Good morning. This is Leadoff, the early buzz in Atlanta sports, Super Bowl edition.
They are the highest scoring team in the NFL, have a quarterback who's probably going to win the MVP award and are one victory away from being Super Bowl champs.
But the Falcons nevertheless are a boring football team, controversial commentator Skip Bayless opined Wednesday on Fox Sports 1’s “Undisputed” show.
Bayless was arguing that the Super Bowl would be so much better if the Dallas Cowboys were in it. Never mind that the Cowboys lost at home in a divisional playoff to the Green Bay Packers, who then were dismantled by the Falcons in the NFC championship game.
“No disrespect to the Falcons,” Bayless said. “They are really, really explosive. They’ve got weapons everywhere.”
Then he said this:
“The truth is, the truth is, the Atlanta Falcons are pretty boring as a football team. All told, they’re boring. They’re not Jerry Jones and the Cowboys.”
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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
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NFL commissioner Roger Goodell sought Wednesday to downplay the continuing drama from Deflategate, professing respect for the New England Patriots and insisting he isn't ducking their home games.
“If I’m invited back to Foxborough, I’ll come,” Goodell said.
He hasn’t attended a Patriots game in Foxborough, Mass., since the Deflategate case, which culminated with quarterback Tom Brady serving a four-game league suspension at the start of this season. Goodell recently attended back-to-back Falcons playoff games in Atlanta rather than going to a New England game either of those weeks.
But the commissioner insisted in his annual Super Bowl news conference that he remains satisfied with how his office handled the controversial case.
“… It’s something that we’re comfortable with — the process, the decision,” he said.
