Super Bowl XLIX: gambling god, part two

No Ctrl-C/Ctrl-V on this because I called the ending of the Super Bowl almost completely wrong two weeks ago - I had the Seahawks falling behind and then coming back instead of the Patriots - but I did call a final score of 27-24, New England, so I'll take the outright, the cover and the ever-elusive over for a very successful 3-0 gambling night that does nothing to alleviate the disgusting result. Off by a point! I have no idea where that came from.

As for Tom Brady's third Super Bowl MVP, I guess his numbers snuck up on me, because I wasn't impressed all that much with him, especially because of the two ugly INTs. But, 74% passes completed, 4 TDs, over 300 yards, hard to deny. I voted for Julian Edelman, 9-109 with the game winning pushoff touchdown. And congratulations to Danny Amendola for his TD catch.

Darrell Bevell's going to be roasted in Seattle forever for calling the slant at the goal line. Well, he didn't botch it any worse than I would have; I was looking for New England to let Seattle score on purpose so they could get the ball back with plenty of time. Well, that's why Belichick has the rings (plus, he cheats) and why I'm a microblogger for a team whose owner doesn't want to stay around any longer than he has to. The NFL can stop kicking me in the balls any time it wants to, btw.

Anyway, where was I. Oh, yeah. Russell Wilson's throw on that play didn't look all that great, though it may have looked that way to me because Malcolm Butler jumped it so well. Butler had a case for MVP, because he prevented a game-winning TD twice. There was the Mike Jones-esque goal line play to save it, and he made the hidden play of the game a couple of plays earlier. That was the long ball that bounced off Jermaine Kearse half a dozen times for the catch that really had you thinking the Patriots were destined to lose. But when Kearse realized he could still get up and run, Butler stuck with the play and downed him at the 5. 75% of the DB's in the league (100% of Rams DBs) would have thought the play over and inadvertently let Kearse score.

It's pretty amazing Seattle got so far with a receiver corps as bad as they have. When your best WR is the guy you had to get to quit his job at the Foot Locker, it's time to think about signing and drafting Wilson some decent targets.

At the end of the game, that was totally a false start by the New England center when they called Michael Bennett offside. Richie Incognito used to get called for a whole lot less than that massive head bob Stork made without snapping the ball.

Oh, well, as Belichick would say, we're on to the offseason.

-$-

A modest proposal for the Dome authorities

I get madder the more I think about it. It doesn't seem enough for the football world to take St. Louis' team away from it for the SECOND time, it also wants to shit on our legacy as a football town. That came in the form Saturday night of NO member of the Greatest Show on Earth making it into the Hall of Fame on the first try.

So now, if S.E. Kroenke does make good on his unvoiced threats and moves the team out of town in 2016? St. Louis NEVER gets to celebrate any of these football heroes making the Hall of Fame in the form of putting them in the Dome's Ring of Honor. It isn't enough to wreck the Rams' 2015 season for the fans with the moving-the-team crap, we don't get even get to celebrate and honor our past on the way out. It's like one big fat conspiracy to make sure St. Louis can show no life or fight as a football town.

Well, I say, screw that. I don't know how much the signage costs, but if this is it, the Dome folks need to come out firing. There are plenty of home dates to have Ring of Honor ceremonies for Kurt Warner, Orlando Pace, Isaac Bruce and Torry Holt, and they should happen this year. St. Louis fans deserve the opportunity to celebrate these men's achievements one last time, since the idiots who vote to put players in Canton won't do it for us in a timely fashion. Hell, there's ten home games, right? Why not put in Mike Jones, Adam Timmerman, Steven Jackson and Aeneas Williams (already in the Hall of Fame, of course), too?

It's going to take stuff like that to get more than 500 fans in the seats week-to-week this season, and St. Louis fans deserve the opportunity to give the greats a final sendoff. Somebody make this happen.

-$-