There was once a time when the point spread was the only number talked about around the Super Bowl. Now you can get more propositions from this single game than one would get while walking through a red light district after dark in Amsterdam.

Will the first play be more or less than 3½ yards all the way to a proposition on whether the last play of the game will be a quarterback kneel down. You might think that could be all, covering from the first play to the last, but you’d be wrong.

The coin flip is included in the proposition wagers, seem’s tails has a slight edge after 56 Super Bowl flips, 29-27. After the game, the Most Valuable Player will be named, my money is on it will be a quarterback.

The two favorites to win the award are Philadelphia’s and Kansas City’s signal callers, Jalen Hurts and Patrick Mahomes. Odds on them are both plus 130, that is a 100 wager brings back 130. Last year, a quarterback didn’t win it, when wide receiver Cooper Kupp collected the MVP trophy. If it’s not a quarterback this year, then the next most likely candidate to win it based on Las Vegas odds, is Kansas City tight end Travis Kelce. His odds are plus 1600, in other terms, a one-hundred-dollar wager would return a profit of $1600.

I heard on a recent sports program that the odds of two brothers, Travis and Jason Kelce specifically, meeting in a Super is off the charts. I agree that this, which is a first time event, is a statistical longshot. But, based purely on the numbers of more than 40 players and one head coach, I suggest when the Harbaugh brothers, Jim and John, met each other in Super Bowl XLVII, marked an even less likely occurrence.

For the record, John beat Jim ten years ago as his Baltimore Ravens downed the San Francisco 49ers, 34-31. This week in Arizona, Donna Kelce, mother of Travis and Jason, will be rooting for offensive action … both her sons are on their team’s offensive side of the ball. Travis is the Kansas City tight end and Jason the center on Philadelphia’s front line.

Coaching matters. Andy Reid is completing his tenth season as head coach of the Chiefs, and before that he spent 14 years in the same position with the Philadelphia Eagles. In those 14 years, Reid compiled a .583 winning average and in his sixth season led Philadelphia into a Super Bowl. In his seventh season with the Chiefs, Reid won the Super Bowl with a victory over the San Francisco 49ers, 31-20, to complete the 2019 season.

Reid has now led four teams into Super Bowls and is looking for his second win. He has had the Chiefs in the Super Bowl three of the past four years and has ended the most recent five seasons hosting the AFC Championship Game. In Kansas City, he also has a career best .722 winning average.

Real good stuff.

On the other coaching line stands the Eagles second-year mentor, Nick Sirianni. In his two seasons on the job, he has transformed a roster that has only three players left from the team that won the Super Bowl over the New England Patriots five years ago.

Sirianni’s Eagles appear more sturdy from inside out than did the unit Doug Pederson led to that win over Bill Belichik and company in Super Bowl LII. If there was a team from history that mirrors the apparent strength of this year’s Eagles, it would be the Pittsburgh Steelers of the 1970’s. Both teams are anchored by offensive and defensive lines that allows their fellow teammates to better excel at their positions.

It would be accepted that if Sirianni was to make a coaching mistake on Sunday given all the lights and attention focused on this single game that it could be attributed to his inexperience. First time head coaches in the NFL have struggled against experienced coaches for as long as the Super Bowl era.

But, I suggest, a coaching error on Sunday will likely be coming from the Chiefs sideline. In watching Reid work for all 24 of his professional seasons, I have appreciated his design and preparation leading up to game day, but never before have I observed a successful head man make more boneheaded game day decisions.

Going or not going for it, often finds Reid making a decision that doesn’t statistically benefit his team. He can have his impulses and trust that his instincts are right, but too often I see events like the one observed last Sunday as his team limped to the finish line against the Bengals in the AFC Championship Game.

When Mahomes was hit out of bounds to add 15-yards to his run for a first down there were eight seconds left on the clock. First down, eight seconds, field goal to win it.

What do you do?

I couldn’t believe Reid sent Harrison Butker in to attempt the field goal with eight seconds on the clock. The statistical play to best serve your team’s desire to win, is to run one play. A snap and quick throw out of bounds to stop the clock with four seconds left in the game … making the field goal attempt the last play.

Reid’s kicker converted the 45-yard boot and with four seconds left on the clock, the Chiefs had to kickoff and the Eagles had one last chance at a game saving play that Jim Carrey might relish with the words, “So you’re saying there’s a chance.”

Stranger things have happened.

It didn’t happen here, the Eagles attempted scamper to try and break a runner free ended soon after it began. But, had Cincinnati pulled off one of those plays that stack up to the Immaculate Reception, Hail Mary or Music City Miracle, Reid would have been criticized for not running the clock down before attempting the field goal.

The Chiefs coach didn’t pay the price for that error, but knowing he is prone to make them, I submit that if Super Bowl LVII is looked back upon for being decided by a coaching mistake, it will benefit the Eagles.