Super Bowl 2017: An Open Thread

Today’s the day: the NFL season draws to a close with what we all hope will be an entertaining football game, because no matter what we’re all going to watch this dang thing, so it might as well be a good use of four hours.

If you’d like to watch today’s football game, here’s how you can do it:

How to watch

TV Schedule

Date: Thursday, February 5, 2017
Time: 6:30 PM ET
Channel: FOX
Announcers: Joe Buck, Troy Aikman, Erin Andrews

Streaming: Fox Sports GO. You can use iOS, Android, Windows, and Amazon phones and tablets, or go through connected devices like Apple TV, Roku, Android TV, Chromecast, Amazon Fire and Xbox One. Or, you know, a good ol’ computer.

Location: NRG Stadium, Houston, Texas

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Let’s take a quick look back at the Super Bowl week that was here on BGN.

Who’s going to win? Well, the odds say the Patriots. In fact, they’ve said the Patriots are going to win, unwaveringly, for the past couple weeks:

Since January 24, the line for this game at all 16 betting sites, according to OddsShark, has been:

Patriots -3
Falcons +3

I don’t see anything wrong with it. The Patriots are the dynasty. They’ve got the best quarterback ever, one of the best coaches ever, and the best defense (?!) in the league. The Falcons are the decided underdog, even with one of the best offenses of the decade.

The over/under, on the other hand, has fluctuated on a number of sites and sources, between +58 and +59.5. For some sites, like GT Bets, it’s been +58.5 for the past eight days. For others, like My Bookie, it’s fluctuated an entire point.

On Friday, I looked at a bunch of different predictions for this evening’s game. Folks seemed split. Three Eagles were asked at the Pro Bowl who they thought would win, but only Jason Kelce answered, and he picked the Falcons:

Jason Kelce, C, Eagles: ATLANTA

”It’s hard to go against Brady, but right now Atlanta’s playing as good as I’ve ever seen. The way they beat Green Bay was just so dominant. It’s going to be kind of hard to go against them.”

At halftime tonight, Lady Gaga’s going to perform. I, personally, am excited, so I asked you all about some of your all-time favorite Halftime Show performances. Some answers included...

• Prince (of course)
• Michael Jackson
• U2
• Bruno Mars (unexpected, but yea, he was good!)
• Tom Petty

Here’s hoping Lady Gaga puts on a good show.

Oh, and for all the things surrounding the Super Bowl that don’t include the Xs and Os, there’s probably a prop bet you can still place before kickoff. Prop bets are funny, stupid, and entirely more enjoyable than analyzing defensive matchups for the nine zillionth time. My favorite:

Odds on what color Gatorade will be poured on the winning coach:

Orange: 7/2
Blue: 15/4
Clear/Water: 4/1
Purple: 6/1
Yellow: 13/2
None: 10/1

ORANGE, it is my favorite Gatorade flavor and I like to imagine everyone else realizes it’s the best, too.

Have a good Super Bowl, everyone. Feel free to chat it up in the comment thread below.