Hello, degenerate gamblers. March Madness is upon us, so whataya say we get mad together? Props are plentiful in this year's NCAA tournament. Some of these are harder to find than a clean Lindsay Lohan urine sample, but I promise if you go online and search hard enough you'll hit pay dirt.

There will be ZERO buzzer-beaters during the second-round (Thursday-Friday) games (-140)
Aside from the over/under for Joey Chestnut hot dogs consumed, this is my favorite annual bet in all of sports. I've won with this play the last two years. Yes — betting against buzzer-beaters makes me the equivalent of the kill-joy douche bag who plays the don't-pass line in craps. But I don't care — it's an adrenaline rush like none other. Remember — you lose only if the game ends on the shot itself. If the shot sends the game into overtime, it is not considered a buzzer-beater. If there's .3 still on the clock after the shot is made, it is not considered a buzzer-beater. If some drunken coed sets off an app that sounds like bees swarming while a free throw is converted — not a buzzer-beater.

Let's break down this prop. Of the 32 second-round games, 25 or so are not going to be within seven points in the final 30 seconds — so those are throwaways. (I completely made up that stat but it sounds about right.) That leaves only a handful of games you have to watch from the edge of your laptop. Please jump on this one with me, if for no other reason than I don't have to feel like such a loser.

Before last year's tournament began, Bill wrote about the slightly insane but totally fun knockout pool in which he competes every year. Republished below are the complete rules. This is a highly recommended experience.

Four years ago, I created a March Madness knockout pool that none other than Cousin Sal (one of the great gamblers of all time, or at least one of the least successful) called "the best office pool ever." I don't know anyone who doesn't absolutely love this pool. Anyway, here's how it works.

• Let's say $20 per entry, if gambling were legal.

• You have to send in your picks before the start of the first game on Thursday. No exceptions.

• For Thursday of Round 1, you have to pick TWO WINNERS. Not against the spread, just outright winners — again, both teams just have to win. If either loses, you're out ... but you can buy back in for another $20 (and if you buy back in, you have to pick FOUR winners on Friday, not two).

Cousin Sal and Joe House join Bill to break down the Super Bowl weekend, speculate about NBA trades, and announce the winner of their eating contest.

To listen to this podcast, you can download it on iTunes here or go to the ESPN.com PodCenter here.

Bill is joined by Cousin Sal and Joe House to preview both the Super Bowl, and their eating competition showdown. After the jump, check out two videos from New Orleans. In the first, the guys talk Super Bowl prop bets. In the second, Sal and House get ready for their hunger games.

It’s here. Super Bowl XLVII. The biggest betting day of the year. Hundreds of propositions available to wager on. It’s very sad that my wife getting a Valentine’s Day gift is completely dependent upon what color Gatorade is poured on the winning Harbaugh’s head.

But I’m not too worried, as I’ve been on a Rain Man–esque gambling roll lately. I crushed my theoretical bookie on championship weekend, amassing 472,000 jermajesties* — taking my season-long total to a whopping (and I mean a short, pudgy Italian whopping) 612,500 jermajesties overall. Still a bit shy of our goal of 1 million jermajesties, but that’s what Super Bowl Sunday is for. Follow my lead and let’s go to Disney World together.

(*Obligatory weekly explanation: A “jermajesty” represents the fake name given for a dollar amount in this blog. It’s also the unfortunate name of one of Jermaine Jackson’s sons.)

Tracy Morgan joins Bill and Cousin Sal to detail the evening he was kicked out of Prince's house for partying too hard and his idea for a strip club named Chicken Dale's.

It's a Super Bowl-a-palooza from New Orleans! In other words, it's a two-part B.S. Report. In Part 1, Rembert Browne and Cousin Sal talk about the actual game; PEDs then find time to break down their terrible lunch. In Part 2, Tracy Morgan talks about the finale of 30 Rock before Giants defensive end Justin Tuck stops by to remind Bill that New York beat the Patriots twice in the Super Bowl. Good times.

Part 1

To listen to this podcast, you can download it on iTunes here or go to the ESPN.com PodCenter here.

Part 2

To listen to this podcast, you can download it on iTunes here or go to the ESPN.com PodCenter here.

Cousin Sal consoles Bill after a tough Patriots loss. The two then turn their attention to the Super Bowl story lines and, of course, betting lines for the big game in New Orleans.

In Part 1, Cousin Sal and Chad Millman join Bill to break down the NFL's divisional round and look forward to the conference championships. In Part 2, the NFL Network's Mike Lombardi weighs in on all the NFL action.

Ray Lewis Is Truly Awesome

Ray Lewis has described many things as “awesome.” He dieted and exercised before this season and showed up to camp at his lightest weight in some 15 years: “It’s awesome,” he said, “I feel great.” Earlier this season he described Joe Flacco and the Ravens' much-improved offense as “awesome.” Last week, as he took a victory lap around the Ravens’ stadium one last time, he described it as “the most awesome thing you could ever ask for in any professional career.” After Baltimore’s twist-filled victory over Denver on Saturday, Lewis began doing that postgame proselytizing thing that’s common in such contexts. Maybe it’s the awareness that Lewis is nearing the end or maybe it was the delirium of the game, but there was something wildly moving and strange about his incantations. He said some cold-blooded shit about “weapons,” just as the tool that had been forged for his demise, Peyton Manning, walked up to hug him. Then his eyes got gone and serene as he admired his team’s mile-high handiwork: “Man … it’s just awesome,” he said, all blissful and blessed, clouds of mist surrounding his face, as though the Creator had taken a highlighter to him. There’ve been few players over the past decade as intense and absorbing as Lewis. For those of us who remember when “Ray Lewis weapons” turned up a different kind of search-engine result, there hasn’t been another athlete whose path to righteousness has felt so visceral and extreme.

Rough week last week. My NFL prop picks got smoked harder than a blunt backstage at a Bieber concert. I pulled a giant oh-fer, wiping out my entire jermajesty savings account. In fact, I now owe 22,500 jermajesties*.

But look at me. Do I seem worried? Not even a little, and you know why? Because I have this week — traditionally the most effed-up week of the NFL season — completely figured out. Every year during the divisional round of the playoffs there's a huge (eight points or higher) upset. Let me quickly refresh your memories:

2012: Giants 37, Packers 20
2011: Jets 28, Patriots 21
2010: Jets 17, Chargers 14
2009: Cardinals 33, Panthers 13
2008: Chargers 28, Colts 24

In 2007 Tom Brady and Peyton Manning for some reason played on the road, otherwise the streak would've been six-plus years.

The divisional playoff round is when the bookies make a killing. Well — this year we're gonna kill them right back. Come Monday when you're gathered around a water cooler talking about the games you'll be able to pull out your own bottle of artesian mineral water and tell everyone you've got boatloads of it back home thanks to Cousin Sal steering you away from the big favorites.

Here's how we're doing it. I'll do it with jermajesties. You use the real stuff. Just follow my lead. Especially with this first prop:

Mike Lombardi, Cousin Sal, and Joe House join Bill to react to the NFL's wild-card weekend and look ahead to the big Super Bowl showdown: Joe House vs. Cousin Sal in an eating contest.

Why does rooting for sports hurt so much? How does one allow himself to get to a point where his favorite player blowing a winnable game for his favorite team is as painful as hearing about the near death of a loved one or a breakup of a long-term relationship?

A normal person would step back and realize that the sadness/frustration that goes with rooting for a game played by mostly thuggish multimillionaires who couldn't give a crap about you should fall somewhere between getting a parking ticket and not being able to guess someone's offering on Draw Something. That's it. No more demoralizing, no less.

So what if Tony Romo came up short again? Why, after 41 years on this planet, why should I care? If I were still 7 years old, fine — but 41? The fact that I can't outgrow this is grotesque. I feel like I can laugh off "I know you are but what am I?" retorts. I can roll my eyes at a grownup singing about my wife and me sitting in a tree … K-I-S-S-I-N-G. So why is it so enraging if a hundred Twitter followers send me the same stupid tweet: "How do you say Romo in Spanish? Sanchez." Not funny — don't laugh.

Don't worry — I don't expect you to have an answer to these rhetorical — yet painful questions. My New Year's resolution is to not care as much about stupid shit. And if I break that resolution — I don't care as much. See — I'm off to a great start!

Good thing that therapist of mine is still accepting jermajesties* cuz I have plenty of those lying around. 185,000 to be exact. That's the profit I've turned wagering on NFL propositions this season. My road to a million jermajesties (sounds like a bad Max Allan Collins novel) has taken a few slight detours. Let's get it back on track this wild-card weekend:

In part 1 of 2, Cousin Sal and Chad Millman join Bill to review the Week 17 action and look forward to the matchups on wild-card weekend. In part 2, Mike Lombardi offers his analysis of the NFL playoff matchups, and Joe House celebrates the Redskins' big win over the Cowboys.

Bill Simmons and Cousin Sal break down the Week 16 NFL games and guess the lines for the last time in the regular season.