Super Bowl prediction extravaganza!

This weekend, I’ll be at the Savannah Book Festival to talk some WHY WE LOVE FOOTBALL and whatever else comes to mind. The weather is beautiful here if you feel like coming on in. Specifically, I’ll be at the Jepson’s Neises Auditorium on Saturday from 3:40-4:35. Hang out with me and Tommy Tomlinson!

On February 23, I’ll be at the Bender JCC of Greater Washington in Rockville, Maryland, for the Franks and Football event. You can purchase tickets here.

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The JoeBlogs’ take-it-to-the-bank Super Bowl Predictions

First, let me show you some Super Bowl predictions from around the internet:

• Dan Orlovsky, ESPN: Chiefs, 24-21

• Liz Merrill, ESPN: Eagles, 34-32

• Greg Bishop, Sports Illustrated: Chiefs, 24-21

• Jeff Saturday, ESPN: Chiefs, 35-34

• Kevin Siefert, ESPN: Chiefs, 27-24

• Cody Benjamin, CBS Sports: Eagles, 27-26

• Chris Fallica, Fox Sports: Chiefs, 27-24

• Nat Newell, Indianapolis Star, Chiefs, 15-13

• Seth Wickersham, ESPN: Eagles, 17-14

• Brandon Funston, The Athletic: Eagles, 26-24

• Mina Kimes, ESPN: Chiefs, 30-27

• Jeffrey Chadiha, NFL.com: Chiefs, 24-23

• Mike Greenberg, ESPN: Chiefs, 21-20

• Nick Kosmider, The Athletic: Eagles, 21-19

• Maurice Jones-Drew, NFL.com: Chiefs, 45-42

• Mitch Goodrich, Sports Illustrated: Chiefs, 26-25

• Tedy Bruschi, ESPN: Chiefs, 27-24

• Nate Davis, USA Today: Eagles, 30-27

• Tim Keown, ESPN: Eagles, 34-31

Do you see what I see? Of course you do. Everybody agrees that this game is going to be amazing and close! This is so exciting! People may differ on who will win. They may vary on whether it will be a low-scoring or high-scoring game. But EVERYONE AGREES that this game on Sunday will be an all-time classic, a barn-burner, a banger, a humdinger, a firecracker, a neck-and-neck, showstopping, nail-biting, super-close thriller! Everybody agrees that the difference between the teams will be three points or less!

This happens every year. Few things are funnier than Super Bowl predictions. Sure, every now and again, someone will predict a blowout when they want to get a reaction … but almost everybody picks the game to be close because that’s the safe thing to do. Look at how many people above predict the difference as one or two points. Do you know how many Super Bowls have been decided by less than three points? That would be one, the torturous Bills Wide Right game in 1991.

It is true that three points have decided the last three Super Bowls, and it’s also true that the Chiefs have become pretty famous for playing close games. But, like I say, these close-game predictions happen every single year. And I get it. I’ve been asked for my Super Bowl prediction every year for 30 years now, and I’m as likely as anyone else to go with the 24-21 score that shields me from an inbox of “I told you so.” I mean, look at this year. If you predict the Chiefs will win 31-10, Eagles fans will line up to hammer you. And heaven help you if the Eagles win the game. You will never be allowed to buy a Pat’s cheesesteak again.

It’s so much easier to say “Chiefs 24, Eagles 21,” and then if the Eagles win, you can say, “Hey, I thought it would be close!”

Anyway, all of that is dumb. So I asked our motley JoeBlogs cast of characters to make their boldest Super Bowl predictions — with the caveat that they could not predict a standard score. Here’s the good stuff:

Mike Schur, Fremulon insurance salesman: Eagles 47. Chiefs 15.5

At the pregame ceremonies, the coin is flipped, and the Eagles win, and as the Eagles captain is pointing in which direction they want to go, Mahomes brilliantly steps into the way of the Eagles’ player’s arm, whose extended hand makes contact with Mahomes’s helmet. The ref throws a flag. Since the game hasn’t started, nobody knows exactly how to handle this, and at the end of the day, everyone agrees to award the Chiefs a half-point. 

Jeff Garlin, comedian, writer, big bowl of sunshine: Eagles 22 and a Chiefs Pennant, Chiefs 44 but no pennant (Eagles win!).

Saquon Barkley minus-90 yards and 14 fumbles. At least the Chiefs will have that.

Two kittens will interrupt the halftime show.

Alan Sepinwall, writer, and suffering Giants fan: Chiefs 73, Eagles 4

Yes, their only scores are on safeties. This actually makes the Eagles’ fanbase happy because they’ve been itching to run Nick Sirianni out of town on a rail and have been secretly frustrated that this recent run means they’re stuck with him for a while. 

Jason Kander, do-gooder with terrible music taste and unapologetic Kansas Citian: Chiefs 31, Eagles 2

We’ll run a safety out the back of the end zone for field position purposes.

Ellen Adair, actor, poet, artist, Philadelphia-connected, devout baseball fan: Eagles 27, Chiefs 7

I am going to predict that score because 27 is Aaron Nola's number and 7 is Bobby Witt Jr's number. Those are nice numbers. I personally associate them with the cities, and they also prognosticate an Eagles win. I can't in reality ever imagine the Chiefs only scoring 7, but I do really like Bobby Witt because I am a sentient person.

Molly Knight: Writer, Los Angelino, dog lover: Chiefs 26, Eagles 21

The game will actually end Philadelphia 21, Chiefs 20  after Harrison Butker misses a game-winning field goal, but the refs will promptly penalize the Eagles for a palpably unfair excessive celebration and award the Chiefs a game-winning touchdown.

Brandon McCarthy: Tall person, 2011 FIP leader, power-wash enthusiast: Chiefs 42, Eagles 13.

I don’t think that would be my prediction, but I also don’t care, so it’s good by me.

Alexis Gay: Comedian, delight, not the biggest football fan: Chiefs 43 to 97

OK, here’s what’s gonna go down: Someone is going to make a HUGE, avoidable mistake, and someone else is going to get really mad about it.

One of the teams will emerge an unexpected young humble warrior who surprises everyone early on with a great play but then goes back to normal.

Nobody will be “seriously” injured, though a medic will have to visit the field in the second half. The opposing team’s coach will look angry about it but won’t openly protest the circumstances that led to the situation.

Chiefs win, and I only say that because I don’t know who they’re playing against.

Ryan George: Comedian, writer, once broke collar bone playing hockey: Tie game

So many consecutive overtime periods that Mahomes takes a power nap.

Misha, Amur Tiger in the Blank Park Zoo in Des Moines: Chiefs win.

Every year, they set up animals in the Blank Park Zoo to pick the Super Bowl … and they’ve gotten 11 of the last 13 right. Misha picked the Chiefs’ box filled with treats over the Eagles’ box filled with treats. Misha was smart enough not to choose a score.

And my own prediction? Right, I don’t think you can bet against Patrick Mahomes ever. But the Eagles’ defense is stout. Then again, so is the Chiefs’ defense; they’ve really been the key to this team all year. Then again, Saquon Barkley has had a season for the ages and seems unstoppable behind that Eagles offensive line. Then again, I don’t think you can bet against Patrick Mahomes ever.

Chiefs 24, Eagles 21.

Tango fights back

Our pal Tom Tango snaps back at the idea that we need .300 hitters in baseball to make the game more fun. Here’s my favorite part:

Yeah, all of that’s true. After reading Tom’s post, I realized that I didn’t get across what I wanted in my own. I made it too much about my nostalgia for silly things from the past — in this case, .300 hitters but it could just as easily have been about bullpen cars, knuckleball pitchers, crazy Jack Morrises who refuse to get pulled from games, and those old paper All-Star Game punch cards you used to fill out at the ballpark. Alas, nostalgia is the price of getting older… and, I suppose, the price of being a certain kind of baseball fan. I’d like to believe you can utterly love the game today and still miss a few things from yesterday.

But my ACTUAL point wasn’t supposed to be any of that. My actual point was supposed to revolve around what I still think is an interesting question: Would strikeouts be down and hits be up if batting average was still seen as the end-all statistic? That is to say: Would batting averages be up if players still got paid for their batting averages, if scouts focused on batting averages, if analysts built their analysis around batting averages, and if fans loved players based on their batting averages?

I don’t know the answer to that. I’ll ask Tom. He’s smarter than me.*

A Polar Bear in New York

I always felt pretty sure that Pete Alonso would be back with the Mets. It never made any sense to me that owner Steve Cohen, who is on a Brewster’s Millions* quest to get the Mets to the World Series, would spend all that money on Juan Soto and then let the Polar Bear escape New York. Sure enough, the Mets and Alonso cut a two-year deal with a player opt-out.

The Mets now have at least four players in their lineup — Alonso, Soto, Francisco Lindor, and Mark Vientos, for sure — who have legitimate shots at hitting 30 home runs in 2025. The Mets have never even had three players hit 30 home runs in a season.

Stunner: Baseball owners want a salary cap again

Evan Drelllich over at The Athletic reports that, two years before the CBA runs out, baseball owners are already singing one of their favorite tunes about how the game needs a salary cap. This little ditty is as old as Hurrian Hymn No. 6, which is widely regarded as the oldest known song.*

Evan’s story is filled with all your favorite buzzwords. Competitive balance! Parity!* Small market teams! Large market teams! Franchise values!

And there’s a gem of a quote from MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred about off-season lockouts being a good thing:

“In a bizarre way, it’s actually positive. There is leverage associated with an off-season lockout, and the process of collective bargaining under the NLRA works based on leverage. The great thing about offseason lockouts is that the leverage that exists gets applied between the bargaining parties.”

Hey, that is great!

There’s too much to talk about here, and it’s too depressing to think about the repercussions — if the owners do go all in on a salary cap after the 2026 season, we might not see a baseball game for a long, long time after that — but for now I want to point out my favorite sentence in Evan’s piece.

Oh no! Billionaires are getting criticized for not spending money to make their baseball teams competitive! We can’t have that. You meanies out there leave Robert Nutting alone; he should not be criticized for cashing gigantic revenue-sharing checks and not spending that money on making the Pittsburgh Pirates any good even though he plays virtually rent-free in a stadium the city built! He should be celebrated for it. Throw him a parade! Use city funds!

I keep returning to a core belief: Owning a baseball team is a privilege. When you buy a team, you buy into one of the world’s most exclusive clubs. You are buying a yacht. You are buying an Airbus A380 private jet. You are buying your way into Augusta National, the Knickerbocker Club, and Davos.

Only it’s better than that. When you buy a yacht, nobody gives a damn. But when you buy a baseball team, cities will build very expensive things just for you. Fans will buy lots and lots of merchandise with your team’s name and logo. People will put flags in front of their houses celebrating your team. You just bought a yacht that will bring in lots of money and help pay for itself. And if your team actually wins, they’ll interview YOU on television first, before the players, before the manager, as if you personally are the one responsible.

If you would rather not spend the money to compete or don’t have it, I understand. It’s an expensive club. As they say about market price items on the menu, if you have to ask, you can’t afford it. It’s OK. There’s no shame in being a single-digit billionaire. Get out. Someone will give you plenty of money for your team, way more money than you spent. Just sell.

That way, you don’t have to get criticized by fans who expect you to compete. You don’t have to fight against other richer owners who are actually trying to win. You don’t have to keep trying to jam a salary cap into the game because you don’t like how much the free market costs. You can go back to living a private, rich life. Get a yacht. Or, if we’re being honest, get another yacht. No fans will complain about that.