In the Hands of the Cards

With the Los Angeles Dodgers fielding all-stars all over the diamond, the odds of me seeing the A's or Padres win a World Series title in the next decade or so is pretty slim.  Luckily there's a 50% chance that one of my favorite football teams will win a Super Bowl title tomorrow.

I've been a Seattle Seahawks fan since 1981.  To put that into perspective, that's the year I started collecting baseball cards.

Back in December, I was doing some last minute Christmas shopping on Target's website when I saw some UNO Elite football boxes on sale for $4.49 each.  I picked up a few for my co-worker's kids and set aside two for this post.

I thought it'd be cool to use them for a Super Bowl sports card simulation to predict the winner of tomorrow's game.

Let's start off by looking at the two boxes...

Product Description:

Box #1:  2025 UNO Elite Core Booster Set Plus

Box #2:  2025 UNO Elite Alt Jerseys Booster Set Plus

Each box contains 4 packs and each pack contains ten cards.

Scoring:

In an effort to not only predict the Super Bowl winner, but the final score as well, each player will earn their team three points (like a field goal) each time they are pulled from a pack.  Since there are four colors variations in the game of UNO, I will turn a field goal into a touchdown (seven points) if the color matches their team colors:

New England Patriots:  Red or Blue

Seattle Seahawks:  Green or Blue

There are also foil versions inserted into packs.  If I pull any Patriots or Seahawks, they will receive a 2x multiplier to that card.

Box #1 will represent the first half of the game with the first two packs representing the first quarter and the last two packs representing the second quarter.  Box #2 will work the same way except they'll represent the third and fourth quarters.

Checklists:

I analyzed the checklists for both teams.  After thirty minutes of trying to balance things out, I ended up removing any players (like Kendrick Bourne and Tyler Lockett) who are no longer with the Seahawks or Patriots.

That ended up giving the Patriots a big advantage with five cards listed in each product, while the Seahawks only had three in each.  To make things fair, I added two current Seahawks who are featured with their prior teams from each set.

Here's who I'll be looking for...

Okay.  I think everything important has been covered.  If not, I'll make adjustments on the fly.  Let the Super Bowl LX sports card simulation begin...

First Quarter:

2025 UNO Elite Core #120

Drake Maye gets the Patriots on the board first with a field goal, but a Rashid Shaheed was sitting a few cards behind:

2025 UNO Elite Core #149

Although Shaheed is wearing black and gold for the Saints, this card is a color match to his Super Bowl team.  Seahawks take the lead with a touchdown!

Here are the eighteen other cards in the packs:

I was happy to pull the Josh Jacobs for the Packers PC and my nieces will be excited to add the Cowboys and Lions in this break (especially the shiny St. Brown) to their collections.

After fifteen minutes, the score is:

New England Patriots 3

Seattle Seahawks 7

Second Quarter:

Both defenses stepped up in the second quarter with zero Patriots or Seahawks in these two packs.

Shaquill Griffin made an appearance.  He's played in a pair of games for the Hawks this season, but is currently on their practice squad.  Even if he was on their Super Bowl roster, he didn't make this ten card roster, so he doesn't qualify for any points.

The halftime score is:

New England Patriots 3

Seattle Seahawks 7

Third Quarter:

Twenty more cards.  Zero Seahawks or Patriots.  I sure hope the real game has more scoring than this.

Three quarters down and the Seahawks hold a four point lead:

New England Patriots 3

Seattle Seahawks 7

Fourth Quarter:

I realize both of these Super Bowl defenses are elite, but this is a little extreme.  Eight packs.  One Patriot.  And technically zero Seahawks.  Thank goodness the Seahawks traded for Shaheed in November.

Final Score:

 

New England Patriots 3

Seattle Seahawks 7

If this was the actual score, it'd be the lowest scoring Super Bowl ever.  The current record is held by Super Bowl LIII (Patriots 13 vs. Rams 3).

Sadly simulations and reality are two different things.  We'll see who the real Super Bowl LX Champions are in a little over twenty-four hours.

I was planning to watch the game at my friend's house, but I'm sick AGAIN.  I'm on antibiotics this time around, but don't want to risk spreading it to my friend or her mom.  So it'll be me watching the game at home by myself.  Hopefully the Hawks pull out a victory and redeem themselves after that Super Bowl XLIX tragedy.

I'm sure other blogs have already asked you, but it wouldn't be a Super Bowl post without this question:

Who do you think will win the game?

Who are you rooting for?

I'm nervous about picking the Seahawks (and jinxing them), but I've watched them a lot this season and they look really good.  I'll say they win 24 to 20.

Happy Saturday and sayonara!