Man, let me tell ya about tryin’ to figure out this Super Bowl Squares thing for myself. I kept hearin’ folks talkin’ it up around the big game, sounded way more complicated than it needed to be. “Gotta understand the scores,” they’d say. Fine. Time to get my hands dirty.
Step One: Drawin’ the Damn Grid
First thing I did? Grabbed a huge piece of paper, like poster board size even. Didn’t need to be fancy, but I needed to see it to believe it. Drew a big ol’ grid. Ten squares across, ten squares down. Just made one hundred little boxes. Easy so far. Top row and left column? That’s where the numbers go later.
- Made the first column vertical for Team A (say, the Chiefs).
- Made the top row horizontal for Team B (say, the Eagles).
Step Two: The Number Chaos
Next up? Numbers. 0 through 9 for each team, right? I literally cut up slips of paper. Wrote 0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9 on ten for the Chiefs, did the same ten on separate slips for the Eagles. Felt like preppin’ for bingo night. Threw all the Chiefs slips in a hat, Eagles slips in a bowl. No reason except I had a hat and a bowl handy.
- Shuffled the Chiefs hat good ‘n proper.
- Pulled one number out at a time, and wrote it in each box down that left column, in order.
- Same thing with the Eagles bowl – scrambled the numbers, pulled ‘em out, wrote ’em across the top row, box by box.
Suddenly, the grid wasn’t just empty boxes anymore. It had numbers! Felt like progress. Now all them squares inside belonged to whoever bought ’em or picked ’em.
Step Three: Game Time Confusion (and Clarity)
Game starts. First quarter rolls around. Okay, this is where I got stuck initially. Scores are like Chiefs 7, Eagles 3. I’m lookin’ at the grid. What mattered? Only the last number. Ohhhh! So Chiefs 7 = Last digit is 7. Eagles 3 = Last digit is 3. That’s it! Forgot the tens place, hundreds place – none of it matters. Just hunt down the square where the Chiefs column has 7 and the Eagles row has 3. The person in that box wins the first quarter! Simplicity slapped me in the face.
- End of first quarter: Find the last digit of each score.
- Match it to the numbers on the grid.
- Find that intersection square.
- Winner!
Rinse and repeat for the other quarters: Second quarter scores, halftime score, third quarter score, final score. My main lightbulb moment? Realizing it’s the score at the end of each quarter that determines the winner for that specific prize. The final score is just another quarter winner. Four separate prizes potentially, not just one at the end!
Tried it with last year’s scores as they happened. Honestly, once I stopped overthinking the “score” and focused only on that last digit match, it clicked. No calculus, just basic numbers and a grid. Way simpler than those fantasy leagues, for sure. Lesson learned: Don’t listen to folks make it sound like rocket science. It ain’t. Now pass the chips.
