While we have taken a break from doing expanded NFL coverage for this season due to the overwhelming number of you that have indicated your political opposition to the league’s policies or lack thereof, we will expand our coverage just a tad today for Super Bowl 52, but we promise to do it in a tactful way and focus on the real true hero that will be appearing in this game.
You, our patrons, represent an excellent microcosm for football fandom. The NFL is off a good 10% in television viewership, and pictures of the weekly games have shown all stadiums with more and more empty seats. The so-called Mainstream Media, with the exception of Fox News, and the top conservative radio hosts like Laura Ingraham, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and Michael Savage, blame the increasing decline on things like the high number of concussions, the outlawing of two sports fantasy sites, cord cutting, bad games, and the retirement of Peyton Manning. Last year, they blamed the Presidential election on the decline, but the decline continued this year, and there was no election. We all know why a large number of former fans are now former fans and may possibly be permanently former fans.
Read our editorial at the conclusion of this feature.
Super Bowl 52
New England Patriots (15-3-0) vs. Philadelphia Eagles (15-3-0)
Date: Sunday, February 4, 2018
Site: U.S. Bank Stadium, Minneapolis, MN
Scheduled Kickoff Time: 6:30 PM EST/5:30 PM CST (local time in Minneapolis)
TV & Announce Crew: NBC with Al Michaels, Chris Collinsworth, Heather Cox, and Michele Tafoya
Radio & Announce Crew: Westwood One with Kevin Harlan and Boomer Esiason
Current Las Vegas Line (on 1/24/2018): New England by 5 1/2
Money Line: New England -220, Philadelphia +180
Total: 47 1/2
The PiRate Ratings Spreads
If you are a new patron to this site, we issue three separate ratings for college and NFL football. Each rating is a different algorithm based on the same statistical data.
PiRate: New England by 0.3
Mean: New England by 1.5
Bias: Philadelphia by 0.3
Total: 42
100 Computer Simulations
Every year, we run 100 computer simulations with the help of a college statistics professor’s program. This might be the last year we can do this, because said professor may move at the end of this term.
If you think last year’s game was exciting, being the first of 51 to go to overtime, you haven’t seen anything yet if the computer is accurate this year. We’ve never seen a playoff game this close since our simulations began 16 years ago.
Number of New England Wins: 50
Number of Philadelphia Wins: 50
Average Score: New England 22.52 Philadelphia 21.90
Median New England Score: 21
Median Philadelphia Score: 21
New England’s Standard Deviation: 7.04
Philadelphia’s Standard Deviation: 5.04
New England Outlier Win: Pats 38 Eagles 17
Philadelphia Outlier Win: Eagles 30 Pats 14
Our Super Bowl 52 MVP (even before kickoff)
You can have Bill Belichick and Doug Pederson as role models. Maybe you want to look up to Nick Foles or Tom Brady. However, we at the PiRates Stand Up to admire referee Gene Steratore. Steratore lives in the Pittsburgh area. He has been a single parent for close to 20 years. He owns with his brother (also an NFL Official) a successful and reputable janitorial supply company. Call this a testimonial, but since delving into his life a bit more, we have decided to purchase some products from Steratore Sanitary Supplies (steratoresanitary.com).
Steratore is also one of the top NCAA basketball officials, doing a large number of Big Ten games as well as NCAA Tournament games. He may be the best two-sport star you have hardly heard about.
Steratore gets excellent ratings in both sports; his business is outstanding; and he deserves some mention in Father of the Year discussions.
Our hats and hearts go out to such a fine outstanding American, one who believes in hard work as the way to succeed. You won’t find Steratore making a public statement by dishonoring the flag of the United States of America.
We like to refer to a joke that former President Ronald Reagan made 30+ years ago. He joked about how Cuba has the same rights as the United States. In the USA, a citizen can stand up on a street corner and issue his dislike and opposition to the President of the United States. In Cuba, a citizen can also stand up on a street corner and issue his dislike and opposition to the President of the United States.
Definitely, American citizens have the incredible gift from its founding fathers’ documents that allow them to express their opposition to the government and its laws. The Bill of Rights belongs as the second document that should be included in the Governing Hall of Fame (Magna Carta number one).
The Flag and the National Anthem of the United States are not members of government. They are a testament to citizens of this country having the right to publicly oppose and also seek public office ourselves. Opposing the flag and anthem are indications that a person does not have allegiance to the Constitution of the United States of America.
When NFL players make protests of the anthem and flag, and then the NFL steps into it deeper by refusing to carry a patriotic advertisement (not a freebie either) due to political reasons, this is a line of bunk in the opinions of all 6 PiRates.
How more political can past Super Bowl advertisements, especially last year’s game, be? Do you remember the Annheiser Busch ad where the original Busch faced all types of hatred from others when he immigrated to this country? It was sad that Mr. Busch faced trouble when he first moved to the USA (if this is accurate). However, the timing of this ad when the hot topic of the day was how to deal with illegal immigration created a Budweiser Boycott that has now made the giant corporation reconsider if they will remain a sponsor of the league going forward.
Audi, Coca-Cola, Airbnb, and a hair care company that we cannot remember the name, all ran political ads, ads that offended some part of the population.
How can being patriotic and loving the principles that this country was founded on be considered political, unless it is a covert way of stating that the NFL represents an opposition to our principles of existence, thus implying they lack allegiance to our country?
None of us on the PiRate Ship will watch or listen to the Super Bowl. We have chosen not to watch or listen to any games all year. And before, you say we are 100% pro-President Trump or right wing conservatives, 3 of the 6 PiRates voted for Bernie Sanders in the 2016 Primaries. 2 of the 6 supported other GOP candidates that did not win. The 6th was as usual 100% behind a third party candidate.
However, on the 20th day of January, 2017, all six of us prayed for the well-being of our country, and prayed for the health and well-being of our President and Vice President. We are 100% behind the system as it was determined in our Constitution. The flag and anthem are relatives of the Constitution. You may support no politicians in power today, or you may love them or some of them, but if you do not love your country and do not have 100% allegiance to it, then you are not a real citizen of the country. If you want to make change to the current status, then do it by playing by the rules laid out in the great document that allowed this nation to continue to exist after 241+ years.
One more thought: this is baseball’s best opportunity to reclaim its birthright as our national pastime. The 2016 and 2017 baseball seasons were incredible ones, and 2018 might be the best one since six divisional play began. The New York Yankees and New York Mets should bring fans into the park in larger numbers, while the Los Angeles Dodgers and Los Angeles Angels have great attractions to make it banner years at Dodger Stadium and Angel Stadium of Anaheim. The Chicago Cubs and St. Louis Cardinals will have to hold off the Milwaukee Brewers in what should be an exciting race. The Cleveland Indians may make a run at their all-time wins record of 111 in 1954, after winning 102 last year and getting better in the off season. Then, you have the best team statistics can create in the reigning world champion Houston Astros. If new Angels’ two-way player Shohei Otani more closely resembles Wes Ferrell than Clint Hartung, then the AL West race should be quite interesting. This looks like the year to come back to baseball if you haven’t sampled the excitement in recent years.
The Pi-Rate Ratings 