The Super Bowl–OMG!

OMG!, as the kids say. Wowsers, as we exclaim. I wrote last week that this has been a great year for sports, with the NBA and World Series featuring comebacks from 3 to 1 down, and an excellent college football championship game. I wondered if the Super Bowl could prove equally exciting.

 

It did. It was the greatest comeback in Super Bowl history, indeed in NFL playoff history. It was one of the greatest big game comebacks in football history—second of course to Harvard’s comeback to “defeat” Yale 29-29 in THE GAME in 1968—but still pretty impressive.

 

You don’t  need me to add to all the commentary on the game (and if you’re an Atlanta fan or a Patriots hater, you’re already eager to move on to the next item). So I’ll just mention one video, where a smiling Belichick shows Scott Zolak the real key to the Pats’ trick play against the Steelers—a “flea flicker” that ended with a big pass to Chris Hogan—with Julian Edelman blocking and releasing. And if you’re interested in Belichick’s genius assistant, Ernie Adams (and he’s an interesting character), you might want to read this or this. One last thing: Here’s a great interview of Adams.

 

But what, you ask, of our Super Bowl competition. Of over one hundred entrants, eight predicted a Patriots-Falcons Super Bowl, with five having the Patriots winning. The fabulous five will get a deluxe TWS gift marking their successful prophecy. But the big winner is longtime TWS subscriber Paul Cimino, who had the Patriots winning and the final score within two points (he predicted 32-28). Congratulations, Paul! My colleague Jim Swift will be lavishing your reward on you (though he hasn’t yet told me what it will be). And Paul, please give me a heads up in the summer of 2019 about the results of the 2020 election….