2009 Superbowl MVP Prediction

2009 Superbowl MVP Prediction

For some football fans, and certainly some football bettors, the naming of the Super Bowl MVP winner is just as important as the outcome of the game itself. Some people view this as a relatively easy bet given that quarterbacks have garnered the award 22 times in 43 tries, but they would be remiss not to examine a few possible candidates who will not be tossing the ball around this evening.

This 2009 Super Bowl MVP Prediction comes courtesy of the oddsmakers at SBGglobal.com, who have over 18 individual players with listed Super Bowl XLIII MVP odds.

Most sportsbooks offer a wide array of MVP candidates, usually ranging from players with highly probable odds to guys with a snowball's chance in hell of winning the award. While some of the latter might merit a $10.00 flyer, it is worth the time to find players in the middling range to make a potential investment on. In light of that, here are a few performers that might be worth a play. 

Steelers Wide Receiver Santonio Holmes. No other offensive player on the Pittsburgh roster has the big play capability that Holmes has. He will probably not catch the most passes, but his speed allows him to do quite a bit with the balls he does reel in. Look no further than the AFC Championship Game against the Ravens. Holmes took a routine 15 to 20 yard pass and turned it into a 65 yard touchdown. Also, as illustrated in the Steelers playoff win over the Chargers, Holmes can be a factor in the return game as well. His 67 yard punt return for a touchdown was the turning point in that game for Pittsburgh. At +1500 MVP odds, this former Buckeye is a pretty solid play.

Cardinals Wide Receiver Anquan Boldin. Boldin's post-season numbers have not matched his typical production, and that may be a result of the leg injury he sustained against the Vikings in week 14. If that is the reason, than he should be well rested and ready to regroup after sitting through the Super Bowl bye week. Additionally, some people may suspect that Arizona will punish Boldin for his encounter with offensive coodinator Todd Haley in the NFC Championship Game. The opposite is more likely true. The Cardinals want to win and there is no better way for them to do that than to have Boldin at full speed and deeply involved in the game plan. He could be ready to break out, and having a few bucks on a superstar with +1500 MVP odds is not a bad thing. 

Steelers Safety Troy Polamalu. Everyone knows what this former Trojan can do when he is healthy; he is the driving force behind the Steelers defensive success. Not only is he a ball hawking safety with a nose for the big play, he is also a 207lb missle who loves to punish running backs. Kurt Warner is a fabulous player, but he is not incapable of committing a few errors. Who do you think is most likely to capitalize on any errant throws by the Arizona quarterback? That's right, Polamalu. This guy is a forced fumble and an interception return for a touchdown away from an MVP trophy. Man, don't you wish you had laid a little jack with those +1200 odds? 

SBGglobal.com's 2009 Super Bowl MVP Prediction: 

Favorites: 
Ben Roethlisberger +175
Kurt Warner +200
Larry Fitzgerald +500

Have A Shot: 
Field (Any Player Not Listed): +800
Troy Polamalu +1200
Santonio Holmes +1500
Anquan Boldin +1500

Are You Laughing? Here's $10.00 Anyway 
Health Miller +3500
Gary Russell +5000
JJ Arrington +6500

Matt Foust won both of his conference championship plays this past weekend and he is ready to serve up plenty of Super Bowl action. Each individual play costs $15.00, however, Point-Spreads.com recommends purchasing Matt's NFL Playoff Package which includes all of Matt's Super Bowl props and picks from just $45.00.


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Destiny cheats Arizona's improbable run

LINCICOME: Destiny cheats Arizona's improbable run

Nevertheless, the Steelers of Pittsburgh will keep this Super Bowl trophy. They can put it with the other five, and tell lies later about how this one was a cinch.

It was not. This one was all thumbscrews and root canals, shock and awesome, slap and smack, a duel in the cool tropical night.

"This is for you, Pittsburgh!" shouted game MVP Santonio Holmes, raising the Vince Lombardi Trophy over his head as if it were the first one instead of the sixth, as if the town had never seen the others.

This may be the least of all the Super Bowl-winning Steelers teams, though the trophy is exactly the same size as all the rest. 

They passed the shiny symbol around, from owner to coach to players, toted to the ceremony for some undeclared reason by Joe Namath, the trophy a hard-earned souvenir, harder than the Steelers thought. Winners get to leave fingerprints.

Losers - in this case, the Cardinals are not losers as much as companions in as gutsy, gut-wrenching a melodrama as any since . . . well, since last year, when the wrong team won with a helmet catch - are left with highlights.

And the Cardinals had highlights, the highest and lightest a catch and run of 64 yards by Larry Fitzgerald that would have, should have, stunned the Steelers into an admission that fate or chance was wearing a Cardinal on its hat.

"The Steelers are a 60-minute team," said their coach, Mike Tomlin.

This one was won with a classic, almost cliche catch, the kind that is staged in movies or dramatized in sports books, impossible and indelible, the football equivalent of the buzzer-beater or the walkoff homer. It had everything but slow motion, and it even had that later, as it was studied for validity and, probably, for artistry.

"Great players step up in big-time games to make plays," said Holmes. "I knew that was my play. Ben stuck with me, put it up where it was supposed to be and I made the play."

Whether Holmes is a great player, certainly he had the greatest game of his life and one of the greatest of any receiver in a Super Bowl for effectiveness and drama, not that the same wouldn't have been said of Fitzgerald had Holmes not made The Catch.

Unlike the stadium witnesses, who may have chewed their fingernails down, Holmes had just enough left on his hands to stretch, hold the football, "come down on his toes," as the referee finally and officially confirmed, and lock down a victory nearly blown from 13 points in front.

And, just like that, David Tyree's helmet catch for the Giants against the Pats last year was bumped from the top of Great Super Bowl Moments.

"We embrace those moments," said Tomlin. "We are built for those moments."

The game did not match the boasts nor beat the spread, and the Steelers' special torment for the Cardinals was to allow them to think they belonged.

"Nobody expected us to be here," said Cardinals quarterback Kurt Warner, as if he needed to remind anyone of that. "We exceeded expectations and came close to being world champions only to lose it."

Fewer penalties and just anyone, Warner having the best chance, tripping up Steelers linebacker James Harrison on the last play of the first half as he was galumphing a record 100 yards with an interception for the longest play in Super Bowl history, and the Cardinals would have had the whip in their hands. 

This was a memorable Super Bowl because the Cardinals flirted with the improbable, and the Steelers - except for the plays by Harrison and Holmes - were not good enough to do anything about it.

Arizona could allow itself to believe in destiny even with a half-minute to play, until the last five seconds, until Arizona quarterback Warner lost the football, breaking the heart of a perfectly nice place like Arizona.

The Steelers were not going to be lucked out of their birthright, and they weren't going to be passed or punched or tackled out of it either.

"We back up talk with action," said Tomlin.

"Backyard ball," said Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger, describing his cobbling together the final, winning drive, and at the same time coining a T-shirt slogan if ever there was one.

"It's never going to be pretty or perfect," said Tomlin. "There are no style points out there. But this is a team with great resolve."

Winners can, and will, say all these things, of course, as Arizona would have said and even more loudly, because the Cardinals would have been the most astonishing winners ever of the Super Bowl, at least since the Jets beat the Colts in the third one.

Maybe that was why Namath was here, to represent audacity and surprise, and it was all there for the Cardinals.

So close. So long.

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Asian lions dance in Jack London Square

Asian lions dance in Jack London Square

OAKLAND — In a gesture to continue clearing out any spiritual deadwood left over from the Lunar New Year, a group of young martial artists donned their leonine apparel and stormed through Jack London Square on Sunday.

Seven dancers and drummers from the Oakland Police Asian Youth Services Center swept up and down the square to the booming rhythm of a pigskin barrel drum in the early afternoon. A pair of two-man lions, decorated similar to dragon dancers but shorter and with different faces, pawed, jumped and danced across the square.

"Dragons only come out once a year, and they have to be 10 or more people," instructor Sifu Robert Lee said. "But lions can come out for many more occasions, to clean out bad elements and make room for a fresh start."

The center's lion dance team includes more than 20 youths, who come from Oakland public schools starting about the age of 15. They practice a rich blend of dance, music and martial arts, Lee said.

Wilson Lu, a 19-year-old Oakland student, joined in 2002 and took the lead of both lions at various points in the performance. He stopped several times along the dance, entertaining children and using his legs to mimic paws. He has studied dance and drumming, as well as employing swords, staffs and wushu martial arts.

"Wushu is maybe the most traditional kind of Chinese martial arts," Lu said, adding that the style is as much as 6,000 years old. "I've studied a lot of the southern style. The moves are different from other martial arts, but what really distinguishes it is the emphasis on keeping the body healthy. It's not so much about self-defense as it used to be; it's more about keeping your internal energy up, your longevity."

Robert Mac, 25, moved to Oakland when he was 16 and joined almost right away, he said. While a lot of participants quit or move away after high school, Mac said that the group had become like a family to him.

"These guys take a little bit of getting used to," he laughed. "But they're great. They do all kinds of dancing and goofing around and put it up on YouTube. It's pretty hilarious."

Glenda McDowell, of Alameda, and her 9-year-old son, Scotty, chatted with the performers after the show, asking about which year it is now — it is the Year of the Ox, known for symbolizing success attained through toil — and Scotty shared some of his knowledge of Chinese culture.

"We went into Chinatown for New Year's and got some firecrackers," Scotty said between bites of caramel popcorn. "They scare away evil spirits."

The Asian Youth Services Center is a nonprofit organization that provides scholarships and other opportunities for Oakland youths. Their next performance will be Feb. 9 at the Hotel Oakland, 260 13th St. The show will start at 4 p.m. and is slated to include martial arts demonstrations, singing, modern dance and lion dancing. Tickets are free, but donations are requested.

"They usually make a puzzle for the lion dancers to get the donations," Lee said. "They hang lettuce, oranges and money tied up together from the ceiling, about 10 feet up, and the lion dancers have to go up there and grab it."

For those who would rather keep their money at ground level, donations can be handed in red envelopes straight to the lion dancers in exchange for a chance to rub the lion's head, Lee said, "for good luck, good health and good fortune."

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