‘Superstitious’ Aussie star forced into pregame switch; ‘Drake curse’ picks victim — Super Bowl LIVE

Because he’s so new to the game, Mailata isn’t someone who has been dreaming about playing in a Super Bowl since he was a kid.

“To me, the Super Bowl dream only started four or five years ago,’’ he said. “For my fellow teammates, it’s different. They’ve been dreaming about this since they were little kids, since they were running around in nappies. If you don’t know what a nappy is, look it up. You guys call them diapers, or pampers.’’

Just six years ago, the 6-foot-9 Mailata was working in a supermarket and other odd jobs to help pay his bills. The 25-year-old is in his third season with the Eagles, playing all 16 games for the first time this year. The team moved up from No. 250 to 233 in the seventh round of the 2018 NFL Draft to selected Mailata.

He is one of the Super Bowl’s most talented players, having also appeared on “The Masked Singer.” Now fans will have to see if he modifies his very specific pregame routine with the Eagles looking to take down the Chiefs in Arizona on Sunday.

This article was originally published at the New York Post and republished with permission.

‘DRAKE CURSE’ PICKS NEXT VICTIM

The Drake Curse is something to be feared, and if you are a Kansas City Chiefs fan, it’s OK to be frightened right now.

Drake revealed he’s betting a tidy $700,000 on the Chiefs this Sunday when they take on the Eagles in Super Bowl 2023.

“My psychotic bets for Sunday are in @Stake”, said Drake in his Instagram caption. “Pls do not analyse the logic behind these bets there is none.”

The OVO honcho and award-winning Canadian rapper has been infamous for jinxing teams and athletes on multiple occasions. He backed NFL flame-out Johnny Manziel and ex-UFC champ Conor McGregor when they were at their height, both falling from grace shortly after his public approval. He was also notoriously rooting for Serena Williams in the finals of the 2015 U.S. Open and the Golden State Warriors in the 2016 NBA Finals. Both lost.

Drake announced his partnership with the cryptocurrency betting platform Stake last year, which continued his tear of throwing ridiculous amounts of money on sporting events. He has won — and lost — quite a bit of money while betting, though it all seems to be good fun for the billionaire.

The $700k was not the only bet he placed for Sunday’s big game. He threw $50,000 each on both Patrick Mahomes and JuJu Smith-Schuster to be the first Chiefs touchdown scorer, another $50,000 on the Chiefs to win both halves, $30,000 on Chiefs to win each quarter, $25,000 for Travis Kelce to be Super Bowl MVP, and finally $60,000 for the position of the Super Bowl MVP to be a tight end. That’s nearly a million dollars being placed on the game.

Last year, Drake also put huge sum of money on the Super Bowl. Unlike this year, he rode the favourite Rams and it paid off, big time.

This year, he’s going with the underdogs. Take at your own risk.

This article was originally published at the New York Post and republished with permission.

SUPER BOWL PREVIEW (via AFP)

The two top quarterbacks and the two strongest teams in the NFL will go face-to-face when the Kansas City Chiefs take on the Philadelphia Eagles in what could be a Super Bowl for the ages.

All the indicators, stats and form guides suggest that the clash will be one of the closest match-ups the NFL’s title game has produced.

Both teams are the top seeds from their conferences, have identical 16-3 records this season and incredibly have even scored the exact same number of points – 546.

When it comes to the playmakers, Patrick Mahomes of the Chiefs is the top-ranked quarterback in the NFL but the Eagles boast the number two in Jalen Hurts.

Led by the inspired, improvising Mahomes, the Chiefs have the number one passing offence but will have their work cut out against the NFL’s best passing defence.

There are star players all over the field – the Chiefs have the top tight-end in the NFL in Travis Kelce while the Eagles boast an elite wide-receiver in A.J. Brown.

But as Chiefs head coach Andy Reid pointed out at his pre-game press conference on Thursday, despite all the analysis and game plans, in the high-pressure atmosphere of a Super Bowl it is often an unheralded player who turns out to be decisive.

“That is the human element … in this game there is going to be somebody that we haven’t mentioned … who is going to step up and you are going to go ‘Wow that was a great job by that kid,’” said Reid, who was Eagles head coach for 14 seasons before joining the Chiefs in 2013.

If there is an area where the teams can be clearly separated it is in the realm of experience where the Chiefs certainly have the edge.

Nothing is going to phase the 64-year-old Reid, who is in his 24th year as an NFL head coach and this is his team’s third Super Bowl appearance with Mahomes in the last four seasons, with victory coming in 2019-2020.

In contrast, this is just Eagles boss Nick Sirianni’s second season as a head coach and his 24-year-old quarterback Hurts makes his Super Bowl debut in his second year as starter having played only three playoff games in his career.

But Hurts, who presents a potentially crucial unpredictable threat given his unmatched capacity to run with the ball, does not appear likely to be overawed.

Hurts, who was replaced during his college national championship final for Alabama, has been carrying a shoulder injury throughout the latter part of the season but the Chiefs have the bigger fitness concern with Mahomes hampered by a niggling ankle injury.

Mahomes will cement his status as the finest NFL quarterback of this post-Tom Brady generation if he can add a second Super Bowl ring to his two Most Valuable Player awards but will be wary of an Eagles defence which led the league in sacks.

“They’re on like a historic sack rate and the way they are able to get to the quarterback,” Mahomes said this week.

“So everybody knows that everything starts up front. It will be a great challenge for our offensive line to try to do what they can.”

Mahomes and Hurts are the youngest quarterback pairing in a Super Bowl and Sunday’s game also marks the first time that two black quarterbacks face each other in the biggest game.

The Chiefs have the confidence of a team that has been to five straight AFC Championship games but the Eagles have a chip on their shoulder.

Sirianni was fired as an assistant from Kansas City by Reid and Hurts has been doubted by many pundits through his young career.

And while the coaches have tried to dampen talk of the game being Mahomes v Hurts, the Eagles quarterback certainly feels the unique responsibility and pressure that comes with the most important role on the field in the biggest game of all.

“I know there is a whole group of men looking at me and expecting me to go out and make things happen,” he said.

“Everyone needs to do their jobs but … the leaders need to lead and you want your big time players to make big time plays in a game like this.”

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