I'm not going to sit here and say that Groundhog Day is the best holiday of the year, but it's definitely in the top three. I mean, let's be real, it's the only holiday each year where we let an animal try to predict things. Actually, I take that back, it's not the only day of the year where we let animals try to predict things because we also do it for Super Bowl Sunday, so sit down Punxsutawney Phil, your predictions are always depressing. No one wants six more weeks of winter. No one even wants a Groundhog Day this year, we've been living in a real live Groundhog Day for the past 11 months.
Watching an animal pick a Super Bowl winner is way more exciting than watching Phil depress everyone with his dire predictions of more winter. For instance, if you click here, you can see Sid the Wolverine make his Super Bowl pick (Spoiler alert, he picked the Buccaneers). If you want to see a goat make a Super Bowl pick, then click here (Spoiler alert, the goat picks the Chiefs). Maybe Phil should get a real job and start picking the Super Bowl.
Speaking of the Super Bowl, if you want to watch it for free this year, all you have to do is bookmark this link. That will take you to the CBS Sports App, where you'll be able to watch the game and get the app at no cost. There is nothing better than free.
Speaking of free, if you want to win $3,600 in free stuff from Westinghouse, including a 75-inch TV, you can do that by entering our Super Bowl giveaway at here at CBSSports.com To enter the contest, be sure to click here. I would enter, but I just read the fine print and apparently I'm not eligible to win, which is actually a good thing for you, because it means you have a better chance of winning.
On a completely unrelated note, if you want to see me in video form this week, the higher-ups decided to give me an hour each day to talk about the Super Bowl with Ryan Wilson and Will Brinson. That will be coming to you at 5 p.m. ET on Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday and if you want to watch for free on CBS Sports HQ, be sure to click here.
Alright, I'm done stalling, let's get to the rundown.
1. Today's Show: Ranking Super Bowl storylines
Normally, when we do a podcast for Tuesday of Super Bowl week, it mostly involves us rehashing the craziness of Opening Night. However, since there wasn't really an Opening Night this year, we had to come up with something else to talk about, so Ryan Wilson, Will Brinson and I did what anyone else would do: We decided to rank Super Bowl storylines.
When you're ranking storylines in a game that involves Patrick Mahomes and Tom Brady, the only storyline that matters is Mahomes vs. Brady, so we spent a good chunk of our time talking about that. Our biggest debate was about whether Mahomes would ever be able to catch Brady in Super Bowl wins. We unanimously agreed that Mahomes WILL NOT catch Brady if he loses on Sunday, but he might be able to pull it off if the Chiefs win this week. At that point, he'd just need four Super Bowl wins to tie Brady and five to beat him, which doesn't seem that crazy, especially if Mahomes plays 15 more years of football.
Other storylines we talked about: Does anyone care that one former Steelers outcast is going to win a Super Bowl (Le'Veon Bell or Antonio Brown)? Does it matter that the Buccaneers are playing at home? Has Travis Kelce overtaken Rob Gronkowski in the rankings of best tight ends in NFL history? We dissected those questions and more on the pod, so you're definitely going to want to listen.
To listen to today's episode -- and subscribe to the podcast -- be sure to click here.
2. Chiefs dealing with a minor COVID situation
With both teams getting a bye week before the Super Bowl, it seemed like it was only going to be a matter of time before someone was going to be dealing with a COVID situation and that finally happened on Monday when two Chiefs' players were placed on the reserve/COVID-19 list.
Here's a quick look at the two players:
- Demarcus Robinson (Wide receiver): Robinson has been a solid role player for the Chiefs this year as he racked up a career-high 45 receptions for 466 yards and three touchdowns during the regular season.
- Daniel Kilgore (Center): Although Kilgore is the backup, he did make several appearances on the field this year. During the 2020 season, Kilgore played in seven different games and started in four of those.
The good news for both players is that neither tested positive for COVID. Since they're both considered close contacts, they'll be eligible to play in the Super Bowl as long as they test negative every day between now and Saturday.
Both players were placed on the COVID list because they came in close contact with a barber who recently tested positive, which means if everyone on the Chiefs' roster shows up to the Super Bowl with shaggy hair, you now know why.
3. Breech's Super Bowl LV pick
The upside of making a Super Bowl pick is that you get an extra week to think about it and I definitely needed an extra week to think about things after whiffing on both of my conference title game picks. I have no idea how it happened and I've spent the past 10 days re-evaluating my life to make sure it never happens again. The good news for me is that I'm 16-2 picking Chiefs games this year and I'm not good at math, but I think that means there's no way I'm going to get a Chiefs pick wrong for the second straight week.
Anyway, I'm pretty sure this is the first Super Bowl ever when one quarterback is basically as old as the other quarterback's mom, so I'm kind of excited to pick this game.
- Chiefs (-3) vs. Buccaneers: Being the first team in NFL history to play a home Super Bowl might actually be a disadvantage for the Buccaneers and that's because Patrick Mahomes is nearly unbeatable on the road. Over the course of his career, Mahomes is 21-4 on the road and those four losses weren't even his fault because the Chiefs averaged 38.5 points per game. In the 2020 season alone, the Chiefs went 8-0 on the road and averaged 31.6 points in those games. The Buccaneers are banged up in the secondary and that is the one place where you can't afford to be banged up when you're facing the Chiefs. PICK: Chiefs 34-27 over Buccaneers.
For a way more in-depth look at my pick that includes about 2,000 more words, be sure to click here.
4. Tom Brady apparently wants to play forever, will be oldest player in Super Bowl history
For the past few years, Tom Brady has been insisting that he wants to play until he's 45, but now that he's almost 45, it appears that the Buccaneers quarterback is open to playing even longer. Basically, it's starting to sound like Brady wants to play forever.
During Super Bowl Opening Night, the 43-year-old was asked if he would be open to playing beyond the age of 45.
"Yea definitely," Brady said. "It's a physical sport and the perspective you have on that is -- you never know. You never know when that moment is, just because it's a contact sport and there's a lot of training that goes into it. And again, it has to be 100 percent commitment from myself to keep doing it."
Brady is the first quarterback to start a Super Bowl in three different decades (2000s, 2010s, 2020s) and it sounds like he might be interested in adding a fourth to his resume, even if he'll be 53 when the 2030 season starts.
Brady has been around so long that he's finally going to break the record for oldest player to ever play in a Super Bowl. You might think that he already held the record, but he doesn't. The current record belongs to former Ravens kicker Matt Stover, who was 42 when he kicked for the Colts in Super Bowl XLIV.
5. Patrick Mahomes trying to pull off something no QB has done in 31 years
Despite the fact that the NFL is a passing league, the best passing quarterback in the NFL almost never ends up with the Lombardi Trophy. Over the past 54 years, the quarterback that led the league in passing yards per game has only won the Super Bowl a total of two times, but that number could change on Sunday if Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs can beat the Buccaneers.
Mahomes led the NFL in passing yards per game this year (316.0 yards per game) and with a win, he'll become the first quarterback to win the passing yards per game title AND win the big game since 1989. Here's a look at the other two quarterbacks who have pulled it off:
- Joe Montana (49ers): In 1989, Montana was named NFL MVP after leading the league with 270.8 passing yards per game. In Super Bowl XXIV, Montana went off against the Broncos throwing for 297 yards and five touchdowns in a 55-10 win, which is still the biggest blowout in Super Bowl history.
- Ken Stabler (Raiders): During the 1976 season, Stabler led the league with 228.1 yards passing per game. In the Super Bowl XI that year, Stabler threw for 180 yards and a touchdown in a 32-14 win over the Vikings.
Not only did both of those quarterbacks win the Super Bowl, but they're also both in the Hall of Fame.
Tom Brady has actually had two chances in his career to join this exclusive club, but he came up empty both times. Brady led the NFL in passing yards per game during the Patriots' 16-0 season of 2007, but he didn't win the Super Bowl (The Patriots got upset by the Giants). Brady also led the NFL in passing yards per game in 2017, but he ended up losing to the Eagles in the Super Bowl that year, which means he's 0-2 in Super Bowls where's he's had a chance to join this list.
6. Five Super Bowl records that probably won't ever be broken
There's a good chance we're going to see the Chiefs and Buccaneers combine to break several Super Bowl records on Sunday. As a matter of fact, the two teams will break one as soon as they step on the field and that's because Andy Reid and Bruce Arians will break the record for oldest combined age of the two head coaches in the game.
Although plenty of records will be broken, there are also plenty of records that WON'T be broken and with that in mind, our Bryan DeArdo decided to put together a list of the five most unbreakable Super Bowl records and here's the full list:
1. Washington scores 35 points in a single quarter in Super Bowl XXII
2. Bob Griese only attempts seven passes in Super Bowl VI
3. John Riggins carries the ball 38 times for Washington in Super Bowl XVII
4. Rod Martin intercepts three passes for Raiders in Super Bowl XV
5. Bears allow just seven rushing yards in Super Bowl XX
This is a solid list, but I think there are a few things I would shuffle around. For one, the Griese record for fewest passes by a starting quarterback could easily get broken if a QB gets injured early in the game. I also think the Chiefs have the firepower to potentially tie or maybe even break the top record on this list. After all, they did score 21 points in one quarter in the Super Bowl last year. As a matter of fact, the Chiefs already have two different quarters where they've scored 21 or more points in Patrick Mahomes' six career playoff games.
As for the other three records, I think DeArdo hit the nail on the head. I don't think anyone will be getting 38 carries in a Super Bowl anytime soon, three interceptions seems almost impossible and it's not going to be easy for anyone to match Chicago's record for fewest rushing yards allowed.
7. The Kicker!
This section is only covering two things this week: Kicking and gambling. Since I touched on kicking yesterday, I think it only makes sense that we now take a look at gambling and when I say that, I'm specifically talking about a crazy bet that was placed on Tuesday.
In what might go down as the craziest wager of the Super Bowl, someone bet $5,000 on the coin toss and he DIDN'T EVEN bet tails. He bet heads. You always bet tails. In the history of the Super Bowl, tails has hit 29 times and heads has hit 25 times, so if you go by the law of averages, you should probably go with heads, but that's a dumb law, so this person should have clearly gone with tails.
By the way, unless this guy is involved in some "Ocean's Eleven" type heist where he's replaced the Super Bowl coin with a weighted coin that always lands on heads, I can't imagine a good reason for betting $5,000 on a prop that's exactly 50-50. I mean, unless you know the ref who's flipping the coin or YOU ARE the ref who's flipping the coin, I feel like this bet makes no sense. I'd rather bet $5,000 on the amount of punts in the game.
Anyway, Cody Benjamin will be here running the newsletter tomorrow and if he sounds kind of skittish, I'm guessing that's because he's probably the guy who bet $5,000 on the coin toss.
