The Greatest Spectacle in Sports

Super Bowl Sunday. The most beautiful day on the entire sports calendar.

Sorry, not just “sports” calendar, but best day on the calendar in general.

A day where die-hard football fans and Swifties all come together for one massive celebration of the greatest game ever invented.

A day where you can eat chicken wings from 9am until midnight non-stop with zero judgement (if you’re judging now, you’re not invited to my SB party).

A day where you can almost guarantee you will be watching Tom Brady or Patrick Mahomes on your TV screen (they have played in 23.7% of all Super Bowls in NFL History).

The Monday after the game should be a national holiday, very dumb it is not. Stupid actually.

It’s the biggest sporting spectacle Planet Earth has to offer us. And it delivers every time.

This year’s matchup of Eagles vs. Chiefs is a god damn nightmare for Patriots fans like me.

Do I want Mahomes to win and then have every single TV network debate if Patrick is the GOAT over Tom? Absolutely not.

Do I want the most hated franchise / fan base in the NFL to win especially after they beat us in 2018 despite the best performance from a QB in Super Bowl history? Absolutely not.

Would I rather suffer from an Eagles win this year and not have to hear the Mahomes-Brady debate, which isn’t a debate until Mahomes gets to 7 SB rings and maybe win one with another franchise outside of KC? Yes, I would rather watch the Eagles win. Go Birds, I guess.

Damn, I hated saying that.

BTW - My best bets for Sunday’s big game are planted at the bottom of this letter (SCROLL!)

Today’s letter I am going to recap the best day of my life that occurred almost 10 years ago today exactly, which also happens to be my favorite Super Bowl memory…

Let’s talk numbers…

Before diving into that story, I first want to remind people how LARGE this event really is.

The peak viewership for the Chiefs vs Niners Super Bowl last year was a ridiculous 125M people.

That’s a record, mainly due to Taylor Swift being in attendance for her LOVER Travis Kelce. A situation we will get yet again this Sunday (Is the NFL rigged??) for better or for worse.

Do you understand how many people that is? That’s over 35% of America tuning in to watch a bunch of grown men run around and hug each other to death.

Of the top 100 live TV broadcasts for any given calendar year, football games make up 97 of those live events. FOOTBALL IS KING!

Super Bowl Sunday. The Holy Grail of them all, the fricken Catalina Wine Mixer.

Remember, for those that don’t know yet, I am a Patriots fan, so tread lightly reading this week’s story…

Super Bowl 49

I am lucky enough to be in a family that has had season tickets to the Patriots since 1996, the year I was born.

I’ve been to a hundred games in my life at Foxboro, but none more memorable than the 2014 AFC Championship game against the Colts (people say 2014 to reflect the NFL season year but game was in 2015, so I’m not dumb for saying 10 years ago you a-holes).

That game was also infamously known as “DeflateGate”.

Did Tom deflate those footballs in that game? WHO F******* CARES! We won by 21 points, our RB LeGarrette Blount had 4 TDs and Tom only threw the ball 25 times. It made ZERO difference in the game and every QB in the league does it.

I digress.

Core memory for me is chanting “Super Bowl, Super Bowl, Super Bowl!!” as fans exited Gillette Stadium that freezing January evening.

We won that game and then my father so kindly asked if I wanted to go to the big game in 2 weeks vs the Seahawks out in Arizona.

I said, “yes, no shit!”.

I was a senior in High School and the next two weeks in school leading up to the game I did absolutely no homework.

We hopped on a flight that took off from Boston at 6am on Super Bowl Sunday and everyone on the flight was going to the game.

Like literally everyone, it was a 747 for season ticket holders and it was beyond epic.

Landed in Phoenix and we went straight to the tailgates.

I remember my Snap story that day being 730 seconds, not sure what that translates to minutes, not a math guy.

But here’s a pic of me and my dad in the stadium during pre-game…

I look like an absolute squid in this photo, as a girl pointed out in the comments. But f*** it, Go Pats. Should’ve worn the eye black like my dad did.

Well, that game kicked off and I’ve never been so dialed in as a fan.

I was reading defensive coverages trying to yell to Tom that the safeties were playing too tight and he should utilize the seam routes to Gronk and Edelman. He heard me.

I was going bananas the whole game.

Until we were down 10 in the 4th quarter, and I got scared.

But then I thought, “Hey Danny, do you remember who our QB is??”. Tom F******* Brady.

So, I dialed back in.

And of course, when Tom Brady is your Quarterback, this is typically how your night ends…

Thank you, Malcolm Butler for the goaline INT. I was about 30 rows back in the end zone in full tears.

This was a massive deal as it was our first Super Bowl win in 10 years after a couple losses to the fricken Giants.

We hit the postgame party with Pitbull ripping and pulled off the tarmac from Phoenix at 2am PST and were back in Boston by Monday morning.

A true cross-country day trip without even staying overnight in a hotel room.

Best day of my life thanks to Tom, and of course my loving father.

It’s still a major “pinch me” moment to think I now work for this 7-time Super Bowl winning savage at Shadow Lion.

My Super Bowl Best Bets

These are winners, I really do feel it.

• Under 48.5 total points (-110) - I put 5 units on this, this is happening

• KC -1.5 (-110) - I bet against Mahomes last year and every game this playoffs, not doing it again

• AJ Brown under 71.5 receiving yards (-110)

• Dallas Goedert anytime TD (+285) - feel it in my loins!!!

• Octopus (+1300) - this means a player that scores a TD will immediately score the 2-pt conversion right after for a total of 8 points (could see Hurts doing a tush push then running in a 2pt conversion, idk this is just a fun one)

Go tail these bets, buy a few Super Bowl squares and go off Kings.

This is a lose-lose game for Patriots fans. Whatever, happy Super Bowl Sunday!