Week 5

Good evening from the Rudy Bowl desk, where the standard of football analysis this week was so low we had to dig a basement to find it. Fifteen games, one tie nobody wanted, and a Monday night total that detonated on every last human being in this pool. Let's get into it. Your Week 5 champion and current holder of the twenty dollars is Braden Cecil of Team Cecil, hereby crowned the Supreme Vizier of the Educated Guess. Ten points, 10-5, and he backs into the top spot the same way everybody did — by blowing the Monday total by seventeen. He guessed 54, the actual was 71. He won anyway. That's not skill, that's the universe owing him a favor, and he cashed it. He also leads the season at 51 games won, so fine, maybe there's something to it. The pool got thoroughly cooked twice. Ninety-five percent of you took Dallas over Tampa Bay and watched the Bucs win 24-16 — that's a near-unanimous belief that evaporated on contact. Then, just when you thought your judgment couldn't get worse, 71 percent of you took Atlanta against Baltimore and the Ravens strolled in 30-23. Two confident crowds, two faceplants. Meanwhile Jacksonville nipped Philly 19-17 and everybody who took the Jags should mail themselves a thank-you card, because that one had no business landing. Let's talk Hail Mary balls, or the lack of them. Two of you called a tie outright. Donnie Brown of Pick Around & Find Out threw his on a game that did not end level and got nothing for it — and a missed Mary is the difference between finishing first and finishing second, Donnie, which you did. Jeanette Brown of Big Pick Energy also whiffed on hers. The actual tie, Giants-Washington 27-27, sat right there at 67 percent on the Giants and paid absolutely no one. Nerve is nothing without aim. Now the Monday night massacre, the great equalizer. The total came in at 71 and not one soul was within fifteen of it. Special recognition to LoFo of Beauty on Duty and Kelly of Boxer Besties, both off by 29 — you looked at an NFL game and budgeted for a rec-league scrimmage. Stacey of Stacey's Team and Jeanette tied for second-worst at 26 off. And Susie of Susie Wins didn't submit a Monday total at all, which this week was arguably the sharpest decision anyone made. To the cellar: our bottom four — Julie Nugent, Shawn Swank, Greg Carollo of Jojosharppicks, and Stacey — all stumbled in at 7-8, which means you lost more games than you won in a week where 100 percent of the pool correctly took Cincinnati. You had a free one. Season-wise, Cecil clings to the lead by a single game over Brady Nugent and Hootie, Hootie still chasing his first weekly win, and poor Josh's Picks dead last at 37. Where Winners Win, people — just, apparently, not on Mondays.