Steve Brownlee

This is it! The final game of the season.

There won’t even be a flag football game or three next weekend as the Manning brothers took care of that last Sunday afternoon.

So who will it be in Sunday’s Super Bowl? The Philadelphia Eagles with up-and-coming quarterback Jalen Hurts, or the Kansas City Chiefs with established signal caller Patrick Mahomes?

Both QBs have been injured, but Mahomes’ bum ankle came more recently than Hurts’ aching shoulder.

Rather than all this intense talk about the game, its strategy and who’s going to win, let’s talk about betting.

Fun bets in particular.

It seems to have become the real American pastime — maybe not the “fun” part of the betting, just laying your nest egg on the line to gamble it all away.

But I look to look at the fun stuff. Just about every year, I sit down at my computer and type a Google search with something like “super bowl prop bets” (that’s exactly what I typed two nights ago).

The second hit on that search included in its title “Odds for craziest props …” so I decided to look at that one.

It was from the Sporting News, which I wouldn’t normally think of as full of “wild and crazy guys” (think Steve Martin and Dan Aykroyd on “Saturday Night Live” during its heyday in the late ’70s).

When I hit the bottom of the article, I saw it was written by Sporting News content producer Sloan Piva. Don’t know who he is, but sounds like a pretty entertaining job.

Fortunately, he sticks to the usual Super Bowl props like the coin toss, Gatorade showers and what will be in the MVP speech — but not who the MVP will be.

He starts off by saying that BetMGM has heads is a minus-105 bet and tails is also minus-105.

What that shows me is that no one suspects any funny stuff about how the coin will land, but it also shows the problem with betting.

If I’m understanding my betting terminology right (I feel pretty sure about this one), you have to bet $105 (or $1.05?) to win $100 (or for me, $1.00).

Who wins with that? Oooh, Mr. Science Guy, I know! The bookie, as he (or the rare female bookie, she) basically skims $5 off every bet made, meaning he or she “earns” (wins?) $5 on each $100 bet as the bettors should come in about even on each side for this one.

But enough of my grumbling, we’re here to enjoy ourselves today.

Let’s look at some other props:

• Gatorade color dumped on the winning coach — as usual, orange wins this one at plus-250 (bet $100 to win $250), followed by yellow-green (guess they can’t tell the difference) at plus-350, then clear-water, blue and red-pink each at plus-500. Purple comes in at plus-950, while no Gatorade being dumped is a longshot at plus-1600.

The Sporting News also notes that orange and none have each won five times since 2001, followed by blue and clear at four each, yellow at three and purple at one.

But blue has been the Gatorade (they’re thinking PowerAde) of choice the past two years and three of the last four, though the Chiefs’ Andy Reid took an orange Gatorade bath when KC won it in 2020.

• First mention in MVP speech — This one is listed with “team-teammates” as better than a 50-50 chance at minus-120, with it less likely it’ll be city-fans (plus-325), God-religion (plus-370), family (plus-690), coaches (plus-1200) and team owner (plus-2500).

• A post-game wedding proposal — OK, I hadn’t heard this one before, but I guess with lots of players in their 20s and enjoying the greatest day of their lives, wedding bells are in order. Oh, and the Sporting News mentioned that Sunday is two days before Valentine’s Day.

The “yes” on this is plus-400 and no at minus-650, so they don’t actually think it’s likely to happen.

• TV commercials appearing first — This is broken down into categories.

To sum them up, for chip companies, Doritos is at minus-130 and Pringles at plus-100; for snacks, it’s M&M’s at minus-150 and Doritos at plus-150.

Guess that goes to show that Doritos really is an all-purpose food. Kind of like milk, bread and eggs, eh?

Continuing, for beer, both Budweiser and Heineken are at minus-115, while for condiments, they have Avocados from Mexico at minus-333 and Hellman’s at plus-425.

These all seem pretty tame bets to me, but I don’t think I’ll get into any “adult” bets, if those kinds of things even exist.

So let’s take a look at the game itself.

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Super Bowl LVII (57 for those Roman numeral challenged), AFC No. 1 seed Kansas City Chiefs (16-3) vs. NFC No. 1 seed Philadelphia Eagles (16-3), 6:30 p.m. Sunday, at Glendale, Ariz. — This is what we’ve all been waiting for, and while the Eagles seem to be a substantial favorite, I haven’t heard anyone say they think this will be a blowout.

It just seems that the Eagles have a lot more advantages as opposed to KC.

Philly has the better offensive line and better run game but also the better defense, even as both defenses can get after the passer.

That would also seem to favor the Eagles as Hurts’ mobility wasn’t hampered with his injury like Mahomes was, plus Hurts is already a more prolific runner.

Mahomes, of course, is seen as a magician as a passer, and rightfully so, which is what has to be the major reason this game is no slam dunk.

He has more experience — he’s won and lost a Super Bowl while Hurts hasn’t been close to one before — and you always wonder when the stage might get too big for someone.

However, here’s where I’ll buy Philly to win — even if Hurts is a bit off, which he has been in the Eagles’ two previous playoff games, he’s got a lot more tools, weapons or simply assets surrounding him to make up for it.

Receivers as good as KC’s with the better line and better defense.

So in a back-and-forth game, Philly’s defense will rise to the occasion at just the right moment and it will be a win for the Eagles, 30-26.

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Two weeks ago — 1-1, 50 percent. Playoff total — 10-2, 83 percent.

Steve Brownlee can be reached at 906-228-2500, ext. 252. His email address is sbrownlee@miningjournal.net.