Tag: Super Bowl

Frank the Tank’s Super Bowl XLIII Parlay

On By Frank the TankIn Big Ten, College Basketball, College Football, Illinois Fighting Illini, NFL Football, SportsLeave a comment

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As much as I’d love to pick the Cardinals in Super Bowl XLIII solely because they feature the long snapper/placekicker combo from my college days (which goes to show you how little performance in college really matters in terms of predicting success at the pro level –  my undergraduate time in Champaign coincided with the worst four year stretch in Illini football history, including a one win season that was followed up by a winless season, yet the special teams tandem from that team are playing together for a chance at the world championship), I simply have to believe that Mike Tomlin is going to do what the Eagles should have done two weeks ago and make sure that Larry Fitgerald is covered by at least two men at all times without exception.  If Philly had used its second half zone defense for the entire length of the NFC Championship (instead of allowing three first half touchdowns by Fitzgerald), we would be looking at an all-Pennsylvania Super Bowl.  The bottom line is that Pittsburgh has proven from the the beginning of the season until now that it is one of the best defenses ever to play in the Super Bowl, particularly considering how much scoring is up this season.  I have faith that they will find a way to shut down Fitzgerald and, ergo, the Arizona offense in general.  At the same time, I have noticed that most of Vegas has dropped the line on the game from the Steelers being a 7-point favorite to only 6.5, which must mean that way too much money is flowing in Arizona’s direction right now.  I’ll take my chances betting against the rest of America here (and in favor of the house).  Since a single pick does not make a parlay, here’s a whole slew of sports predictions for Super Bowl Sunday (home teams in CAPS, if applicable, and all prop bets are actually offered in Vegas):

  • Pittsburgh Steelers (-6.5) over Arizona Cardinals
  • Under 46.5 combined points for the Super Bowl
  • ILLINOIS FIGHTING ILLINI (-11.5) over Iowa Hawkeyes
  • LeBron James rebounds and assists (+5.5) over Arizona Cardinals points (-5.5)
  • Anquan Boldin receiving yards (+14.5) over Michigan State Spartans points (-14.5)
  • Highest scoring quarter by Steelers and Cardinals (+1.5) over Paul Pierce points (-1.5)
  • Under 38.5 for the jersey number of player to score the first touchdown

If I were anywhere near the Strip this weekend, I would be hammering those Super Bowl/basketball combo prop bets.  The long-promised Bulls midseason rant is forthcoming (it’s just going to end up being an extremely long piece).  In the meantime, enjoy the Super Bowl!

Frank the Tank’s NFL Football Parlay Record
Conference Championship Games: 1-1
Playoffs Overall: 6-3
Bears Games for the Season: 3-10-1
Overall Season: 27-25-3

(Image from Daylife)

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Soul Train Heads to the Big Train Depot in the Sky

On By Frank the TankIn Music, NFL Football, Pop Culture, Sports, Television5 Comments

Many years ago, a young Frank the Tank spent his Saturday mornings with a fairly consistent TV-viewing routine: The Smurfs, Looney Tunes, and capping it all off with Soul Train.  As you wrap your mind around the image of a half-Polish/half-Chinese toddler sitting around watching Soul Train in rapture (of course, host Don Cornelius was the definition of encouraging diversity, as evidenced by inviting these guys as guests at one point), please note that I was a massive hip-hop fan long before it was considered to be mainstream and since I lived in a household without cable (meaning no MTV or BET), Soul Train was pretty much the only television outlet available for me to get my dose of favorite music.  Not only that, the Chicago broadcasts of Soul Train on WGN included a heavy rotation of the greatest commercials of all-time – you can only imagine the horror on my Taiwanese-born mother’s face when I requested that we take a detour to the Museum of Science and Industry so that we could stop by Moo & Oink.  So, I got a little emotional when I found out that the old Soul Train reruns were being taken off the air for good (there haven’t been any new episodes since 2006).  Don Cornelius helped bring R&B and hip-hop to the masses in an era where those genres were considered to “niche” markets.  Now, even the NFL has moved away from using aging white rock stars to headline the Super Bowl halftime show… what?  (This blog post pretty much sums up my feelings about Bruce Springsteen – he’s not bad and there are certain songs such as “Glory Days” that are among my favorites, but I’ve just never felt that he was as great of a songwriter and rock star as he’s made out to be by much of the the general public.)  OK, so there still needs to be some work done.  However, when you look at the top Billboard songs over the past decade, you’ll see the charts dominated by either hip-hop or at least hip-hop influenced acts.  All of those artists should be grateful to the work of Don Cornelius and Soul Train for paving the way when that music wasn’t quite as accepted.

(Ed. note: You may have noticed that I’ve referenced Color Me Badd twice in the last week, which is unusual since no person on Earth has acknowledged their existence for the past 18 years.  Let me just tell you that after my research of the “band” on YouTube, I felt the same elation of uncovering some life-altering treasure as the archaeologist from Jurassic Park that found the prehistoric mosquito encased in amber.  Of course, there’s some blissful ignorance of the collateral damage that will surely come from these discoveries, which means I’ll likely become a pregame snack for a velociraptor within the next couple of weeks.)

(Image from Museum of Broadcast Communications)