Super Bowl XLVIII prediction: Giants 37, Patriots 35

SN&R doesn’t often chime in on sports. Once a year, though, we like to bring home the cheapest 12-pack you can find on Del Paso Boulevard, sit down with the proverbial “editorial brain trust,” crunch beers and sabermetrics, and let readers in on who’ll win the Super Bowl.

(OK, so it’s just me, alone, drinking crap beer—which has its place in the pantheon of higher math, right?)

Anyway, as for Big Game No. 46, it’s gonna be the New York Giants over the New England Patriots with a last-second field goal.

Here’s how:

First, remember that statistics, expert insight and your uncle’s gut instinct don’t amount to a lick when it comes to bowls, super or otherwise.

For example, the Giants are the first Super Bowl team ever to allow more points than scored during the regular season. If this wasn’t worrying enough, only three of the past 11 Super Bowl teams with the worst point differential have taken the Lombardi trophy home.

But one of those squads was the Giants four years ago, in Super Bowl XLII. So there you go.

I’m actually blown away by some of the whacked-out Super Bowl factoids one can find online. Such as: Did you know that the average Super Bowl viewer will spend approximately $63.87 on food and snacks and clothes and memorabilia for this Sunday’s game? This according to the National Retail Federation.

Some facts even disgust: The National Chicken Council wrote recently that some 90 million pounds of chicken wings were consumed during last year’s bout between the Green Bay Packers and the Pittsburgh Steelers.

It is estimated that more than 170 million people will watch this year’s Super Bowl; everyone’s going to eat half a pound of chicken wings?

There’s even a popular viral YouTube video going around this week involving chicken bones and the big game. Last year, a blogger at Food Wishes scarfed some chicken, threw the bones on a plate—and predicted that the Packers would win it all. He was right. And, this year, he’s thrown new bones on a new plate—and says the Giants will win.

That’s good enough for me.

It’s worth noting that, this season, both Tom Brady and Eli Manning were better quarterbacks on grass, not the turf that rests inside the Lucas Oil Stadium, home of this year’s Super Bowl. But, remember your mantra: The data is immaterial.

All the more reason Manning and Brady will throw four T.D.s each this Sunday—two to Victor Cruz for the Giants, two to beastly tight end Rob Gronkowski for the Pats—and the game will be a shoot-out.

And one with drama to boot: Presumed mismatch Julian Edelman will take Manning to the house for a pick-six early in the game. Justin Tuck will rule and sack Brady three times.

Then, in the end, kicker Lawrence Tynes—the man who left a dagger in San Francisco’s heart—will boot a 43 yarder with no time remaining for the win. Or at least that’s what the cheap beer is saying.