Milton blog

Tom Brady and the Patriots are one win away from immortality. The Milton Sports Guy thinks they will cap off a legendary 19-0 season Sunday - but the toughest question comes from the gambling angle: will they cover the 12 points against the upstart Giants?

Well, here we go folks - Super Bowl XLII in Glendale (basically suburban Phoenix for the geographically challenged) where the New England Patriots look to win their 4th Championship under Tom Brady and cap off the first ever 19-0 season. They face the upstart New York Football Giants who have willed their way to Arizona against all odds - 3 wins on the road against supposedly superior competition, led by the supposedly questionable Eli Manning. I’m definitely not a fan of either team, but lemme tell ya, this is one worth watching…..

The fact that the Patriots, even though they lacked the dominance they showed earlier in the season, made it to this point, makes this Super Bowl a ratings winner. This one will go down in history. Either they go undefeated and will be known as undoubtedly the best NFL team ever, or the Giants stun them leading underdog supporters rejoicing the world over and Patriot followers sick at the thought of how close they were.

Can you imagine the Patriots losing this game? Not only would the 19-0 dream go up in ashes, but they would also fail to be recognized as Super Bowl champs - something I’ve pretty much annointed them the title of, since oh, about week 4. As big as a Patriots’ win would be - thinking of it now, a loss would be equally as monumental. The only downside for fans rooting for the big, bad Patriots to lose, would be the yearly footage of the geezers from 1972 Dolphins obnoxiously, smugly swilling champagne. I think everyone outside of south Florida would agree with me when I say that’s something I would love to see come to an end.

Anyway, onto the big game. What will happen? How will this all play out? Who will win and more importantly to some, who beats the spread?

That leads me first, to the Milton Sports Guy’s prediction:

NEW ENGLAND (-12) over N.Y. Giants

That’s right. I’m calling the Pats to cover despite the fact that I’ve been burned by this very same train of thought over the last few weeks of the regular season and throughout the playoffs when it comes to New England.

I got so sucked by their huge early-season landslide victories, that I just kept taking them to cover huge spread after huge spread, even though it was apparent by about week 12 or 13 that this definitely wasn’t the same team from early on. Either they got a little banged up or the weight of an undefeated season was finally starting to get to them (probably a bit of both). Whatever the case, they have come seriously back to earth over the course of the last 2 months.

But what did I do? I still called them to cover a large spread in both playoff tilts vs. Jacksonville and San Diego. Each time, the Patriots did just enough to win by a comfortable-but-not-outrageous margin. Two weeks ago, both of my predictions bombed when the Giants stunned the Packers right in Green Bay (after Green Bay walked all over my Seahawks in the snow a week earlier). I figured the Giants’ road success was sure to end in Green Bay, but how did I know Favre was going to finally cough up a hairball and play like the pre-2007 Favre?

Anyhoo - my ‘note to self’ after the conference championships was: “when in doubt, take the points.” That’s right - good teams have trouble covering once you get into playing games outdoors in January. It’s not only that - teams are also more equally matched, but the inclement weather definitely levels the playing field.

So I took the Giants (+12) right? Uh…. no. I’m following my instinct here, definitely not my head on this one….

What I’m thinkin’ is this: If the Giants were going to beat the Patriots, the stage was set for week 17. That’s when all the chips fell into place for New York, and yet they still couldn’t pull it off. They were at home, playing well and had a huge lead late in the game against the 15-0 Patriots who certainly looked anxious in carrying the weight of expectations of a perfect regular season. That was their chance - and the Patriots rallied and did just enough to escape with the victory.

Now, granted, the Giants have been more than impressive in the post-season. Led by Eli Manning, somehow they’ve knocked off the favoured Bucs, Cowboys and Packers in hostile territory. They did play the Patriots tough as well, so they’re not intimidated. I think this one comes down to New England though.

First of all, I would take the Patriots to cover 12 points based on this fact alone: Bill Belichick has had two weeks to prepare to face the Giants in the biggest game of his career.

That’s all I really needed, but I thought of a few other reasons: The rest of the players have also had time to rest, heal and contemplate their place in history. They’ll be pumped - they have something to prove, and remember ’spygate?’ - yeah, they’ve still got that chip on their shoulders as well. They’re hungry for this perfect season - a dream season for anyone who’s dreamed of putting on an NFL uniform. They’ll be ready.

And the final reason: I think their Brady-to-Moss led offence will finally get on track and look as good as it’s looked in weeks now that they’re out of the elements, playing in perfect conditions on the fast track in Glendale.

Oh yeah, and then there was my internal struggle over this decision and the way irony likes to toy with me: I was clearly going with the Giants until I thought “wouldn’t it be ironic if i took the points in what should be a close game after being burned all postseason for doing the opposite, and then out of nowhere, the Patriots rise to the occasion and trounce the G-men by 35 points?” I could so picture that exact scenario occuring to me - that was the final straw. I swung my pick around and began to focus on the reasons above in justifying all of this….

How will this game play out? I see the Patriots’ offence coming out red hot and going from there. The Giants will exploit the Patriot D and score their points, but I think Brady and Moss will just keep coming and New York will eventually fade.

Oh, and a final score you ask?

Patriots 41 Giants 24.

Okay, that’s it. What an NFL season it’s been - the best in quite some time in my opinion. I had started to sour on the NFL a few years ago - I just couldn’t get into any of the teams or storylines. Peyton upsetting the Pats and winning his first Super Bowl last year started to bring me back, but this whole ongoing Patriots’ undefeated/juggernaut story has really intrigued me, with the re-emergence of the Cowboys and Packers as tasty subplots.

A special thanks again also to the Milton Pigskin Prognosticator who was our featured NFL expert on most of the 19-week season here in this space. The quality research he brought to this column I’m sure was appreciated by all, compared to my statistically-lacking predictions…. Thanks MPP and enjoy the big game!

Okay Milton, it’s your turn. Who’s your pick for Super Bowl XLII?

In the long-awaited season 4 premiere, Jack faces a rebellion as he plans the evacuation to the freighter; back home, Hurley, who was one of six castaways to escape, wants to go back

Watching ”The Beginning of the End,” the season premiere of Lost, made me begin to reawaken like a polar bear roused from hibernation by the advent of spring or a bald man with a torch and a can of hairspray. (Please tell me you got that.) Jacob rocking in that chair gave me the chills. The vaguely sinister corporate suit visiting Hurley got me all sweaty. And when Charlie-grieving flash-forward Hurley started raging at not-yet-bearded flash-forward Jack about some ominous ”it” (”I don’t think we did the right thing, Jack! I think it wants us to come back! And it’s going to do everything it can…”), I felt the searing fever consume me, and my mind was blown. Again. At last! After eight months of waiting, our mutual friend “Lost” is back.

We usually get a premiere that begins with one of Lost’s most frequent recurring motifs: an eyeball popping open. But that was old Lost, the Lost of flashbacks and Island despair and castaways waking up and orientating themselves to a new reality, one marked by sandy beaches, whispering jungles, and buried laboratories stocked with books, records, and candy bars. (Man, I want my own Hatch!) This is the new Lost, the Lost of flash-forwards and Island hope and six castaways in particular grappling with the disorientation of old lives that don’t feel quite right and old ghosts that won’t let them go. So, appropriately, we began with a discombobulating fake-out: an image of fruits set against an ocean-blue sky, the sound of seagulls cawing in the distance. We must have been on the beach, right? Nope! We were in the freight yard of a produce-shipping company in…where? And when? What the hell? Exactly.

But quickly, we got our bearings. The city: Los Angeles. The time: the flash-forward off-Island future (or present, if you’re now prone to think of Lost’s on-island action as happening in the past). (Tricky stuff, these time-toggling dramatics, ain’t they?) The star of the show: lotto-winning, mentally shaky, food-challenged Hugo ”Hurley” Reyes. As the episode opened, Hurley was leading the coppers on a high-speed chase in his daddy’s old Camaro, blowing through that stack of fruit and crashing into the parking lot of a store in the midst of an everything-must-go fire sale. (Some winky subtext here? Remember, the producers of Lost successfully negotiated an end date — 2010 — for the series during the off-season.) Hurley tried to run, but the big man has no stride. As the policemen carted him off, he yelled, ”Don’t you know who I am? I’m one of the Oceanic 6!” And with that, the premiere gave us Season 4 Burning Question No. 1: If the Oceanic 6 are six survivors of Oceanic 815 who made it off the Island (and became famous for doing so), and we know that three of the six are Jack, Kate, and Hurley, then who are the other three? (This is why God invented message boards)

The car-chase teaser sequence was altogether fitting for a brisk overture episode that cut to the chase in a number of ways. In addition to providing an immediate answer to the ”How many people made it off the Island?” question posed by the season 3 finale, the episode picked up right where we left off on the Island, with the castaways awaiting rescue from the folks on Naomi’s freighter. The last two seasons gave us premieres that focused on small groupings of castaways (Jack in the Hatch; Jack, Kate, and Sawyer at the Hydra Station), which made for rich stories but also got their years off to slow starts because it took about two more episodes to wrap up all the other cliff-hanger loose ends. But ”The Beginning of the End” peeked in on everyone, and was almost all the better for it. I really liked the check-ins with Sawyer (bitterly loading his gun; trying to engage Hurley about Charlie’s death) and all things Ben-on-a-leash. And that Rose and Claire moment, in which Bernard’s wife told Aaron’s mommy that she’d better reward Hero Charlie with some beach-blanket action — umm, yuck?

To be fair, it makes sense for the castaways to be gripped by intense emotions, and I blame the show’s long layoff for dulling my sensitivity. And for the record, I appreciate very, very much the whole concept of getting some somethin’somethin’ from the ladies ifyouknowwhatI’msayin’. If I had one significant quibble with the premiere, it was Jack’s self-righteous homicidal rage toward Locke for throwing the knife into Naomi’s back. Doc Messiah Complex just found out he was going to get rescued. His primary emotional state should be off-his-rocker euphoria. Would there really be any available bandwidth on his grid for the kind of eye-for-an-eye rancor it takes to want to shoot someone in the face? I could understand if Jack wanted to pass the downtime waiting for the choppers by tracking Locke down and hauling him back to civilization to stand trial for murder and general rescue-jeopardizing nutbaggery. But that moment when Jack got his chance and attempted a point-blank execution with Locke’s unloaded gun? Sure, it was hardcore cool, and kudos to Matthew Fox for selling it, but talk about overkill.

Like I said, just a quibble. And anyway, the episode wasn’t really about Jack; it was about Hurley. And so, while Jack and Kate separately searched the jungle for a she-ain’t-dead-yet Naomi (Wake up, Naomi — there’s plot-contrivance work to be done…), and the French Lady dragged a hilariously snarky Ben around the jungle, Hurley got the news from Desmond that Charlie had died in the Looking Glass, effectively killing his happy, cannonball-splashing buzz. The despair that quietly drooped off his grizzled face was heartbreaking. With the spotlight of a premiere shining intensely upon him, Jorge Garcia totally delivered.

Through Hurley’s L.A. and Island story arcs, ”The Beginning of the End” delivered its most watercooler-worthy moments. Perhaps none was more momentous than his discovery of Jacob’s cabin during his wayward trek through the jungle. (Or did Jacob’s cabin find him? Apparently, the ghost shack is mobile.) Peeking inside a cracked window, our frazzle-haired hero saw a freaky sight: a shadowy figure kicking it in a rocking chair. I asked the instant-replay officials in my head to analyze the sequence, and they are convinced that the spectral entity was none other than Christian Shephard, Jack’s corpse-MIA father, doing his best Whistler’s Mother impression. And who am I to argue with the voices in my head? Season 4 Burning Question No. 2: Is Christian Shephard actually Jacob, or was Ghost Dad just keeping the chair warm while the Ben-directing Ghost Other was taking a wicked ghost wiz?

A perplexing poltergeist of a different stripe — and accent — haunted Hurley’s flash-forward. One day while buying some snacks at a convenience store, Hurley spotted Charlie’s spirit by the Ho Ho’s — the terrifying catalyst for his Camaro cannonball run. Of course, he kept this info from the detective assigned to his case, none other than Big Mike Walton, Ana Lucia’s old patrol partner, who wins my award for Flashback Character Least Likely to Be Ever Seen Again. Admit it: When he called her ”gorgeous,” you chuckled, right? Because I know how all of you just loooooooved old Dirty Harriet. But he was affecting — and an effective reminder of the provocatively wired interconnectedness of the larger Lost world. Might Big Mike become some kind of season 4 Sherlock Holmes, obsessed with cracking the secrets of the Oceanic Six? Season 4 Burning Question No. 3: Why can’t the Oceanic Six tell the truth about their Island past?

Someone else desperate to know more about Hurley’s Twilight Zone daze: the immediately arresting, sharply attired, cryptically named Matthew Abbaddon, played with quiet relish by The Wire’s Lance Reddick. He tracked down Hurley at a sanitarium — dude thought he’d be safer if he just dismissed the Charlie visitations as crazy visions — and offered him an upgrade to a first-class loony bin with better views and more leg room. He presented himself as an employee of Oceanic Airlines, but when Hurley grew suspicious, Mr. Creepy cut to the chase: ”Are they still alive?” Hurley freaked; Abbaddon walked out. Season 4 Burning Question No. 4: Who is Matthew Abbaddon really? And what are to make of that name? Matthew means ”gift of the Lord.” By contrast, there’s the hellish allusion of ”Abbaddon.” After some quick online research, I found out that in the book of Revelation, Abaddon is ”the angel of the abyss” and even the personification of death. I have theories — but they are best saved for later, when we will encounter Matthew Abbaddon once again.

Still, if I were to apply any Bible story to the premiere, it would be Jonah and the whale. Why? Because of the episode’s curious fixation with fish, of course! Did you catch the chalkboard in background of that Hurley-Abbaddon scene? Sketched on it was a picture of a desert island and a big, toothy fish. There were also fish in Hurley’s watercolor painting of an Eskimo. And there was another finny creature (partially obscured) printed on Charlie’s T-shirt when the dead hobbit rocker — played by Dominic Monaghan, looking ethereally clean, like an airbrushed model — dropped in on Hurley for a (ghostly? hallucinatory?) visit. The self-sacrificing castaway had come to egg his old friend out of his hideaway hole and, more, to cajole him to do the right thing, which was to…what? Go back to the Island and save those left behind? It was unclear. ”They need you, Hugo,” Charlie said. Of course, this is also the story of Jonah and the whale, which is never actually referred to as a whale but as a fish. Some scholars even suggest it was actually a shark. Jonah was given a calling to save damned souls from God’s divine wrath. But instead of heeding the call, Jonah ran away. Bad Jonah! He got swallowed up by a fish, repented, and then, after being spit up (”hurled” in some translations), finally fulfilled God’s request. Season 4 Burning Question No. 5: Will the Oceanic Six answer Charlie’s call and save the remaining castaways left behind on Hell Island?

Of course they will. But not yet. As he did with Jacob’s haunted house, Hurley wished Charlie away. In Hurley’s final flash-forward scene, Jack (not yet sporting the beard; not yet screaming, ”We have to go back!”) stopped by the funny farm to shoot some hoops. Hurley told him that business about not doing the right thing, about being convinced that ”it” wants them to go back — but Jack was having none of ”it,” whatever ”it” is. Season 4 Burning Question No. 6: What the hell do you think they were talking about?

These were the ideas and mysteries that captured my imagination. I would be remiss if I didn’t add that I was moved by Hurley’s attempts, both on the Island and in the future, to grieve and make sense of Charlie’s death, and more, to honor his sacrifice by trusting his warning that the freighter isn’t Penny’s boat, that it might be really, really bad news. Which leads me to Season 4 Burning Question No. 7: Why does flash-forward Hurley now regret trusting Charlie and wish he had stuck with Jack instead of siding with freighter fraidy cat Locke?

But enough of my questions, what do you think Milton?

By Jeff Jensen