1/20/26
The Divisional Round of the NFL Playoffs brought two overtime thrillers to continue the trend set by a chaotic Wild Card Weekend. Only one road team pulled off an upset with Los Angeles going to Chicago and surviving OT despite a miraculous Hail Mary by Bears quarterback Caleb Williams. Professor DW’s Playoff Tournament saw a lot of the right choices be made in terms of games but as always the props questions is where the tournament is won and lost and there were mixed results.
Denver and Buffalo was the only toss-up game but Houston taking down New England was one popular upset that did not come to fruition. Playing it safe was the way to go this week except for in the prop bets. Eight contestants got all four games correct but the prop questions turned into the great equalizer.
In the first prop, the fewest points scored was San Francisco which coincided with prop #3 in the biggest blowout. Seattle hammered San Francisco 41-6 to make those two props not even close and Stephen Gruginski and Wes Swick both double dipped to get them both right. Kenneth Walker had the most total yards receiving and rushing for a running back, narrowly beating out James Cook by just four yards with a total of 145. Only William Pecson correclty predicted that with Christian McCaffrey being the popular pick but only had 74 while dealing with an injury. The longest touchdown also came from that game on the first play with Rasheed Shaheed running the opening kick back for a 95-yard touchdown to give a point to Lee Stockwell, Lori Mohney, and Easton Hargrave who picked 61+ yards.
We had a tie on prop #5 with which team forces the most turnovers. Both on the AFC side as the Denver Broncos and New England Patriots each forced five turnovers so all 10 contestants to pick Houston and New England got a point. Finally, without many penalties this week the most penalized team was the Buffalo Bills with just five accepted penalties against them but two huge ones on the final drive. Only Alicia Clark and Stephen Gruginski got that one right.
The new leaderboard is down below with Mike Lowder taking sole possession of first place with 13 but very narrowly. 12 contestants are right behind him though with points ranging from 10-12. 10 more points are on the line this week with more prop questions and still 35 total points left on the board.
The form is updated with the questions for the AFC and NFC Championship games so make sure to get your entry in by 9am on Saturday. Good luck!
Link to enter for Championship Round
| Professor DW Post Season Tournament Standings | |||||||||
| Place | Name | Tie-Breaker | 1st Round | 2nd Round | 3rd Round | Super Bowl | Total Points | ||
| 1 | Mike Lowder | 2,500 | 7 | 6 | 13 | ||||
| T2 | Declan Curran | 570 | 7 | 5 | 12 | ||||
| T2 | Kevin Hamrick | 1,528 | 7 | 5 | 12 | ||||
| T2 | Jared Kickner | 1,527 | 6 | 6 | 12 | ||||
| T5 | Kariann Sullivan | 1,560 | 7 | 4 | 11 | ||||
| T5 | Lori Mohney | 2,080 | 7 | 4 | 11 | ||||
| T5 | Kim King | 2,341 | 7 | 4 | 11 | ||||
| T5 | Greg Hargrave | 1,403 | 6 | 5 | 11 | ||||
| T5 | Jake Moe | 2,000 | 6 | 5 | 11 | ||||
| T10 | Carlo Marinuzzi | 703 | 7 | 3 | 10 | ||||
| T10 | Trent Twamley | 554 | 6 | 4 | 10 | ||||
| T10 | Lee Stockwell | 983 | 5 | 5 | 10 | ||||
| T10 | Stephen Gruginski | 1,107 | 4 | 6 | 10 | ||||
| T14 | Jennifer Kickner | 1,973 | 6 | 3 | 9 | ||||
| T14 | William Pecson | 1,868 | 5 | 4 | 9 | ||||
| T14 | Josh Kaiser | 2,400 | 5 | 4 | 9 | ||||
| T14 | Wes Swick | 589 | 4 | 5 | 9 | ||||
| T18 | Alicia Clark | 764 | 4 | 4 | 8 | ||||
| T18 | Jeff Johnson (Tumwater) | 1,666 | 4 | 4 | 8 | ||||
| T18 | Chris Barnes | 1,551 | 4 | 4 | 8 | ||||
| 21 | Easton Hargrave | 1,550 | 4 | 3 | 7 | ||||
| 22 | Kelsey Hergert | 455 | 3 | 2 | 5 | ||||
| 23 | Todd Sayre | 1,468 | 3 | 1 | 4 | ||||
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