So, say you're a successful young fellow that runs a successful real estate business in New York, and you've been a Giants fan your entire life. You go to Vegas, and you've got $1,000 just burning a hole in your pocket. What do you do with it?

Well, if you're 24-year old Jona Rechnitz, you head to the MGM Grand and throw it down on the first score of Super Bowl XLVI being a safety. He got 50-to-1 odds on his bet.

Yeah, we know what happened.

Jona cashed in on his bet, and took home $50,000 as a result. You can understand the long odds when you figure that there have only been seven safeties in Super Bowl history at all, and only twice has it been the first score of a game (the other time being Super Bowl IX).

On the bright side, however, it turns out that Mr. Rechnitz is going to take his winnings from the bet and donate them to charity. . .including a donation to a charity of Tom Brady's choice, according to TMZ.

Jona tells us, he plans to donate $5,000 to Tom's charity of choice -- in the hopes Tom and the Pats will match it -- and $5,000 to the charities of choice for the Giants defensive linemen who made the safety play. Jona also wants to take Tom out for an all-expenses-paid falafel dinner.

As for the rest, Jona says he plans to divide up the balance after taxes ... and donate it to a bunch of charities benefiting the less fortunate.

Well played, sir.

Ever since the Justin Timberlake/Janet Jackson "wardrobe malfunction" at Super Bowl XXXVIII, the National Football League has attempted to get acts for their Super Bowl Halftime shows that they think a majority of people would find unoffensive." Last night's featured performer was Madonna, who put on a significantly better show than what I was expecting.

(Remember when Madonna was getting her videos banned from MTV back in the late 80s/early 90s? I guess 20 years does a lot to kill controversy.)

But now, it appears that we're going to have to worry about our halftime shows getting even more "family friendly." By this point, unlike Brian Griffin up there, I'm guessing that everyone has, indeed, heard about the bird.

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The New York Giants and the New England Patriots gave us another classic Super Bowl, one that came down to the final play. It featured big plays, bad plays. . .and what could have been the first ever player in Super Bowl history to become a "goat" for scoring a touchdown.

But, in the end, the Giants walked out of Lucas Oil Stadium with their fourth Super Bowl championship, holding on for a 21-17 victory.

The Giants didn't have an easy road to Indianapolis, as they defeated the top two seeds in the NFC on the road in the post-season. They finished the season with six straight victories, and a loss in any one of those six games would have ended their season.

This was the first season in quite a while that we didn't play the Giants in the regular season, but their fans have never been anything but awesome to us when we've played against them, and even though I didn't pick them in this game, it's great to see them win.

Congratulations to the New York Giants on winning Super Bowl XLVI. Can't put it any more simply than that. Swing on by Big Blue View if you get a chance and give them their props.

And, with that. . .no meaningful NFL football for seven months. But we'll have plenty of stuff for you in the meantime, I can assure you.

We're about six hours away from kickoff time in Indianapolis. . .yes, the pre-game stuff has started already and, yes, I probably should have had this up a lot sooner than now. . .but it's time to put it on the table and let us know who you think is going to be hoisting the Lombardi Trophy at the end of this evening's game.

I've made my official prediction in the Super Bowl Stream we have going over at SB Nation Minnesota, and I see no reason to change it at this point. Both of these teams are, obviously, great. . .the New York Giants have won five straight elimination games, including knocking off the top two seeds in the NFC playoffs on the road. The New England Patriots haven't been beaten since Week 9, when they lost to. . .the Giants.

The Patriots are three-point favorites in this one, and they should be. . .and I think they'll cover that, but not by much. I just have a hard time seeing Tom Brady having two bad games in a row (by his own admission, he was bad in the AFC Championship Game), and I think that he's going to be supremely motivated by the loss earlier this season to the Giants. Oh, and if you think he isn't still pissed off about Super Bowl XLII, then you're apparently unfamiliar with Tom Brady.

Eli Manning has been playing great football, and this is not so much a pick against him as it is a pick for Brady, in all honesty. At the end of the night, though, I think Brady finds his way on to the short list of NFL quarterbacks with four Super Bowl rings and put himself firmly into the "Greatest of All Time" discussion, if he isn't there already.

The Pick: Patriots 31, Giants 27

So, ladies and gentlemen. . .who do you have this evening?

Since all of the illegal streaming sites are starting to get picked off by the federal government, it's only right for us to provide you a location for a legal stream when we have one.

So, if for some reason you're stuck at work or something like that during this afternoon's game, you'll be happy to know that the folks at NBC Sports are providing a completely free, completely legal stream to all of the action at Lucas Oil Stadium.

Not only will the stream bring you all of the action, but it will also have exclusive, online-only camera angles, in-game statistics, and. . .this is the big one, ladies and gentlemen. . .the ability to watch all of the Super Bowl commercials on demand after they've aired.

I'm not sure if this will work for all of you foreigners from other nations (™ Jeff Foxworthy) out there, but hey. . .at least you can give it a try.

And, once again, allow me to remind you that there will be no posting of any streams of the Super Bowl today, unless you're going to re-post this one from NBC Sports.

The National Football League will be announcing its Hall of Fame Class of 2012 this afternoon, with the NFL Network airing the announcement live at 4:30 PM Central time. I'm guessing that the NFL Network will be streaming this announcement on their website, and if that's the case we'll get a link for it up here.

We've been over this whole thing numerous times. . .the Minnesota Vikings have two players that are eligible for enshrinement again this year in defensive end Chris Doleman and wide receiver Cris Carter. We all know that it's nothing short of completely and utterly ridiculous that Carter isn't already in, and it seems like this would be a good year for him to get in. . .it isn't a particularly strong class and, quite frankly, he's better than the other wide receivers that are eligible this year along with him.

Doleman has a shot to get in, I think. . .maybe some of the attention from Jared Allen's chase for the sack record will make people notice Doleman. I'm not sure if he gets in this time, but it wouldn't be the biggest shock ever if he did, either.

The announcements are coming in about half an hour, ladies and gentlemen. We can discuss and (hopefully) celebrate at least one of our team's greats winding up in Canton this year as it happens.

During his annual Super Bowl news conference on Friday, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell stated that if the NFL were to put a team in Los Angeles, they would prefer it to be due to expansion and not because of an existing team moving there.

Of course, it doesn't sound like the NFL is planning on going that route any time soon, either.

"We have not talked about expansion in the league at all. It has not been on our agenda. It is not something we've focused on with our membership. And I don't see that in the foreseeable future," Goodell said. "We want to keep our teams where they are. We believe that's healthier for the league in the long term. We're working to get stadiums built and make sure we do whatever we can to make sure those teams are successful in those communities."

(Check out the rest of the article, but stop before you get to the comments. . .unless listening to the whining of anti-fan, anti-stadium, anti-Viking douchebaggery is your thing.)

So, the NFL doesn't want their teams moving, which is fine. Once everyone in the Minnesota legislature pulls their heads out and gets something together for a new stadium, we won't have to worry about the Vikings leaving, regardless.

While this is good news for Vikings fans that don't want to see their team depart from where they belong, one has to wonder what this could do to the level of urgency to get something done. Hopefully it won't screw things up too much. Then again, with the way this is being handled at pretty much every level, I guess they can't get that much more screwed up

I'm not sure why the NFL would even consider expanding at this point, either. The set-up they have now is perfect as far as conferences, divisions, etc. Throwing another team or two into the mix would throw everything off and further dilute the talent pool in the league. It just doesn't make any sense, no matter how much the league's other owners would stand to profit from it.

Chalk this one up as "not Vikings particular, but football worthy enough to mention anyways". We are all well aware of three things around here when it comes to concussions and the NFL- first, they often have horrific side-effects down the road; second, due to said side-effects, the league is taking a stronger (and better) stance on the subject; and third, as shown with Browns QB Colt McCoy this season, we still haven't perfected the processes surrounding concussed players.

In light of that third point in particular I find this news fascinating- Patriots running back BenJarvus Green-Ellis (he of the four names in one) will be outfitted with a new chinstrap for the Super Bowl, which will either have a green light when all is well, or will flash red to indicate the likelihood of a concussion.

Pretty cool if you ask me. I've often said it before- none of us want football players being reduced to slobbering, staggering man-children at the age of 50 just for our entertainment. Again, some of the stories regarding past super stars and what they are going through now thanks to those injuries are the stuff of nightmares. Hopefully this product proves it's worth- not by Green-Ellis getting a concussion, of course- but in the future ‘field tests' and whatnot this technology surely will be going through, and it's something we may be seeing become the league norm, if not league mandated, in the near future.

I know for sure that one of our players - safety Husain Abdullah - would likely appreciate this technology. Again, while sometimes concussions are spotted quickly and relatively easily, that's not always the case- again shown by McCoy earlier in the regular season.

For more info, including some more of the technical specs on this, check out the original article from NFL.com here.