Matthew Berry's Love/Hate for betting the Super Bowl

«I'm sweating this so hard.» «Same. We need Vegas to score a quick TD here.» «Yea need the TD then the Chargers are going to have to take some shots.» «Exactly. Raiders score here and we should be okay.» (The Raiders score a touchdown soon after.) «Good start. Need the Chargers to score here and it's a wrap. They look like [blank] though.» «Yes and yes.»

It was the last game of the 2021 NFL season, a national prime-time Sunday night matchup between the Los Angeles Chargers and the Las Vegas Raiders, with huge stakes on the line. A playoff berth for the winning team and, perhaps more importantly, at least in one household, $250 for my son if the over hit.

It was the fourth and final leg of a parlay that we had both taken, and the other three (under on New York Jets at Buffalo Bills, over on San Francisco 49ers at Los Angeles Rams and over on New Orleans Saints at Atlanta Falcons) had all hit. Which meant, if the Chargers and Raiders could combine to score more than 48 points in this game, my son David and I would each have turned $20 into a couple of hundred bucks.

We had been texting about this parlay all day. Talking football just like we have every Thursday night, Sunday night and Monday night during the NFL season.

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David is my oldest. Technically, he's my stepson, but whatever; that's genetics, not a relationship. He's my kid, and as longtime readers know, I came into his life when he was 10. Ten is a tough age for any kid, especially one who saw his parents get divorced when he