Super Bowl 57 Broadcast Props Odds, Picks & Predictions

You have ordered your wings. Your local joint is offering a curly fry special. You ask for extra bleu cheese.

You bought extra bags of chips on yesterday’s grocery run. Your guest list is a bit longer than you’d like, but those are the perils of hosting a Super Bowl party.

The unexpected guests fall into two camps. 

One, he has gambled far too much on the Philadelphia Eagles winning outright but the Kansas City Chiefs covering a 1.5-point spread. That one-point middle is his sweet spot. A Kansas City missed PAT will make him happier than any appropriate analogy here would describe.

The other camp, they aren’t coming to your watch party to delve into Patrick Mahomes’s ankle health or the Super Bowl props market.

They are here for the best wings in the city and to talk about Rihanna, about how savvy it was for the Kelce brothers to launch a podcast this exact season and, more than anything else, about which M&M is most attractive. (The red one, duh. Look at those eyebrows. Women kill for eyebrows like that.) 

Ignore the man with a one-point middle. His night is going to end badly.

Eat the wings. Order some pizza when you run out. And say bad things about Roger Goodell. These are what the Super Bowl is about. Ahead of kickoff, we have some Super Bowl predictions for the broadcast at 6:30 p.m. ET on FOX.

Who will be shown first during the National Anthem?

It was remarkably savvy of the Kelce brothers to launch a podcast this exact season. Eagles center Jason and younger brother, Chiefs tight end Travis, could have started “New Heights” any year, but to do so when they both end up in the Super Bowl is beyond luck. 

A preseason bet on the Eagles to win the NFC (at about +1,500) and the Chiefs to win the AFC (at about +600) would have paid off at a meager 111-to-1.

A successful — and that podcast has been successful beyond its pertinence, also both entertaining and enlightening — foray into media assures one thing in this life: further media attention.

There is an irony to this article acknowledging how much the media likes a good media story, but that does not change its truth. More on that in a moment, though.

These odds should be skewed far, far further. The bet is not if Travis Kelce or A.J. Brown will be shown first. It is, effectively, will a Kelce brother be shown before A.J. Brown? Because anyone who has ever tried to tell a story knows the camera will cut from one brother during pregame to the other.

Double down on that thought because the balanced scene-setting will alternate teams, so if Jason Kelce is shown as the Eagles representative, Brown will not be the next man on camera. Maybe Patrick Mahomes or Andy Ried usurps Travis Kelce, but going from one Kelce brother to the other will make the most sense.

This is logic, not gambling.

How many times will Kelce brothers facing off against each other be mentioned?

The FOX production truck has been preparing for this game for years. Camera angles at State Farm Stadium in Arizona were probably first tested a year ago. Vague ideas about a new camera option were likely scrapped or confirmed in the spring. This is not a usual game, obviously. With more cameras involved, test runs were needed.

But much of the production could not be focused on until two weeks ago. Anything involving the, ya know, actual game or teams involved was not confirmed until the conference championships concluded. Since then, teams of researchers, analysts, and video editors have been putting together packages to air on Sunday.

In the last two weeks, one of those researchers has undoubtedly listened to every episode of the Kelce brothers' podcast. Guaranteed. Since Sept. 7, there have been 27 episodes averaging 1 hour, 29 minutes, and 26 seconds apiece. To think, a Covers.com editor assigned this story thinking it would be humorous. There was research to be done!

In the last 10 days alone, the podcast has put out nearly six hours of content. And by “nearly,” we mean, four minutes short of six hours.

Whether that researcher found anything genuinely interesting or not, rest assured they told the production truck something was interesting. You do not spend 40 hours of your life listening to the Kelce brothers chat and not get a package out of it. Okay, fine, it was probably listened to at 1.5x speed. That is still 30 hours!

That package will be one mention. There is no doubt about it. Now the bet is simply if there will be a second mention, and any distinctly notable moment from either brother should elicit an easy enough, “I wonder what he’ll say about that on next week’s podcast,” from the broadcast booth to fill a moment of idle air.

Which advertisement will air first?

Only one of these brands has spent more than a month building to this moment, if not years. M&Ms either planned out a subversive marketing campaign in the most successful manner in history or it has opted to capitalize on an unexpected and ludicrous goldmine.

Changing the shoewear of the green M&M — wait, M&M seems plural. Is there a singular version? M? The green M? Whatever — changing that shoewear was probably most meant as a branding refresh with some public spin.

There is no version of rationality where Mars, Incorporated thought it was making a definitive change for the good of the culture. Anyone who looked at that piece of chocolate and had sexual ideations come to mind, uhhh, even George Costanza did not go that far.

Yet here we are with loudmouths on television appalled at the lack of a sexual nature of an M&M.

Enter Maya Rudolph, the Judge. This Ma&Ya’s commerical campaign of the last few weeks is clearly Rudolph readying to reboot all of Earth. That is not even how her name is pronounced. The Judge would only allow this if she knew it will not matter in a few weeks.

After all, we have allowed a culture war to erupt over the perceived sexual promiscuity and preference of a piece of chocolate. “It’s just too much of a mess down here, you know? The simplest solution is to erase everyone that ever lived and restart with a bunch of amoebas or whatever.”

Maya Rudolph arrived to cancel Earth. And that will take more than one 30-second ad spot on Sunday night. To squeeze in as much work as is needed to “start the entire human race over from scratch,” Ma&Ya’s will need to start early in the broadcast.

If nothing else, that will allow the Judge to binge “Santa Clarita Diet.”

How many times will Roger Goodell be shown?

For the sake of your party’s conversation, let’s hope for many times. Every Goodell appearance is a chance to gripe about him. Disliking Roger Goodell is like the opposite of thinking M&Ms should or should not dress for the club on a Friday night. Everyone agrees on disliking Roger Goodell. Here, some quick one-liners you can cue up …

“Who do you think Goodell secretly hates more, Robert Kraft or Jerry Jones? Who hates Goodell more, Kraft or Tom Brady?”

“I bet Roger Goodell prefers the brown M&Ms. Wait, are they still Ma&Ya’s?”

“Roger Goodell is definitely going to The Bad Place.”

“I heard Roger Goodell thought the ending to Lost was very well done and totally coherent.”

“Roger Goodell hates pizza. Hey, can someone give me another slice of pizza?”

Who will the Super Bowl MVP mention first in his speech?

This may involve some actual football analysis.

Patrick Mahomes is not only the Super Bowl MVP favorite, at +130, but he is also a popular pick in these parts. Study the film. He typically cites a power above right out of the gates in his postgame interviews. He did after the AFC Championship game, for the most recent example.

If you want a value play, Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts is the next most likely MVP, by the odds, at +140. When he was interviewed after winning the NFC Championship, he focused entirely on the fans.

“Let’s take a moment to show love to these fans. … I’m not going to make this about me. This city, this is a special city.”

He then began singing “Fly Eagles Fly” with the fans.

Now, that was obviously in Philadelphia in front of a green-and-white crowd, but there is some precedent for a postgame interview to launch right into loving the City of Brotherly Love.

Brotherly love, the M&Ms better steer clear of that thought…

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