Allow me to quote myself, from three and a half weeks ago, regarding the Super Bowl MVP odds for players on teams other than New England, Indianapolis, and Dallas:"Please don't bet on any of these, they are awful. It would be absolutely hilarious if Rivers or Eli won the award, though."First of all, I completely stand by this statement. I was rooting for Eli on that last drive, only because the situation was so absurd. Manning was 40:1 to win the MVP at that point- if you made that bet, congratulations, you are brilliant. I still contend that betting on him at +350 last week to win the SB MVP would have been dumb, as you could have gotten similar odds simply betting on the Giants to win outright.
Last summer, the Giants were 28:1 at Bodog to win the Super Bowl. But you could have gotten even better odds at the beginning of the playoffs, since the idea of Eli Manning winning three road games and then beating the AFC representative seemed completely insane (still does). I had them at 1.2%; I think you could've gotten them as high as 75:1. Prior to the game, Bodog had "New York Giants win by 1-6 points" at 9-2.
Anyway, on to the fun stuff. I e-mailed the good people at Bodog*, and they informed me that Jordan Sparks' National Anthem was timed at 1:54. So, as expected, the over was the winner there. The O/U was originally 1m42s, but got up to 1m48s by game time, with the "Under" paying at +110.
Lozo's lock of the century came through when Frank Caliendo picked the Giants to win. The "No" on "Will the entire Fox pre-game team pick the Patriots to win the Super Bowl?" paid out at +140, which is pretty solid.
For "Who will the MVP of the Game thank first", longshot "Doesn't think anyone" was the winner, at 6:1. Eli mentioned his teammates, but didn't specifically thank them. In retrospect, this really isn't all that surprising, and would have been a really good bet.
The color of the liquid dumped on Coughlin was definitely "Transparent", which was listed at 4:1.
Unfortunately, none of the ridiculous Tom Petty props hit. I'm still convinced that "will curse during performance" at 80:1 was a good value, however.
Petty started off with "An American Girl"- that was +175. He followed with "I Won't Back Down", and then "Free Fallin". I thought that was it- "Free Fallin" was a heavy favorite to be the song he closed with, at -200. But then, in an upset almost as big as the Giants' victory itself (not really), Petty shocked the world and continued with "Runnin' Down A Dream", which was listed at +135 to be his final song.
A couple other big surprises came with the Peyton and Archie props. Bodog claims that Buck mentioned Peyton's name just once during the broadcast. I find this hard to believe, as they must have showed the guy eight times. Regardless, "Under 5.5" was the winner there, and paid out at -125. Archie was not shown at all (was he even there?), so "Under 4.5" was the winner, at +110.
On a completely unrelated note, let's not forget Tom Brady's response to Burress' prediction of a 23-17 Giants victory:
"We're only going to score 17 points? OK. Is Plax playing defense?"14, actually. And no, Plax did not play defense. Offense, though.
*When I say "the good people at Bodog", I sincerely mean this. They began their reply to my e-mail with "Dear Mr. Watch", which cracked me up.
Photo: Getty Images, via Yahoo! and SI.
