11/10/26
Tennessee and Pittsburgh were the only teams in the NFL on a bye this week as 15 games were played and most of them did not look very appealing coming into the week. Luckily, Cleveland and New Orleans gave some excitement in OT while Chicago narrowly escaped at home against Tampa Bay in another tight contest, and the only exciting primetime game of the week. There was not a large upset this week which saw the scores for Professor DW’s Football Pick ’em Challenge skyrocket with many high scoring performances. In fact, history was made in this week’s contest with multiple contestants having perfect weeks.
We had only seen a handful of perfect weeks in Professor DW history but saw more this week in the rest of the contest’s history combined. Six people had perfect weeks but only five were eligible as West 42’s own Matthew King also went 15/15 in week 9. That would mean three people would go perfect, but have nothing to show for it and could still not be in the postseason. It would come down to how many accepted penalties there were in the league this week so the refs would decide who came out with the win.
The five eligible contestants that went perfect were Macy Bundy, RJ Wilson, Ben Talbot, William Pecson, and Skip Smith. The penalty guesses were all over the board but RJ Wilson was the first one out as his low guess of 10 was beat out while Ben Talbot was close to the actual total of 232, but went over with 247 and the Price is Right Rule knocked him out. It came down to Macy, William, and Skip. William went lower with 169 while Macy and Skip were around the same but Skip’s 200 narrowly beat out Macy’s 193, giving Skip the win and keeping Macy in second while the other three perfect contestants were left in the rain.
Skip blocks a spot in Professor DW’s Exclusive Postseason Tournament while Macy claims her spot in the playoffs. Now 16 people are into the playoffs and 18 spots remain for those of you that have not locked up a spot in the postseason. Skip and Macy can continue to play, along with the rest of those already qualified for the postseason to try to block out spots and keep the playoff field small to boost their chances to win. Skip will return to the playoffs for the third season in a row while Macy will make her debut despite winning Professor DW’s MLB All-Star Challenge previously.
This week was so chalky that even Professor DW had a strong week. DW only missed one game after picking the Washington Commanders to beat the LA Rams which was a bad upset pick to begin with. Even had he gone perfect, a tiebreaker guess of 190 would not have gotten it done as Skip and Macy both beat that tiebreaker. Professor DW needs to let go of his recency bias and not write off a team after a bad week or hype a team up after a solid week.
There were absolutely zero big upsets as the majority picks won every single game. The only even close to upsets were New Orleans over Cleveland and Green Bay over New England, but both the Saints and Packers were the popular picks this week.
Week 10’s contest is up. The deadline to enter is back to 4pm on Thursday so get signed up ASAP. Congratulations Skip and Macy and best of luck to everyone this week.
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