10/28/25
Six teams were on a bye in week 8 of the NFL season and yet it turned into a pretty good week for total field goal yardage in Professor DW’s Football Pick ’em Challenge. With just 13 games on the schedule, there was less room to take chances and each game carried so much more weight in the race for the top spot and entry into the postseason tournament. Only two contestants entered Monday night with a chance to win but 14 others had a chance for second.
The only two who had a chance to win were last year’s defending Champion, Jeff Johnson who entered Monday night with 10 points while Mickell Larson went into the Commanders-Chiefs game with 9 points. 14 other contestants had 9 as well but Mickell was the only one to choose the Commanders so he was the only one who could match Jeff as if the Chiefs won he would earn his 11th point. That is exactly what happened which meant Jeff won thanks to the Chiefs victory while those 14 other contestants past Mickell who would finish out of the top two.
We would once again go to the field goal tiebreaker and kickers like Chris Boswell and Chase McLaughlin would make up for the six teams not playing while Monday night’s game didn’t have a field goal and some only had one single kick. The total yardage of made field goals was 1,714. Three contestants were way over while Easton Hargrave and Jim Spinelli were both over by less than 100 and Mark Westley was just 13 yards over! However, over means you’re out. Many went very low to avoid going over but Stephen Gruginski took a shot and it paid off as his guess of 1,657 netted him the second place finish just ahead of Alicia Clark’s 1,469.
After six weeks in a row without a repeat top two finisher, we have back-to-back weeks with a repeat. Jeff Johnson does get his first top two finish of the season, locking up his spot in the Postseason Tournament. However, Stephen Gruginski finishes second for the second consecutive week which blocks another spot in the Postseason Tournament. That means we are up to 14 entrants with a maximum of 34 now with 20 opportunities left to qualify for your chance to win the Ticket Bonanza! That includes two tickets to the Mariners, Seahawks, Kraken, Sounders, Storm, Tacoma Rainiers, and Emerald Downs. Everyone can continue to enter even if you have already won to try to keep that field as small as possible to increase their chances of winning.
Jeff also beat the Professor who had a rough week with just 7 points on the week. That means Jeff gets the $27 as DW struggled in every slate and his huge upset pick of Tennessee over Indianapolis was not even close. He also missed on both Miami’s upset of Atlanta and the Jets getting their first win of the season. While the Jets are in the win column, DW has now lost 43 consecutive weeks, meaning he is worse than the Jets. Yikes.
The least pick upset of the week was the Jets taking down the Bengals in comeback fashion which not a single contestant predicted. Only 7% of our contestants had Miami over Atlanta as well while the trendy upset pick of Dallas over Denver did not happen which cost those risk takers their opportunity to make up a game.
Week 9’s contest is up. The deadline to get your entry in is 4pm on Thursday so get signed up now. Congratulations Jeff and Stephen and best of luck to everyone this week.
Grand Prize Package
elisportsnetwork.com
