WHO. F’IN. DEY. Man, I can’t believe it. While we know by now that anyone can beat anyone in the NFL in a one game matchup, it still was tough to believe KC would lose at home to Cincinnati. Then once the game started and Mahomes went 17 for his first 19 with 3 TD’s and built a 21-3 lead, there wasn’t anyone who thought they weren’t winning. To explain what happened after that, well, can’t be. You don’t start as hot as that, then finish 9 of 20 with 2 int’s and 4 sacks. What a Jekyll and Hyde game. I should’ve kept the DM I got midway through the second quarter from the fan who said, “Never bet against the Chiefs!” Uh huh. I’m guessing they have nothing to say now. The point being as I mentioned last week, I bet the Bengals to win the Super Bowl at 40/1. If I would’ve bet them preseason it would’ve been 150/1. But I didn’t do it until October when they were 4-2. They had started decent, looked good, so I figured why not. Did I ever expect them to win? No. But when you have a bet like that with that high of odds, all I really needed the Bengals to do was GET to the Super Bowl, since then hedging possibilities would come into play. Yeah, it’d be great if they won, but just getting there was all I needed. Then a funny thing happened on the way to that…
Two of the other SB future bets I had were the Niners and the Rams (I had the Raiders and Chargers for my 5 total SB bets this season). So once the Bengals won, now it didn’t matter who won the Rams/Niners game because I’m guaranteed a winner in the Super Bowl at some very nice prices. If KC would’ve won, would I have hedged? Probably not. I’ve never really been good at future bets. Such a tough bet to make, but it’s always fun to have that maybe that longshot will hit. Would I rather the Bengals win in 2 weeks? Sure. It’ll pay more than the Rams. I have $500 on the Bengals at basically 40/1, and $1k on the Rams at basically 10/1. So yeah, while it’s a nice payday no matter who wins, it’d be nice collect close to $20k on a Super Bowl bet I made back in mid-October. I just can’t believe it happened to me. This NEVER does on future bets ha ha.
Definitely low on “Reader Emails” heading into tomorrow, so get those in today so I can answer them for the column. Probably a lot of questions/comments you have now that we’re a good month into the season, so I’ll be looking forward to them. Well, except the “when are you gonna tell us who Clayton picked.” Uhhhhh, when I know? Last week’s podcast guest Jacqueline Trumbull had a major life event happen since she was previously on. This week’s guest? Same thing. Any guesses? You’ll find out Wednesday night as we’re supposed to get a major cold front here in Dallas that’s supposed to last 48 hrs beginning overnight Wednesday into Friday, and I’ve already gotten emails from my cable and internet providers saying basically, “Hey, expect an outage at some point.” So I’d rather post the podcast tomorrow night before the storm hits rather than Thursday morning when my internet might not even allow me to. So look forward to that.
One of the biggest complaints about the show in recent years, among many, has been the effect social media has had on the show. You’ve heard the complaints – everyone wants to be an influencer, no one is authentic – blah blah blah. Yeah, you’re right. There’s no denying that. But that’s also reality. There’s no way around it. It’s what the show has become and if that bothers you, I’d suggest stop watching because that’s not changing. What @Bachelordata did a few days ago though kind of summarized what I brought up on my podcast about a month ago in regards to why I started a TikTok. IG is becoming old news. Look at these numbers of the contestants followings and how much they’ve dropped. And no, it’s not because of social justice issues. And no, it’s not because Chris Harrison was basically fired. IG followings were dropping before that. Same with ratings. This is a very informative video by Suzana, so definitely wanted to share it:
What can we conclude? Well, this notion that all the contestants going on the show thinking they’re guaranteed hundreds of thousands, if not a million, followers once the show ends are sorely mistaken. Did it happen in the past? Yes. Is it still happening? No. And the numbers bear that out. Does it mean all the sudden the contestants they cast won’t be out for clout and social media branding? No. Just means that maybe they won’t be so reliant on it after they get off the show anymore.
This morning on his IG stories, Clayton addressed the Elizabeth/Shanae feud:
If there’s anything comical about this whole thing, it’s actually that Shanae is the one who should’ve been the first to apologize to Elizabeth, and she hasn’t. She’s continuing to play up the character on social media and clearly feels she’s done nothing wrong. If she tries to hide behind “the contract won’t let me contact her,” that’s BS considering about 6 of Clayton’s women all went to LA this past weekend to hang out. And now Clayton who is the lead of the show, and probably on the strictest social media stranglehold by the show, was allowed to post this, so Shanae has no excuse. And by now, it’s too late. Nothing she could put out will seem sincere because we’ve already seen through the first month of the show airing she didn’t seem to think she was in the wrong in anything she said or did. So an apology at this point, to me, would be insincere and just words. Her actions once the show has been airing tell me all I needed to know about how she really felt about Elizabeth, the other women, and how she acted. Day late and a dollar short.
Recap begins on Page 2…
