WILDCARD WEEKEND RECAP
My favorite time of year with so many must-watch, drama-filled games, three weekends in a row that I can give my full attention to. Pro football at its finest, and boy what a weekend! Besides the 2nd half of the SEA/@SF game and Monday night’s snooze-fest, we had some crazy exciting games with wild finishes!
Before I get into the stats, I would like to give a big THANK YOU to the recent winners who have tipped me and Mark for our ‘dedication and hard work’ (their words, not mine). Your generosity is much appreciated, and I wanted to put that into words for all to see.
Moving on… in our third year with six Wildcard games (which I absolutely LOVE the new 2/3/and 1 game on Monday night schedule), we had ZERO(!) members go 6-0 this weekend, unlike last year when we had seven (zero in the first year too, so maybe last season was the fluke). This time around, there’s only three members with 11, seven with 10, eight with 9, and twenty-seven with 8-points that follow closely behind the leaders. Good start for many!
On the flip side, we had only one member (JOHNNY MACDADDY) throw up goose eggs, six ended up with 1-point, and 14 people who didn’t make any picks at all. Apparently, some people don’t ever read my emails… owell. I won’t take that personally as it’s obviously their loss, especially since they paid to be part of this “small” playoff pool that “only” gives out $5,500 to the top 7 finishers.
($1500, 1250, 1000, 750, 500, 250 and 250).
Overall, the 216 active members scored 1208 points, which averages out to 5.59 points per player – wayyyy better than 2021 when we averaged 4.47 points but not even close to last year’s 6.63 per player.
All of this makes sense considering the fact that three of the six games this weekend were covered by the team that less people in the league took.
The SEA@SF game was basically 50/50 and the BAL@CIN game was insanely lopsided with a 8/92 split. The other four looked like this (all of these percentage stats can be found at the bottom of the POOLWIDE PICKS page much like the OFP website):
LAC@JAX – 55/45
MIA@BUF – 9/91 (also insanely lopsided and explains why no one went 6-0)
NYG@MIN – 55/45 (the only one that went in favor of the preferred team)
DAL@TB – 30/70
$750 BONUS ELIMINATION POOL (plus an additional $150 of leftover money)
Three people were still alive after 5 weeks (JAKERUNEY, JUNKINS40, and LC12), so to the playoff tiebreaker we go! The first step was “your two assigned 3-point games, head-to-head” – and going into last night all three people had hit one of their 3-pointers, but JAKE still had DAL for 3 yet to play. If they covered, he would hit both of his 3-pointers and take home the crown. However, if TB covered LC12 would win by hitting both her 2-pointers. Obviously TB got curb stomped, possibly ending Tommy’s career in ugly fashion, but the DAL cover gave JAKE the win and he’s now the BONUS POOL Champion. Surprisingly JAKE went 2-4 on the weekend, but lucky for him, both wins were worth 3 big ones! Well done my man! For a visual representation of this finale, please see the BONUS KEY page found under the STANDINGS page.
OVERALL STANDINGS: The Overall top 10 going into the playoffs shifted a bit after the first round of games. First we start with the spot jumpers: CPMELLO80 jumped from 3rd to 1st after putting up 6-points, TRABS went from 7th to 2nd after putting up 9-points, and WILLY33 went from 11th to 3rd after putting up 10 big points. And now for the spot dumpers: SHUTCH07 dropped from 1st place down to 4th after only putting up 3-points, and RON MEXICO dropped from 2nd place down to 8th after only putting up 1-point
ROOKIE RACE: ODPETE1219 stillllllllllll leads with 155 wins, and has since Week 5, but BRUNO_D is only 1-point behind.
COMBO RACE: Horse BRUNO_D and jockey SETUCKETDAB still have a 2-point lead with a combined 296 wins over the ODPETE1219/SEAMUSPK combo, but there’s two or three other squads only a few wins behind
VETERAN’S POOL: 5-year member TRABS now holds the top spot with 159, 1-point over former leader SHUTCH07, while 10-year member TOMMYK11 is 6-points behind with 153
REC LEAGUE: THE BEASTIE BALLS now have a tiny 1-game lead over DIME PIECES after getting the second most points this week with a big 33, while NEW YORK SPANX got the most with 35.
With 22 more points available over the next few weeks, it’s truly anyone’s title to take in all five races… Overall, Rookie, Combo, Veterans, and Playoffs!
And more thing to note: please do NOT wait until the very last minute to make your picks. It really leaves us no time to adjust if there’s any issues. All the charts are done manually and everyone who works at the FTPL likes to watch these games (and of course get drunk too) so having to field calls, emails, and texts right before kickoff is frustrating and stressful! Not cool!
Good luck y’all!
Dan