The Sherlockian choice for Super Bowl 2017.

So, I guess it's Super Bowl weekend, and with less than twenty-four hours to go until game time, the choice of who a true Sherlockian should root for has become clear . . .

Yes, I'm going the "true Sherlockian" route on this. Normally, I don't think we should ever say who or who is not a real fan of Sherlock Holmes and who is not, but since this is the Super Bowl, we're in an alien territory that has nothing to do with Sherlock. All normal rules are off!

My initial impulse was to go with the Atlanta Falcons, since 221B Con is in Atlanta every year, and the town gets a lot of positive mojo for that. But I had to be sure.

So I turned to the all-knowing Book of Sherlock for answers.

"Atlanta," mentioned four times by name. (In "Yellow Face.")

"New England," mentioned once. (In the non-Holmes part of The Valley of Fear.)

What does this mean for the Super Bowl? A prophecy of four touchdowns for the Falcons and one field goal for the Patriots? Well, I doubt New England will do that badly. So let's look at other indicators.

"Cheating" occurs twice in the Canon, once in "Five Orange Pips," where Holmes loses, and again in "Empty House," where Holmes comes back from the dead. Since the New England Patriots are notorious cheaters, this would seem to indicate they'll be down in the first half, but come back in the second.

Looking at the team rosters for Canonical last names points to it being a close game. Atlanta has players named, Jones, Jones, Hardy, Williams, Robinson, Perkins, Matthews, Jackson, Reynolds, Neal, Allen, and Harris. New England has White, Lewis, Slater, Bennett, Andrews, Mason, Brown, Jones, Jones, Jones, King, and Allen. That's a dozen Canonical characters referenced for each team, so we have to go into a tie-breaker and go to the Sherlock Canon, where we immediately see that Atlanta has a player named Hooper. And Molly Hooper needs a win in her life after that phone call from the last episode this year.

So, after weighing all the indicators, the Atlanta Falcons have got to be the Sherlockian team of choice for this Super Bowl. If you find yourself accidentally sitting down in front of the TV on Sunday night with the mistaken hope that BBC Sherlock might come back on, you've now got a go-to team.

Because we're certainly not going to be watching the game for the Sherlockian commercials . . . .