Will the Super Bowl be played indoors or outdoors? Will the retractable roof of NRG Stadium be open or closed on Sunday?
That is still up in the air, although the NFL has said it would like to play the game with the roof open if the weather is favorable.
A final decision is expected to be made no sooner than Saturday and possibly as late as game day.
“If the weather cooperates with us, which we hope it does, the roof will be open,” NFL director of events Eric Finkelstein said at a media briefing last week.
The weather has been terrific in Houston so far this week. The current forecast for Sunday calls for a day-time high of 77 degrees with a 20 percent chance of rain showers. Kickoff is 6:30 p.m. E.T.
NRG Stadium’s roof is rarely open for Houston Texans’ home games. In fact, it was closed for all of the team’s games there this season.
The Texans’ guidelines call for the roof to be open if the temperature is below 78 degrees and above 65 degrees with no chance of rain in the forecast.
When the stadium — named Reliant Stadium at the time — hosted the 2004 Super Bowl, the roof was closed because of heavy rain in the forecast. (The Patriots played an NFC South team in that Super Bowl, too, beating the Carolina Panthers 32-29.)
Falcons fans will get accustomed to the open-or-closed question because Atlanta’s new Mercedes-Benz Stadium will have a retractable roof. Falcons officials have said they intend for the roof to be open for as many games as possible.
“For football, we want it to be open for eight games (a year) — or get to nine games, that would be great,” Falcons President Rich McKay told a sports facilities conference last fall. “But we don’t want it to be open for only five games.”
Another vote for Ryan as MVP
The league’s Most Valuable Player award will be announced at the NFL Honors event Saturday. And the winner should be Falcons quarterback Matt Ryan, according to Seattle Seahawks QB Russell Wilson.
“I think Matt Ryan, it’s been his year,” Wilson said on NFL Network, which will televise the awards show. “In my opinion, he’s probably the MVP, just because of the success that he’s had on the football field and how he’s overcome from the year before. He didn’t have a great year before and he was able to overcome those situations.”
Wilson, however, doesn’t pick Ryan’s team to win the Super Bowl.
“I think the experience that Tom Brady has, there’s something about that,” he said. “I think you have to give the edge to the Patriots. That’s my smart thing to do.”
Making the media rounds
Falcons owner Arthur Blank, who was in Houston on Monday, made the media rounds in New York on Wednesday, discussing the Falcons’ Super Bowl journey and other matters in live or taped interviews with CBS This Morning, ABC’s Good Morning America, Fox Business Network and USA Today Sports Facebook Live.
Blank said he is headed back to Houston on Thursday, along with 33 family members.
What are the odds of …
The oddsmakers at SportsBettingDime.com came out Wednesday with another batch of "prop bets" related to the Super Bowl. Among them, for your entertainment:
Odds on who scores the most points on Super Bowl Sunday: the Oklahoma City Thunder’s Russell Westbrook 16/3, the Toronto Raptors’ DeMar DeRozan 11/2, the Patriots 6-1, the Falcons 13/2.
Odds the Falcons-Patriots game breaks the record for highest-scoring Super Bowl ever: 3/1
Odds the USFL and New Jersey Generals, the long-defunct team formerly owned by Donald Trump, are mentioned during Fox’s Bill O’Reilly’s Super Bowl Sunday interview with the president: 2/1
Odds on which advertiser will win USA Today’s Super Bowl Ad Meter: Anheuser-Busch 9/4, Hyundai 5/1, Snickers 6/1, PepsiCo 10/1, Avocados from Mexico 12/1, Wix.com 18/1, Skittles 35/1, Field 5/1
Updating the ticket market
The least expensive Super Bowl ticket available for resale on StubHub as of Wednesday afternoon was $2,100 in an upper-level corner, according to the ticket exchange.
About 2,100 tickets were available.
Falcons-Patriots tickets have sold in a range from $1,500 to $15,432, compared to a range of $1,040 to $27,983 at the same point last year for the Denver-Carolina Super Bowl in Santa Clara, Calif., StubHub said.
Numerology
$352 million: Cost of NRG Stadium, which opened in 2002 as Reliant Stadium, less than 1/4th the cost of Atlanta's Mercedes-Benz Stadium, which opens later this year.
110%: Increase during the past decade in the average cost of a 30-second Super Bowl commercial (now $5 million), compared to a 25-percent increase in the cost of a World Series commercial during that same period, according to WalletHub.
1.33 billion: Chicken wings that Americans will eat during Super Bowl weekend, according to the National Chicken Council's annual Wing Report.
Sound bites
“Being a premature baby and only have a 20 percent chance of living, it’s definitely a blessing to be here. And I thank God for being here.”
— Falcons running back Tevin Coleman, asked about his journey to the Super Bowl.
“I don’t really see it as work. It actually beats working. … We have a lot of people that do their job very well, a great coaching staff and a great group of players. I have a lot of respect for all of them. I try and stay out of the way and let them do their job.”
— Patriots coach Bill Belichick, asked how he stays motivated after so much success.
“Our coach does a great job of keeping us focused every day because every day is an important day in his mind. He walks into a team meeting room every day and says, ‘Alright guys, this is a big day,’ and he means it. He just doesn’t say it the Wednesday of the Super Bowl week. He says it on a Wednesday in April.”
— Patriots quarterback Tom Brady on Belichick.
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