This is 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, but I sure hope we get some close games in the Divisional round. Sure the WAS@TB match-up was an exciting game, and sure MIN had possession of the ball twice down 10-3 early in the 2nd (with both drives ending in turnovers) but come on!
Moving on… in our fifth year with six Wildcard games, we had four members (JOHNNY CABLE, JUNETP, KRAZ, and NEVILLE666) go 6-0 this weekend, along with five members scoring 11 (only got one of their 1-point games wrong), seven with 10, and a bunch with 9! Good start for many!
Want to know what scoring 12-points does to your overall standings?! Check these stats out:
JOHNNY CABLE went from #170 to #100
JUNETP went from #156 to #87
KRAZ went from #55 to #20
and
NEVILLE666 went from #29 to #12
On the flip side, we had two members put up goose eggs (FAGE88 and JGILLESPIE478), one with 1-point (BOYDEE12), and 23 people who didn’t make any picks at all. I won’t take it personally as it’s obviously their loss, especially since they paid to be part of this “small” playoff pool that “only” gives out $6,250 to the top 10 finishers. ($1500, 1250, 1000, 750, 500, and 250 for 6th thru 10th).
Overall, the 227 active members scored 1429 points, which averages out to 6.29 points per player, which works out to be about 52% — our league average for the entire season!
• More than 2023’s 5.59 and 2024’s 5.38 averages.
• Just short of 2022’s 6.63 average
• Much better than 2021’s 4.47 average
The pick results of the PIT@BAL and WAS@TB games were very close to 50/50 but the rest were basically 1/3rd to 2/3rds, with GB@PHI coming in as the only outlier at 25/75 (all of the actual percentage data can be found at the bottom of the POOLWIDE PICKS page much like the OFP website):
LAC@HOU 62/38%
DEN@BUF 34/66%
MIN@LAR 62/38%
Moving on…
• $1000 BONUS ELIMINATION POOL (plus an additional $100 of leftover money):
23 people were still alive after 4 weeks, so to the playoff tiebreaker we go! The first step was their “two assigned 3-point games, head-to-head” – and of those 23 members, only 9 went 2-0 on their 3-pointers, moving the tiebreaker on to the 2-pointers. Of those 9, only KRAZ and NEVILLE666 would get both right, so we move on to the 1-pointers, of which both guys got both correct! WILD! So of the four members that went 6-0 this weekend, two of them were involved in the Bonus Pool! IF LAR hadn’t curb-stomped MIN, KRAZ would have won based on the fact he placed 1-point on the Rams, while NEVILLE had placed a 2, not that there was even a chance of LA losing that game… Next week we start with “their assigned 4-point game, head-to-head” in the Divisional Round and move on from there (for the first time ever, normally Wildcard weekend puts the pool to bed)! Good luck fellas! For a visual representation of this showdown, please see the BONUS KEY page found under the STANDINGS page.
• OVERALL STANDINGS:
The Overall top 10 going into the playoffs shifted only slightly after the first round of games, with most members only moving up or down a spot or two, but the top dawg (CWD37) is still on top. However his 11-point lead is now at 8. The one member that did have some serious movement was spot jumper NLIQ33, who went from 9th all the up to 2nd with his 11 big points!
• ROOKIE RACE: DOSIE70 and WAYNE66 are now tied at 164, with a 5-point lead over SMCKAY14.
• COMBO RACE: Jockey BIG DAN (let’s gooooo) and horse WAYNE66 are still on top with 324 combined wins, 10 more than EDMAC/NAUSS508 in 2nd place.
• VETERAN’S POOL: NLIQ33 (5-year) is now on top with 168 points after getting 11 big points this weekend and holds a 1-point lead over BRUCE WILLIS (5-year) and a 2-point lead over NO FIREWORKS (10-year).
• REC LEAGUE: ROCK VEGAS is still in 1st place with 790 total points, and they’re now 28 ahead of WE REC 4 CHEX$$$ and 38 ahead of NO NAME TEAM.
With 22 more points available over the next few weeks, it’s truly anyone’s title to take in all six races… Overall, Playoffs, Rookie, Combo, Veterans, and Rec League!
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