 55%
Winds: WNW 5-10 mph
If it does rain, it would mark the first time in nearly 15 years that we've seen rain at the Super Bowl. The last time it happened came in Super Bowl XLI when Peyton Manning's Colts beat the Bears 29-17. If you're wondering how the rain impacted things, it definitely didn't help the quarterbacks. Manning and Rex Grossman combined to throw three interceptions and just two touchdowns. As for kickers Adam Vinatieri and Robbie Gould, they combined to go 4 of 5 with the miss coming from 36 yards away. However, three of those field goals came from inside 30 yards, which means the weather wouldn't have been a factor on those kicks. Most NFL kickers could hit a kick from inside 30 yards in the middle of a hurricane.
Alright that's it for now, but remember, I'll be back on Sunday with a newsletter that will serve as your Super Bowl primer.
