(Photo: Bill Streicher-USA TODAY Sports)
If you made it to the end of The D.K. Metcalf’s a Freak and Carson Wentz Gets Sacked Show on Monday night, also known as Seahawks at Eagles, you almost certainly wagered on the game or had some fantasy sports rooting interest.
We can debate (below) whether the result of the game on a completed Philadelphia “Hail Mary” with 12 seconds remaining and subsequent successful 2-point conversion, making the final score Seahawks 23, Eagles 17 (the closing line was Seahawks -6.5), ought to receive votes for the Bad Beats Hall of Fame.
Here’s how it went down (skip down if you want no introduction and just the tweets):
Line movement tracked by Vegas Insider shows that the game opened with Seattle as a 5-point road favorite. Then -5.5 and -6 were available for most of the week, including for large chunks of Sunday and even Monday at leading PA sportsbooks, with -6 available as late as one hour before kickoff at DraftKings Sportsbook.
More discerning price-and-line-sensitive bettors who shop around and avoid “bad” numbers, especially those around key football numbers (mainly 3 or 7, but 6 matters more in the 33-yard extra point era that encourages more 2-point conversion attempts), might chalk up the backdoor cover to poor judgment or an unwise investment. Analytics-minded Eagles head coach Doug Pederson has long ranked among NFL head coaches who most frequently attempt fourth down and 2-point conversions.
Of course, recreational bettors are much more likely to plunk down wagers on game day or close to kickoff, and on Monday, they overwhelmingly backed Seattle at -6.5. That cohort includes one lunatic who apparently had an unfathomable $500,000 riding on Seahawks -6.5. Considering all of the above, we submit that the money-swinging final act and 6-point margin was both a bad beat and a poor investment by Seahawks backers, for which they do not deserve sympathy. That debate aside, the Twitter reactions to the high-profile contest were pretty terrific.
Here are some of the best tweets (with some NSFW language, although aren’t most of you working from home?):
And finally, a couple of not exactly funny, but relevant, reactions:
Enjoy that Wednesday Afternoon Football, folks!