1/5/26
The regular season in the NFL came to an end this week and in week 18 the final two spots were up for grabs in Professor DW’s Playoff Tournament. With so many players sitting out to rest for the playoffs, it was a very unpredictable week with a number of normally bottom tier teams coming in as favorites over the upper tier. Two playoff spots in the NFL were also on the line with the AFC North and NFC South having head-to-head matchups along with the NFC’s #1 seed on the line in a head-to-head matchup in San Francisco.
All 16 games were on during the weekend with Tampa Bay taking down Carolina and Seattle clinching the #1 seed over San Francisco on Saturday. The upsets came on Sunday with Las Vegas beating what is left of Kansas City, Washington beating the reigning Super Bowl champions in Philadelphia and New York beating Dallas and Minnesota shutting down Green Bay as the Cowboys and Packers sat their starters.
In the picks portion, it was actually a pretty great week but for the first time this season, the tiebreaker was not needed for the top two. Alicia Clark came away with the win with 13 points while Kevin Hamrick finished second with 12. It came down to Sunday Night Football as Alicia and Kevin were tied with Alicia picking the home Pittsburgh Steelers and Kevin taking the Baltimore Ravens. In a wild finish to the game, Baltimore’s rookie kicker Tyler Loop missed a game-winning field goal to send Pittsburgh to the playoffs and giving Alicia the win.
Both Alicia and Kevin already qualified for the Postseason Tournament with Alicia getting a win back in week 3 while Kevin finished in second place in week 15. Those two spots are blocked out which means we are at a total of 24 entrants into the Postseason Tournament. The winner of the Postseason Tournament wins the Ticket Bonanza! That includes two tickets to the Mariners, Seahawks, Kraken, Sounders, Storm, Tacoma Rainiers, and Emerald Downs. Those who qualified only get one entrant even if they finished in the top two multiple weeks.
DW ended his regular season on a high note. He came in third with a total of 11 but a bad pick of Arizona ended up costing DW as he completes another winless season. DW finishes just like the Raiders, good but still bad.
There were multiple upsets this but none larger than Washington downing Philadelphia. Out of all the entrants, only DW correctly picked the Commanders to beat the Eagles with their third string QB. Other large upsets were the Giants over the Cowboys and the Raiders beating the Chiefs.
The Postseason Tournament will be up Wednesday morning with an email to those who qualified. The list of qualified entrants are down below. Thank you for playing along this season and check back for more DW contests throughout the year.
Qualified Entrants
Kariann Sullivan
Trent Twamley
Jared Kickner
William Pecson
Alicia Clark
Lee Stockwell
Greg Hargrave
Todd Sayre
Wes Swick
Jeff Johnson (Tumwater)
Chris Barnes
Mike Lowder
Easton Hargrave
Stephen Gruginski
Kelsey Hergert
Lori Mohney
Jake Moe
Josh Kaiser
Carlo Marinuzzi
Kim King
Jennifer Kickner
Declan Curran
Kevin Hamrick
Grand Prize Package
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