DiploBall IV, Final Recap

Happy President’s Day weekend everyone!  The BBQ is on and I’m ready to rock the weekend Asmara style!  However, I owe you a final recap!  Like always I’ll announce the winners for both Points and Picks… and break them into Overall, NCAA, and NFL.  So, here we go!

Points

Overall Winner:  VJSchutz

Second Place: SchutzJP

Third Place: Jim Schutz

This is VJ’s second DiploBall Championship in a row!  Although it got a tad dicey at the end, he pulled off the win like the pro his is… although; I’m pretty sure the foundation for his dominance is the fact he doesn’t want to pay for the postage necessary to mail the Golden DiploBall to someone else.

And for the fourth season in a row all the Schutz’s take the top spots keeping the dynasty alive.  I’m just glad I was able to finally overtake Jim!  Dad!  I’m going for you next year!

NCAA Winner:  Badger

Second Place: VJSchutz

Third Place: Jim Schutz

Badger started out the season like a bat out of hell, mathematically, the Schutz’s thought it would be impossible to catch him, however, he just couldn’t seem to maintain through the second half of his season.  Perhaps it was karma getting him back for all the smack talk?  That said, Badger managed to hold on to the NCAA victory!

NFL Winner:  Steak n Potatoes

Second Place:  EricC

Third Place:  BigCat

The NFL standings support one of my biggest DiploBall concerns.  The NFL games just don’t enough weight… the numbers are terrible skewed in favor of the NCAA games.  There are only about 31 more NCAA games in the season, however, the amount of points on the table during NCAA weeks are a lot more… especially when we get down to weeks with only NFL.  We need to figure out a way to make it more even.

Well… I know what I will be spending my off season doing.

Here are the complete standings for Points:

Rank	Overall Standings	NCAA Standings	NFL Standings
1st	VJSchutz	Badger	Steak n Potatoes
2nd	SchutzJP	VJSchutz	EricC
3rd	Jim Schutz	Jim Schutz	BigCat
4th	BigCat	SchutzJP	SchutzJP
5th	Badger	BigCat	Jim Schutz
6th	The Great Usurper	The Great Usurper	VJSchutz
7th	EricC	Ryan	Pac12Bear
8th	Ryan	Ted	Badger
9th	Ted	VNIbarger	The Great Usurper
10th	Pac12Bear	RollTide1	Rada
11th	Steak & Potatoes	SEC#1	Red Craig
12th	RollTide1	EricC	Ryan
13th	SEC#1	Pac12Bear	RollTide1
14th	Vnibarger	Jeff	Robbins
15th	BeachBums505	Irishman	Irishman
16th	Irishman	BeachBums505	Renegade
17th	Jeff	Steak & potatoes	BeachBums505
18th	Arose	Robbins	Jeff
19th	Robbins	Renegade	SEC#1
20th	Renegade	Arose	Arose
21st	Rada	Rada	VNIbarger

Picks

Overall Winner:  VJSchutz & Badger

Second Place: Jim Schutz

Third Place: SchutzJP & The Great Usurper

NCAA Winner:  Badger

Second Place: VJSchutz

Third Place: SchutzJP

NFL Winner:  Jim Schutz

Second Place:  The Great Usurper

Third Place:  VJSchutz

I can’t say there are many big surprises here, however, the fact that The Great Usurper ranked in two of these categories, however, he only placed 6^th overall in points.  Interesting!

Here are the complete standings for Picks:

Rank	Overall Standings	NCAA Standings	NFL Standings
1st	VJSchutz & Badger	Badger	Jim Schutz
2nd	Jim Schutz	VJSchutz	The Great Usurper
3rd	SchutzJP & The Great Usurper	SchutzJP	VJSchutz
4th	BigCat	Jim Schutz	BigCat
5th	Ryan	BigCat, Jeff, & Ryan	Steak n Potatoes
6th	Jeff	The Great Usurper	SchutzJP
7th	Steak n Potatoes	VNIbarger	Badger
8th	Pac12Bear	Pack12Bear	Ryan
9th	VNIBarger	Steak n Potatoes	Pac12Bear
10th	EricC & Robbins	EricC	Robbins
11th	Rada	Robbins	Jeff
12th	Ted	Rada	EricC
13th	RollTide1	RollTide1	Rada
14th	Renegade	Ted	VNIbarger
15th	Irishman	SEC#1	Ted
16th	SEC#1	Irishman	RollTide1
17th	BeachBums505	BeachBums505 & Renegade	Renegade
18th	ARose	Arose	Irishman
19th			BeachBums505
20th			SEC#1
21st			Arose

DiploBall IV, Week 22

Happy Post-Super Bowl everyone!  What a game… or at least what I saw of it.  After spending all day cooped up in a hotel room in Munich watching ESPN American’s endless loop of Sunday NFL Countdown the game finally started at midnight… and well… I promptly fell asleep just after the Ravens scored their first touchdown... which made me happy... because I thought I picked the Ravens to win... but... ummm... apparently I had data entry issues this week...

Alas!

Not much to report except for our final week winners, all of whom have earned a Perfect Week Bonus.  So, if you see your name below please send me the pick you would like to reverse.  Any game of the season is eligible.  You have one week to send in your pick reversals!  At which time I will send out the final standings.

VJSchutz

VNIBarger

Robbins

Jim

The Great Usurper

Renegade

Jeff

RollTide1 (You still haven’t cashed in your perfection from Week 1)

Peace!

DiploBall IV, Week 21: Crash and Burn

Okay… so I don’t really want to talk about it…  I’m heartbroken… but I have to talk about it because someone earned a Perfect Week Bonus… meaning they did the most unholy of unholy.  This person picked against the Falcons.  Actually four of you did!  And it makes me sick… the only solace I have is the fact that only ONE of the four of you earned the Perfect Week.

Renegade.  Congratulations… you get to reverse any game you missed this season.

And I get to go back to bed… and cry. 

DiploBall IV, Week 19 & 20

Okay!  Know I am VERY late my latest recaps, but I have a good excuse.  I’ve totally been distracted by this picture of an otter from the Georgia Aquarium cheering for the Falcons: 

(http://sphotos-a.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-snc7/c0.0.403.403/p403x403/320929_10151452114960695_495810578_n.jpg)

Totally distracted.  GO FALCONS!

Since the last time I wrote two people have cashed in their Perfect Weeks:  VJ and Me!  Leaving only RollTide1 with a pending Perfect Week… although he tried to, vaguely, cash it in earlier in the season and I still don’t understand what game he meant.

That said, even though VJ is positioned for his second (back to back) DiploBall victory, his win is not guaranteed!  With two more weeks and two more potential perfect week bonuses in play, anything can still happen!

The NFL Playoff has certainly been interesting!  And for the Schutz’s it has been VERY exciting!  As many of you know, we’re originally from Baltimore and some of us still hold a fair amount of resentment towards the Colts… but watching the Ravens eliminate them from the playoffs and then move through to the AFC Championship is amazing! 

However, we’ve been in Atlanta since the mid-70s, so watching the Falcons finally break their playoffs curse, with a real shot at the NFC Championship has been incredible rewarding!

I guess it goes without saying that our pipe-dream of FINALLY having a Baltimore-Atlanta Super Bowl might actually come true!  Not sure if it will happen, but if it does, I’ll be in Munich enjoying the show if anyone is in the area and interested in joining me!

Until then, here is how the last two weeks played out:

Week 19

1^st Place:  Jim Schutz

2^nd Place:  Robbins

3^rd place:  SchutzJP

Last Place:  VNIBarger

Week 20

1^st Place:  The Great Usurper

2^nd Place:  BigCat, Jim Schutz, SchutzJP, VJSchutz, and Jeff

3^rd place:  Rada, Badger, EricC, Renegade

Last Place:  VNIBarger

For Week 20 VNIBarger has the dubious honor of missing ALL four games… … … yeah.

Well, here we go folks!  Week 21!  We’re almost there!

DiploBall IV, Week 18: Bowl-mageddon

Sorry for the late recap.  I flew back to WashDC today and have been a bit preoccupied. 

DiploBall IV, Week 18 Recap:

1^st Place:  EricC

2^nd Place:  VJSchutz

3^rd Place:  BigCat

Last Place:  VNIBarger

Missed Week Minimum:  0 Points

Irishman.  That’s right… Irishman gets ZERO points!  Per the Missed Week Rules, eligible parties are given one point less than the lowest ranking player submitted picks for more than 2/3 of the games and finished the week in the positive.  Which gave us RollTide, who finished the week with ONE point!

Eliminated:  SEC#1 and BeachBum505

Irishman now exhausted all 5 missed weeks… next week he’ll be out!

DiploBall IV, Week 17: Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas DiploBallers!  Is it me, or does it seem really odd to not have any games today?  Anyway, sorry to bother you when you should be enjoying time with your families, however I wanted to make sure everyone knows that PoolTracker considers Tuesday the start of the football week.  So Week 18 will start tomorrow with the “Little Caesars Pizza Bowl”.  And Week 19 will start on Tuesday, January 1^st with the “TaxSlayer.com Gator Bowl”.  Don’t forget to make your picks!

By the way… I’m pretty sure “TaxSlayer.com Gator Bowl” is the all-time greatest bowl name EVER.  Originally I thought “New Era Pinstripe Bowl” was pretty styling… but TaxSlayer is epic!

DiploBall IV, Week 17 Recap:

1^st Place:  Renegade

Renegade was so close to earning a Perfect Week!  Just one game shy!  That dang Seattle stood in his way!

2^nd Place:  Ted

Along with Renegade, Ted was only one of two player who picked ALL of the bowl games correct!

3^rd Place:  The Great Usurper

This was a great week for Usurper.  Not only did he take 3^rd place… but he won his second DiploBall Legacy League title. 

Last Place:  Pac12Bear

Missed Week Minimum:  22 Points

SEC#1, BeachBum505, RollTide1, and Irishman

Eliminated:  Arose

Arose has already used up her 5 weeks so she is now officially out of the game.  Also in danger is SEC#1 and BeachBum505; both reaching their limit this week.

DiploBall IV, Week 16

Sorry for yet another abbreviated recap.  My first week in Atlanta has been action packed!

1^st Place: Ted


2^nd Place:  The Great Usurper



3^rd Place:  Ryan



Last Place:  VNIBarger
 

Missed Week Minimum: 30 Point
Renegade, SEC#1, BeachBum505, and ARose

Perfect Week Cash-In:  The Great UsurperUsurper cashed in his perfect week to correct a 37 point failure from Week 13!

DiploBall IV, Week 15:

I’m heading to Atlanta tomorrow for my R&R, so I don’t have time for a long recap.  Have a great week everyone!

1^st Place: Rada

GOOOOAAAAAALLLLLL!!!!!

2^nd Place:  Badger

Is he back?  Does he have time to rise back to his former glory?

3^rd Place:  Jim Schutz

Jim has now moved into 2^nd place!

Last Place:  Renegade

Yeah… so… -20.  That’s a bad week.

Missed Week Minimum: 1 Point

That’s right… 1 point!  Thanks to BigCat’s 2 point week!  Those who earned this… point… <giggle snort>:  SEC#1, BeachBums505, ARose, and Irishman.

DiploBall IV, Week 14: Playoffs and Bowl Games!

The Falcons clinched their spot in the playoffs!  Just in time for my R&R back to Atlanta!  I’m actually in DC right now for training and I am pretty sure I have already gained 10 lbs.  My hotel is right next door to Red, Hot, and Blue!  Ooooh man…

Anyway, Week 15 is NFL only!  So, we’re going to have a lot fewer games until the Bowls start.  But keep in mind, few games actually increases your odds of having a perfect week.  And a perfect week will earn you the right to change a pervious mistake!  This deal goes all the way to the Super Bowl… so pick wisely!

DiploBall IV, Week 14 Recap:

1^st Place: Jim Schutz

This week’s winners made some seriously leaps in the season standings.  Jim jumped from 5^th to 3^rd overall.  Only 37 points out of 1^st.

2^nd Place:  VJSchutz

VJ jumped from 3^rd to 1^st overall.

3^rd Place:  Ryan

Ryan jumped from 8^th to 6^th!  There is still time!

NCAA MVP:  VNIBarger

VNI Barger earned the most about of NCAA points this week and picked 9 out of 10 games correct!

NCAA MVP:  BigCat

Although he wasn't able to place overall this week, BigCat earned 3^rd Place in the NFL games.

Last Place:  Rada

Rada… I am very disappointed!

Missed Week Minimum: 54 Points

ARose, Beachbum505, Irishman, and SEC#1

Perfect Week Bonus: 

Remember!  VJ, The Great Usurper, Jp, and RollTide still have perfect weeks to cash-in.  

DiploBall IV, Week 13 Recap: Watch Your Back

1^st Place: SchutzJP

Do you smell that?  Victory!  A victory so sweet there is only one possible way to celebrate.  That’s right… the Gangna Style dance!  Hmmm… note to self… when celebrating my victory by reenacting a viral South Korean youtube video… perhaps I should first make sure the consular waiting room is empty.  That was slightly embarrassing.

Anyway!  Having successfully taken down Jim, I am now in 4^th place… That means VJ, Badger, and BigCat are officially on notice!  I’m only 62 points away from taking what is rightfully mine!

2^nd Place: RollTide1

Eric made a HUGE jump in the season stands this week.  Moving from 15^th to 11^th!  Moving up 4 spots is hard to do, especially this far into the season!

3^rd Place: Jeff

So, Jeff and I have been at an impasse all day.  We just can’t agree.  However, since I won, I think I should, by default, be correct.  But, noooo… Jeff doesn’t think that would be fair and has asked for a more democratic solution.  So, fine.  We’ll put it up for a vote.   Here it goes:  Jeff thinks ‘Waterworld’ is the worst Kevin Costner film ever made.  HOWEVER, I think ‘The Postman’ is the worst.  Please, weigh in and help us settle this once and for all… before we have to enter the Octagon and battle it out like two civilized adults.

Honorable Mention #1: Rada

You know?  Rada doesn’t normally have spectacular weeks… however, I can’t let her 4^th place finish go unnoticed.

Honorable Mention #2: The Great Usurper

The Great tied with Jeff for the most correct picks.  25 out of 37.

Last Place:  Robbins

I have to admit… I am a bit perplexed.  Robbins made picks for all 37 games.  However, he lost to Renegade, who only made picks for 13 games.  Umm… interesting.

Missed Week Minimum (MWM): 50 Points

Robbins didn’t do you guys any favors this week:  SEC#1, Arose, Irishman, and BeachBum

DiploBall IV, Weeks 11 & 12 Recap: A Double Helping of Thanksgiving

Well, the general consensus was to throw out the San Francisco/St. Louis game, so I have.  But I do have to ask a question.  What is more embarrassing… losing to the Rams… or tying the Rams?  I think the latter.

Anyway, omitting the game didn’t affect Week 11’s leader board; however it did help some folks in the season standings.

Here is your double recap!

DiploBall IV, Week 11 & 12 Recap

1^st Place: BigCat (Week 11 & 12)

Yep.  BigCat has won two weeks in a row.  In addition, BigCat has overtaken Badger in the season standings, which is crazy to me.  Badger!  What the heck happened?  You pretty much had this thing in the bag!

2^nd Place: VJSchutz (Week 11), SchutzJp (Week 12)

Well, there is no big surprise seeing my dad on the leader board… but this is only my SECOND time in the top three this season!  So, I think I’m going to celebrate by crack open one of the Yuengling’s I shipped in my consumables allowance!  Cheers everyone!

3^rd Place: SEC#1 (Week 11), VJSchutz (Week 12)

SEC#1 has had a strong couple weeks jumping from 12^th to 10^th in the season standings.  VJSchutz is still sitting in 3^rd… however, only 162 points separates our top 5 players… so as we move into week 13… anything can happen.

Last Place:  Pac12Bear (Week 11), Rada (Week 12)

Well… look on the bright side.  At least this week you get to share this dubious honor!

Missed Week Minimum (MWM)

Over the last two weeks four people have benefited from the Missed Week Minimum:  Arose, Ted, Renegade, and RollTide1

DiploBall IV, Week 11: What the…?

Okay Diploballers.  I don’t feel like I can do a proper recap this week because I don’t think I agree with the standings!  I am so confused!

Something has happened that has never happened, EVER, in the four seasons of Diploball.

There has been a tie!

San Francisco and St. Louis tied!

Now, the reason I don’t feel like I can do a recap this week is because PoolTracker marked all of our picks for that game wrong… WRONG!  Meaning we all lost points no matter what!

Folks, I don’t know if I agree with how PoolTracker decided to score this.  No one lost… and no one won… so why should we all lose points?  In my heart of hearts I feel like we should just throw the game out.  Omit it entirely.  We’ll make it points neutral, meaning you’ll gain back what you lost on the game… but this may affect some the standings for the week. 

I need to hear the opinion of the masses!  And then I’ll do a double recap next week.

Keep on truckin’ Diploballers!

DiploBall IV, Week 10: You’re Invited!

Okay… so, I don’t want to jinx anything, but the last Super Bowl party I threw was January 31^st, 1999.  And if I’m going to throw one this season… I have to start planning now because you guys are going to need plenty of time to get your Eritrean entry visas.  It’s going to be off the hook Asmara style.  GO FALCONS!

DiploBall IV, Week 10 Recap

1^st Place: Steak n Potatoes

Steak has been on fire ever since his father-in-law overstepped his own mouth with too much smack-talk. 

2^nd Place:  VJ Schutz

Last year’s champ is starting to even out his season, moving from 4^th to 3^rd in the standings, reclaiming his place that the top of the Schutz family contingent, however, I have a feeling his sights are now of BigCat.  Which is fine… because he won’t notice my sights on him!

3^rd Place:  VNIBarger

Like Steak, VNIBarger has been hanging out low in the standings… however, we still have half the season to go.  It’s still anybody's game!

NCAA MVP:  Irishman

Irishman tied with Steak n Potatoes for the most correct NCAA picks, 17 out of 19!

NFL MVP:  SEC#1

SEC tied with VNIBarger for the most correct NFL picks, 12 out of 14.  Impressive!

Last Place:  Robbins

That’s two weeks in a row dude.  Are you make this a habit?