12/16/25
The playoffs are right around the corner and the first teams have now clinched their spots in the NFL playoffs. The Denver Broncos and Los Angeles Rams both clinched a playoff spot as two more spots were locked in Professor DW’s Football Pick ’em Challenge. With just 8 spots left open to move into the Postseason tournament. There were a couple of big upsets to go along with some games that were split 50/50 down the middle which made for a very intriguing contest in week 15.
Greg Hargrave separated himself from the rest of the pack and was the only one with 11 points after the Sunday slate of games. His predictions of both Atlanta upsetting Tampa Bay as well as New Orleans taking down Carolina moved him ahead of the pack. A Pittsburgh win on Monday night would earn him the win outright while the race for second was set up to be quite interesting. Jeff Johnson and MJ Hargrave could tie Greg if Miami pulled the upset while a Steelers win would create an eight-way tie for second.
Of course Miami could not win a game in the cold and got blown out by Pittsburgh to be mathematically eliminated from playoff contention while the Steelers remain in first place in the AFC North. That gave Greg the win, becoming the first contestant to win multiple weeks this season. It also created a mess in the race for second. We went to the tiebreaker and it was a very high total field goal yardage of 2,202 yards with a bulk of that coming in the Indianapolis @ Seattle game. Nobody went over on their guess out of the contestants tied so it came down to who guessed the highest. Kevin Hamrick narrowly beat the other Jeff Johnson with Kevin’s guess of 1,888 beating Jeff’s guess of 1,776. Kevin would take home second by just 112 yards.
Greg already qualified for the Postseason Tournament so he just blocks out one of the few remaining spots. Greg earned his second win of the season as he took home the win in week 4 but Kevin punches his ticket to the Postseason Tournament. Kevin has been very close a couple of times but he becomes the 24th contestant into the Postseason Tournament with only six spots left. The winner of the Postseason Tournament takes home the Ticket Bonanza, which includes two tickets to the Mariners, Seahawks, Kraken, Sounders, Storm, Tacoma Rainiers, and Emerald Downs. Greg and Kevin can continue to enter to try to up their chances of winning the grand prize.
DW had a respectable week with 10 points to finish just one point behind the tie for second and two behind Greg for the win. He picked all home teams to win this week which turned out to be a solid strategy although not a winning strategy. DW continues to strive for mediocrity and has now hit a landmark of 50 consecutive weeks without a single win.
The rare upsets of the week belonged to the NFC as two tied for the least picked. On Thursday, Atlanta stunned Tampa Bay on a late field goal and on Sunday night Minnesota took down Dallas as J.J. McCarthy brought the Cowboys down to earth. Just behind them was New Orleans taking down Carolina as the NFC South turned into an absolute mess.
Week 16’s contest is up. The deadline to enter is once again 4pm on Thursday so get signed up ASAP. Congratulations Greg and Kevin and best of luck to everyone this week.
Grand Prize Package
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