As the off season draws to close, many of you may be looking forward to the day when you can stop obsessively following training camp, pre-season games, and the projected value of the second string running back on your seventh fantasy team, and finally get serious about football.
The start of a new season comes rife with many things you can bet on money making opportunities, and it is easy to get overwhelmed by where exactly you should place your wagers. Forget throwing down on your team taking their division, and consider my lead pip locks for these actions my bettor half are sure to take this season. (Trust me. These are a more sure bet than Joe Buck having a stupid look on his stupid face.)
1. Find A New Clothing Item To Be Superstitious About (-200)
He has to be wearing his jersey (washed or unwashed, depending on whether the jersey worked last week); I have to be wearing one of three Eagle’s t-shirts (or the same one from last week, again, depending on win record); and our dog has to wear his jersey in order for the Eagles to win. This is just science. And a small sampling of the items on which my boyfriend has decided to pin his hopes for an Eagles Super Bowl.
Soon, the Amazon Prime boxes will begin arriving. My boyfriend, who avoids malls in the way that most people avoid Philly sports fans, will suddenly take on an enthusiastic interest in shopping. Eagles slippers and leggings for me! An Eagles coffee tumbler and windbreaker for him! Eagles seed for our bird feeder! One of these items will be determined “lucky” by him, and added to the collection of game-winning merchandise.
2. Go To Extreme Measures To Watch A Game (-175)
Most games will be watched in the comfort of the 5-television-equipped Buffalo Wild Wings that is our living room, but occasionally, life will get in the way of a three-day-a-week football watching schedule. Never one to give up just because the odds of enjoying screaming at the game are against him, he will find an unconventional means of watching.
He’ll set up a VPN and watch the whole nail-biter in literal slow motion, or use the free wifi at Starbucks to watch the entire three hour game whilst yelling at his phone. At least once a season, he will casually seek a game, the way Lawrence Taylor casually sought cocaine.
3. Get Drunk Before Noon (-400)
The Eagles will pull off a crazy victory, and he will put whiskey in his coffee to celebrate. Or, the Eagles will suffer a devastating loss, and he will put whiskey in his coffee to celebrate. Either way, I’ll return home from my Sunday morning run at least a couple times to find our suburban Los Angeles home smelling like the Lincoln Financial Center’s parking lot.
4. Spread The Good News That This Is The Year (-150)
After a streak in mid-fall that includes a couple of upsets and a defeat over one of his friend’s teams, he will become afflicted with many of the symptoms of Eagles-Mania: Grandiose beliefs — He will become irrationally convinced of the inevitability of an Eagles Super Bowl win; Elation and euphoria — he will be over-the-top friendly to everyone he comes in contact with, convinced that the end of the cycle of disappointment is nigh; Increased talking speed — he will rattle off Wentz’s stats constantly, and will rapidly list Sprole’s yards ran completely unprovoked to co-workers or strangers at the grocery store.
5. Declare “No Eagle’s Shit for Christmas” (-600)
After one of their signature cock-teases of an early season, the Birds will shit the bed so spectacularly that in one definitive moment, he will fire off a text to myself and his mother declaring, “No Eagles shit for Christmas.” This is mostly just a gesture, a whiskey-fueled pity party. Everyone has learned by now not to get him Eagles shit for Christmas. This isn’t our first NFL season. The items that he would have gotten as gifts will now be purchased by him on Amazon Prime the following fall.
6. Look at the Bright Side: Fuck the Cowboys (Off The Board)
In the unfortunate scenario that the Eagles are out of it and the Cowboys are still in, he will find joy and solace in being able to focus all of his energy on hating the Cowboys. One of the only things as joyous as watching the Eagles win is watching the Cowboys lose, and he will watch each game, feverishly reveling in the fact that the Cowboys always ride off into the sunset in the post-season.
Even with the devastating retirement of Tony Romo, he will find a new player to denigrate, insult, and wish injury upon. He will have so much fun rooting against the Cowboys, he’ll almost be sad when they’re out of it.
Instant reaction to #tonyromo going down from @seantgreen pic.twitter.com/qiNrhzMIiI
— Gambling Podcast (@GamblingPodcast) September 20, 2015
7. Take On a Bunch of Shitty Parlays In Order to “Keep Things Interesting” (-325)
In the absence of the Eagles to root for, and because he’s developed a gambling tolerance by late in the season, he’ll string together ridiculous parlays just to feel a rush again. At dinner, he’ll look at his phone and involuntarily cheer out loud about the results of a soccer game in Peru. He’ll be on edge because after a touchdown from Green Bay and a loss in the WNBA, he’s one BMX bike race away from making serious coin.
