Giants NFL Opener On Wednesday

An NFL game on Wednesday? Yup! that’s exactly what’s going to happen when the NFL opens it’s 2012 season.

Traditionally, the first game of the season is played on a Thursday and features the defending Super Bowl champions. But the NFL has moved the game back one day, to Wednesday, Sept 5, 2012 @ 8:30 p.m. in Metlife stadium, to accommodate President Obama’s speech to the Democratic National Convention that Thursday evening.

In the 2012 NFL Wednesday opener, the Super Bowl XLVI champion New York Giants willl take on a yet to be determined opponent. According to a statement on the Giants official website (giants.com), “The Giants’ opponent in the game is expected to be announced at the NFL meetings in March. The potential opponents include Green Bay (which would match the two most recent Super Bowl champions), New Orleans (which has played in the league’s opening game each of the last two years), Pittsburgh (a six-time Super Bowl champion) and NFC opponents Dallas, Philadelphia and Washington.”

An NFL Wednesday game is very rare; the last time one was played was Sept. 22. 1948, when the Rams beat the Lions 44-7.

Since 2004, the NFL has made it a tradition to honor the defending Super Bowl champs by featuring them in the first game of the NFL season. The defending Super Bowl champion has won every NFL season opener since.

Are the Patriots playing up the ankle injury TE Rob Gronkowski suffered in the AFC Championship game? Both the Patriots and Giants know that Gronkowski’s contributions are a major factor in the success of the Patriots this year,.  Knowing the extent of his injury will certainly affect the Super Bowl XLVI game plans of the Giants and Patriots.

Early last week, Gronkowski’s dad Gordie gave away some injury information which the Patriots would rather keep secret.  Mr. Gronk told WIVB’s John Murphy (via CSNNE.com) that his son has a high ankle sprain.

On Sunday, Gronkowski got off the team plane wearing a walking boot on his injured left leg but at Tuesday’s Super Bowl Media Day he fielded questions in sneakers.

Was the leg boot and injury info released by Rob’s daid a ploy to affect the game plan of Giants coach Tom Coughlin?  It wouldn’t be the first time that Patriot coach Bill Belichick tried to get a leg up on his competition.

Remember Spygate?

Regardless of the status of Gronkowski, you can bet Coughlin and the Giants will have an answer for Gronkowski.

Super Bowl Sunday has to be the most popular event in America for gambling and wagering. The most popular Super Bowl wagers probably is the local Super Bowl pool. It’s so popular because the winning is decided by pure chance.

In recent years, casinos and betting sites have plugged into the popularity of the football pool by offering a variety of bets based on a very specific outcome of a game. Many of these Proposition, or PROP bets, require no skill and can be won by pure luck.

Here are just some of the out of the box prop Super Bowl bets offered by casinos and betting sites:

More on Out Of The Box Super Bowl Prop Bets