Dear FTPL members,
Before we jump in, Mark and I would like to give a big shout-out and a big thank you to all of those who won a week or a side pool recently and decided to give us a tip. It’s truly appreciated, extremely generous, and it makes all our man-hours each week worth it in the end!
PLEASE NOTE: We will be switching over from using the OFP website to a separate platform for our Playoff Pool. Stay tuned for further details within a day or two…
As a league, we finished off the regular season with a month straight of positive weeks! Well done folks! The final total for “good versus bad” weeks is 13-5, which is amazing! Overall, we finished at 52% for the season, our largest total EVER since I started keeping track back in 2015, 10 full seasons ago. The grand total is still right at 50% for the last 174 weeks (which I guess makes sense mathematically), and in these past 10 years, we hit 49% twice, 50% twice, 51% five times, and now we have our first 52% season!!
1902 wins total out of 3749 games = 51% (236 people times 16 games, minus 27 no-picks on Saturday)
49 people had 10+ wins
163 were 9-7, 8-8, or 7-8
44 had 6 or less
Average score was 8.06
After the 1pm games, we had two people at 8-2 (RYANOAKING and AMERICA 1ST). Then going into Sunday night, we had one person with 12 wins (KEVINZAGRODNY), six with 11, and a bunch at 10. The two scenarios consisted of one 4-way tie if DET were to cover the -2½ or a solo victory for KEVINZAGRODNY who took MIN +2½. A close 10-6 game at the half, the second half would show who really is the powerhouse of the NFC. While Minnesota punted, missed a FG, and turned the ball over on downs TWICE (three times for the game), Detroit scored three straight TDs making it 31-9, forcing a 4-way tie, so we go to total points!
RYANOAKING guessed 50, KEVINZAGRODNY guessed 56, SYLVANPETER guessed 62, and finally CMCDONALD guessed 65, but since the total never got above 40, we don’t even need a breakdown of their windows… so with that said, I would like to give a big congrats to RYANOAKING for winning Week 18 with a 12-4 record, for which he will receive $500. It’s RYAN’s first weekly win in his three-year career but as a rookie in 2022 he was the winning horse along with his jockey FAGE88 in the combo pool.
For this week’s “getting to know your fellow members” section of this email, I was given a good one… enjoy!
RYANOAKING is dear friends with fellow members FAGE88, TOMMYK11, EMRIZZO1206, and THEKINGBEEJ.
He is most well-known for his razor-sharp wit and even sharper tongue.
His dry, sarcastic humor has earned its own verb: “Oaking.”
And this week, the man Oaked us all into oblivion by winning with random picks.
Classic Oak.
Of course, it’s no shock that Oak went with random picks. Commitment’s never been his strong suit.
Case in point: this year, he bought his first home—but only after backing out of two others.
Oak treated real estate like Tinder: swiping right, getting cold feet, and ghosting like he found out she was on “16 and Pregnant”.
My guess is he will use ol’ pal BRUCE WILLIS’ play and use that money for a new dishwasher.
Oak’s other great loves? LeBron James, JJ Redick, Brett “The Hitman” Hart, and being that guy at weddings who wears a tie on his head by 9pm.
All in all, this is a win we’ll never stop hearing about.
In the year 2040, we’ll still be getting unsolicited texts about “the time I won with random picks.”
He’ll probably have it carved into a park bench somewhere — right next to “Beloved friend, notorious Oaker, and loyal fan of guys who are great at scoring, not so much at guarding.”
Moving on…
• MOST CORRECT “KEY PICKS” OVERALL
JAKERUNEY had a one game lead over three people going into Week 18. If he could get his pick correct, he wins. If he doesn’t, and either SHESABADBLITZ, KATE MCDONALD, or NEVILLE666 get their picks correct, we would have a tie and then move this pool into Wildcard Weekend. Instead, JAKE took CIN on Saturday night who covered. KATE and NEVILLE also took CIN, so there was no way to catch him. SHESABADBLITZ took BUF on Sunday who made JAKE sweat it out. I’m sure he was just waiting all game for BUF to get hot and put up a bunch of points, but it just never happened! Jake is now $500 richer! Congrats!
• FINAL REGULAR SEASON STANDINGS
CWD37 never took his foot off the peddle, getting another 11 wins this week, and completely dominated our league — finishing with 170 wins — 11 more than anyone else! But can he keep it up?
1st Place: CWD37 – He wins $2,000
2nd Place: TORI-21 – He wins $1,750
3rd Place: JORDYSNEAKS – He wins $1,500 (jumped up from 8th place with 11 wins this week)
4th Place: SNAKE MYRER – He wins $1,250
5th Place: BRUCE WILLIS – He wins $1000 (jumped up from 10th place with 11 wins this week)
6th Place: NO FIREWORKS – Free entry into next season (jumped up from 12th place with 11 wins this week)
7th Place: KEVINZAGRODNY – Free entry (jumped up from 16th place with 12 wins this week)
8th Place: JGREMILA – Free entry
9th Place: NLIQ33 – Free entry
10th Place: WAYNE66 – Free entry
• TOTAL SCORE GOLF
FATIGLE TANG (a teenager!) jumped from 6th to 1st with his guess of 36 for the week, giving him a 3-point win over TAG469 and 3½ point win over SLEEZYTREES. The kid had 12 single-digit Golf scores this season, meaning he was only in double-digits 6 times. 2/3rds of the year he was within 9 or less strokes! Now that is impressive!
Lastly, the final average “stroke count” for the league ended up at a 223.91, and four members correctly guessed the Sunday Night total score this week!
• AFC CHAMPION
MAJAHUITAS won this category and a free entry into next season with 84 correct, 4 less than last season’s winner (RICKYJ45)!
• NFC CHAMPION
CWD37 won this category with 95 correct, 12(!) more than second place, but 1 less than last season’s winner (LAINAS)!
• BEST OF 1PM
CWD37 also won this category and $250 cash (since he already has a free entry from the previous NFC category) with 81 correct, 2 less than last season’s winner (CRUSHEDBYHEELS)!
• BEST OF 4PM
This one ended in a tie between EMAC124 and KEVINZAGRODNY at 46 correct, so we go to the tie breaker of 1pm results: EMAC had 51, while KEVIN had 10 more at 61, giving him the win and $250 (since he already has a free entry from his 7th place finish). Last season CRUSHEDBYHEELS and $100HARDEIGHT also had 46 correct and the tie went to CRUSHED.
• AND FINALLY… THE RACES THAT CONTINUE THROUGH THE PLAYOFFS
In the fourth week of the $1000 Bonus Elimination Pool, 23 of the 47 people left (49%) were able to hit their “Key Pick” correctly. Here’s the official tiebreaker procedure as seen in the Rules and Regulations (Section 7, Subsection 2) is as follows:
2. Tie for Elimination Pool (standard and/or bonus) or most correct “key picks” in Week 18 specifically
a. Your two assigned 3-point games, head-to-head, during Wildcard Weekend
b. Your two assigned 2-point games, head-to-head, during Wildcard Weekend
c. Your two assigned 1-point game, head-to-head, during Wildcard Weekend
If still tied after Wildcard Weekend…
d. Your assigned 4-point game, head-to-head, during Conference Weekend
e. Your assigned 3-point game, head-to-head, during Conference Weekend
f. Your assigned 2-point game, head-to-head, during Conference Weekend
g. Your assigned 1-point game, head-to-head, during Conference Weekend
And so on through Championship Weekend and the Super Bowl, finishing up with:
h. Closest total score for the Super Bowl
i. Even split
So, if your name is listed directly below, you’re still in it, and there’s $1100 on the line (1000 from Bonus Pool + 100 from left-over money)
ARMAINIAC
BALTICBROWN-1
BJACOBCARR
CLARKENADO
DSTREET29
EDDIE V
EMAC124
GUY MARCELL
GWILLIFORD7
JAY MILLER
JFLANN1216
JGILLESPIE478
JORDYSNEAKS
KRAZ
MGOCONNOR
NEVILLE666
NOGUTSNOGLORY06
REDEYE1
SEEMOREBUCKS
SINCITY38
SYLVANPETER
TAG469
THE_SHIVA
• ROOKIE RACE: WAYNE66 is still on top with 157 wins, one more than DOSIE70.
• COMBO RACE: Jockey BIG DAN (let’s gooooo) and horse WAYNE66 are still on top with 308 combined wins, four more than second place.
• VETERAN’S POOL: SNAKE MYRER and JORDYSNEAKS lead with 159, while 10-year member NO FIREWORKS is 2-points behind with 157.
• REC LEAGUE: ROCK VEGAS is still in 1st place with 749 total points, and they’re now 14 ahead of WE REC 4 CHEX$$$ and 21 ahead of NO NAME TEAM.
I hope everyone is following along with all these extremely close races!! Keep in mind, the 34 available points in the playoffs could drastically change the leaderboards!
Anything can and will happen!! Good luck in the playoffs everybody!! Playoff Pool details to be sent out shortly…
Dan