DUH Winning!
While watching the final minutes of the Monday night game and it became obvious I would win the week I was bursting at the seems and couldn’t wait to get this newsletter up. Not just because I won but so much happened in the pool this weekend I could not wait. I even went so far as to text Ed at 1am Tuesday morning to check an unbelievable pool fact which I’ll talk about later….
First about this weeks winner ... me! And the start of my dynasty that will be as unstoppable as the 2007 Patriots. I started to explain to my fiancee before the Monday night game what I needed the result to be in order to win the week. She doesn’t know a lot about football spreads, over/under, tiebreaker scores etc .. I explained to her that two things had to happen; I needed the combined score to be less than 37; AND I needed Jacksonville to either win or not lost by more than 7 points. For example I said "a final score of 20-14 would be great". She doesn’t get the whole point spread concept and thinks the spread is included in the over/under total. Our conversation got more complex until I just started agreeing with everything she said and went upstairs to watch the game alone. As the time ticked away and it became clear that I would win the week I was exited, did a celebratory shot of Zambuka (don't judge me) and for some reason she was excited too. A little too excited. She asked how much we won. When I said $125 her dreams of shoe shopping quickly faded and she lost interest. Sensing a chance to pile it on I further explained that I really only won $15 because the pool fee was $110. Then I took it a step deeper explaining I really didn’t win anything because I played two spots this season at $110 each so I am still in the hole overall. By then her attitude was indifferent and didn't understand why I was so excited about winning but whatever, girls are dumb.
The Monday night game was a horrible game to watch. If I didn’t have the weekly win riding on it I would have preferred to watch a Lifetime movie while drinking tea and hanging pictures. I kept thinking about the two poor saps in the Survivor pool that took Baltimore (Vamp & Pickle). The game looked like a gimmie on paper then they had to suffer though all this:
- Baltimore had no first downs in the 1st half
- Baltimore had 1 net passing yards in 1st half
- Joe Flaco completed a pass for negative -8 yards to HIMSELF
- There were 6 official fumbles and at least 2 others that were not called fumbles
- At one point Baltimore had 3rd down and 25 at their own 30 yard line, they gained 12 yards but got called for holding. Jacksonville could have declined the penalty making it 4th and 13 and made Baltimore punt BUT they had so little fear of Baltimore’s offense they took the risk and accepted the penalty making it 3rd and 35 for Baltimore.
Ugly sure ... but not for me it was a beautiful game.
About that unbelievable fact I had to text Ed about.... as I was looking through the final weekly standings one thing jumped right out at me, you know besides seeing “05” with the word “WINNER” next to it, was all the way at the bottom – last place for the week “Dai-ma” 0-13 … zero and thirteen H-O-L-Y S-H-I-T.. I immediately sent Ed a text to confirm what I thought was true. Since this pool started back in 1997 no one has ever pulled an 0-fer for a week in the regular season? EVER! And Ed confirmed it was true. Not only did “Dai-ma” not win a single game he also took 52 (the highest [no pun intended but intended] of the week) as the tiebreaker score for a game that had a over/under line at 37! The 0-13 week dropped him from 14th place all the way to 73rd place, a 59 point drop! Smoke up my friend, puff the magic dragon ...
That takes us to poor old “Grampy”. When I looked at all the Survivor picks Sunday morning the teams that I figured I’d see I did. Dallas and New Orleans. One pick looked like it didn’t belong; Miami! “Grampy” picked Miami. My first reaction was "idiot". Then I thought, hmm maybe - genius? They are playing Denver who sucks. So this could be a brilliant pick. He can burn a non-playoff team which you have to do in order to last to the end and get a cheap win. But "Grampy" already had one loss so this was a life or death pick risk. Further muddying the waters is Miami sucks, especially at home. They went 1-7 at home last season, they were 0-2 this season. Their coach sucks, their QB sucks, their fans suck and inexplicably it was Tim Tebow day at the stadium. Who in case you didn’t know is the QB of the team they were facing in that very game! Miami was honoring a QB that they are about to face for his college career in their home stadium, in the shadows of the U of Miami, despite the fact he played his college football 6 hours and 350 miles away at a rival college! What is next? UConn having Marcus Camby day?BUT … Grampy’s faith almost paid off - almost! .. Lets dig in but this game too was atrocious so I’ll just jump to the end ….. Miami was up 15-0 with 2:44 left. In order for Denver to win all the following things had to happen in the final 2:44 or Miami wins…
- Denver had to complete a 4th down play
- Denver had to score a TD
- Denver had to make the extra point
- Denver had to do an onside kick
- Denver had to recover the onside kick
- Denver had to score a TD
- Denver had to complete the 2 point conversion
Check - Check - Check - Check - Check - Check - Check
But Miami still had a chance in OT, but two possessions 0 points. Denver drove the ball past midfield then called upon their FG kicker, a guy who had missed two FGs of about 40 yards earlier in the game to make a 52 yard FG in OT - he nailed it - game over! Denver wins on Tim Tebow day in Miami! Mercy!
Overall the top three in the season pool remained unchanged and I ... “05” jumped up 14 spots into 6th place. The bottom three also remained unchanged.
Today’s random fact of the week…
In St. Louis, if you go watch a Rams game the cost is $9 for a 12 oz. draft beer, the most expensive in the NFL... And
In St. Louis, if you go watch a Rams game the cost is $9 for a 12 oz. draft beer, the most expensive in the NFL... And
I won the week! In case you haven't heard!
Yes, this is a picture of me in my softball shirt
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