Moore: 3 things I’m expecting out of Super Bowl Sunday

Exciting news to report – the Smokin’ Lock of the Week, which has been in hibernation all season, returns for an encore performance Friday at 4:30 p.m. on Bob, Dave and Moore.

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I’m bringing it back because so many people – as in zero – have been clamoring for its return with so many people – again, zero – wondering why it left in the first place.

Here’s the widespread assumption – 710 ESPN Seattle executives killed the bit because they were trying to preserve what little credibility I had left, given the poor success rate of my Smokin’ Locks of the Week.

That’s not the case at all. For one thing, I didn’t have any credibility to save. But I admit to missing the weekly segment during the football season and asked if I could revive it from its flat-line state for the Super Bowl. With reluctance, the higher-ups allowed this lower-down to bring back the Smokin’ Lock of the Week, perhaps thinking the time off will put me in a better position to actually pick some winners.

It is a decision that has been greeted with happiness from my Bob, Dave and Moore co-host Dave Wyman because he basically gets a segment off, giving him time to move his car or interject with something along the lines of “that’s a bad pick, Jim.”

I thought if I was going to try to make this thing work again – or wait, it didn’t really work the first time. Let me start over.

If I’m going to make this work for the first time, I don’t want to trot out some run-of-the-mill pick like taking the 49ers or the Chiefs and explaining why. That’s boring. Everyone’s doing that. Besides, I’ve gone back and forth for two weeks and have no clue who will win.

I want to come back with a splash, a cannonball from the high-dive. No sense in making a few ripples. And if I bomb like I used to, so what?

Here’s the other thing. In the radio world, you’re supposed to “tease” to what’s coming up later in the show without revealing exactly what it is. But I’m thinking if you’re reading this now, you might not have time to tune in at 4:30 Friday for the Smokin’ Lock of the Week. So I’ll give you the picks now, and you can thank me later when you look like Nostradamus or wish you’d never taken the time to read this post if my locks are losers.

That’s right, locks. As in more than one lock. Plural locks. I’ll even use capital letters with hyphens to emphasize how sure I am with these picks: L-O-C-K-S.

I’ve designed these three locks to give you a chance to still be a winner on the really off-chance I go 1 for 3. And I know, I can hear you: “If they’re locks, shouldn’t they go 3 for 3, Jim?” Technically, you’d be correct, but with my track record, you never know.

Enough with the long windup, here’s the first pitch: Will there be a roughing the passer penalty called in the Super Bowl? “Yes” is actually an underdog! Seriously? We all know that roughing the passer is going to be called, and it will probably happen when a defensive player simply sacks the quarterback, but the referee will say he slammed him too hard to the turf or fell on him the wrong way or hit him too high or hit him too low. If I’m rating my own locks, this one gets five stars.

I always like predicting the Super Bowl MVPs. I found one player I like the most who isn’t seen as a likely choice. Keep in mind that the winning QB typically wins the MVP award, but it’s not impressive if you end up being right in picking Patrick Mahomes or Jimmy Garoppolo. And in three of the last six Super Bowls, an MVP award was not won by a quarterback, including linebacker Malcolm Smith of the Seahawks.

My pick is Kansas City tight end Travis Kelce. Kelce had 97 catches for 1,229 yards and five TDs in the regular season. He also had 10 receptions and three touchdowns in the playoffs against the Texans. Kelce looks like the best MVP value to me.

Now it’s time for the cannonball. And I’m going to execute this one with a half-turn from the pike position. Do you remember when I correctly predicted that the New England-Atlanta Super Bowl three years ago would go to overtime? You don’t? Well, I did. And guess what happened? For the first time, we had an overtime game in the Super Bowl.

The only problem with that prediction is that I predicted the Super Bowl the year before that one to go to overtime too, and it didn’t happen. It really bothered me when a few people called me out on that because I figured they wouldn’t remember the previous OT prediction or hopefully hadn’t read the post at all.

But forget about that, and listen to this – I’m going back to the OT well again. For good reason. Actually several of them. The 49ers and Chiefs are going to overtime on Sunday to determine a Super Bowl champion.

In 53 Super Bowls, only one has gone to overtime. For comparison, in the last two NFL regular seasons, 512 games have been played, and 22 of them went to overtime. I’m not sure what the percentage is, but that’s roughly one overtime game for every 23 games.

The Super Bowl is way below that pace at 1 for 53. When the 49ers and Chiefs go OT this year, it will put the Super Bowl more in line with the league average at 2 for 54, or one OT game for every 27 Super Bowls.

The other reason to think OT will happen this year – Kansas City is expected to win by only 1 1/2 points. This game is virtually guaranteed to have a chance to go to overtime in the final two minutes.

There’s your three locks. I’ll be accepting congratulatory texts at 710-710 on Monday.

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