Behind The Betting Lines Dec 20 2003
Dec 20 2003
By Wilson King
NFL Football Sports Betting – Inside the NFL football betting lines
“I want to kiss you Suzy.”
“Thanks, Joe.”
“Oh, you’re so cute. I want to kiss you Suzy.”
“Uh…thanks again Joe. Now back you guys in the booth.
Until I heard that very exchange between Joe Namath and Suzy Kolber during ESPN’s 200th broadcast of NFL football, an exchange that coincidentally set the progress of female sports broadcasters back to the days of Lisa Olson and Zeke Mowat (if Lisa Guerrero has not already done so), I was of the opinion that sideline interviews were the most useless forty-five seconds in television history. However, after listening to the aforementioned interview on Saturday, I quickly changed my opinion. In fact, not only should they not abolish sideline interviews, all sideline segments should feature Joe Namath. In fact, every NFL game on every network should feature Joe Willie from now until he dies. And when he dies, we should take his DNA and create a Joe Namath clone and feature Joe II on every sideline interview in every NFL game on every network until the end of time. He is that entertaining.
Now please do not get me wrong. I am certainly not one to criticize the senseless objectification of women (see last week’s NFL recap), but Suzy Kolber is undeserving of such misogynistic behavior, especially during a nationally televised broadcast. I have actually had the pleasure of meeting Suzy at a celebrity golf tournament (she, not me, being the celebrity.) Now that I think about it, maybe the organizers of the tournament used the word “celebrity” loosely, but either way, Suzy was great. She was everything you would hope for in a celebrity golf partner. She was funny, engaging and personable. And let me tell you, she has legs that won’t quit.
But all in all, it is hard to criticize Joe because a) Suzy is fine, and I too would kiss her if I could and b) the interview proved to be the only bright spot in an otherwise dismal night.
With the NFL action slated to kick off on a Saturday for the first time all year, our handle was up as folks were taking advantage of this weekend’s NFL double dip. Since December has been an utter debacle, we too were looking forward to taking advantage of the extra day of NFL to right the ship, cut our losses, and gain some momentum going into January.
During the early part of the day it looked as if we were going to get our holiday wish. As you could expect, we needed covers by Atlanta and Minnesota in the afternoon action or there would be no presents under the Oasis Christmas tree this year.
Not only did Atlanta and Minnesota come through with covers, both dogs won outright, breaking up teasers along the way and putting us up big after the first two games. It was a Festivus miracle.
But what occurred on Saturday night was painful. The Patriots proved that they are that good at exactly the same moment that the Jets were showing that they were that bad. Since it was the one of the biggest decision of the year, it was no surprise that we lost a bundle.
We ended up a moderate sum on the day, but as it came to an end I wondered aloud, “Are we ever going to have a winning weekend in December,” but what I was wondering to myself was “Is that chick from Fox’s Simple Life really Lionel Richie’s daughter?” But what I should have really been wondering was “Can I get a glass of whatever Joe Namath was drinking?”