DiploBall 3, Week 21: Go Giants!

The ‘Falcons Bump’ is alive and well… but do the Giants have what it takes to defeat the Patriots?  Do you have the guts to embrace the ‘Falcons Bump’ for your final pick?  I know I do!  Go Giants!

This is it everyone!  One more week will decide you place in DiploBall history. 

As for week 21, four people had a perfect week earning them quite a bonus:

Badger – 62 Bonus Points!

Back on Week 12 Badger lost 31 points when #3 Oklahoma State lost to Iowa State.  And now, thanks to his perfect week, his losing pick has been changed from a negative to a positive, giving him 62 extra points! 

I guess the big question is this: “Did the bonus help Badger in the standings?” 

Answer: YES

This 62 point bonus has moved Badger from 7^th place to 5^th place overall.  Furthermore, Badger is only 44 points behind Ted.  Potentially, if Badger get the Super Bowl correct he will be eligible to correct another 31 point loss for another 62 point bonus.  So, if Ted gets the game wrong or doesn’t make a pick… 4^th place could be Badgers!

President Malaise – 66 Bonus Points + 19 Point Score Adjustment

Mr. President, on Week 9 didn’t you pick New Orleans for 33 points and lose?  Not anymore!  Boom!  66 points!

Scoring Adjustment: Periodically throughout the season we’ve caught issues where PoolTracker neglected to register weights for some folks.  We caught most of them as the season progressed, however, while auditing Malaise’s scores, for his bonus, I noticed that his 19 point weight on  Arizona State, during Week 9, didn’t register.  So, congratulations… that’s an extra 19 points for you!

BTW, the Arizona State game didn’t register for six other players and I’ve corrected everyone’s scores: Nate (28 points); Rolltide1 (22 points); Pac12Bear (32 points); Jeff (11 points); Arose (13 points); and Robbins (21 points).

As for Malaise, these bonuses were unable to move him up from 8^th place.  However, with a correct pick at the Super Bowl, Malaise could earn himself another 66 point bonus!

EricC – 70 Bonus Points

EricC has earned himself a 70 points bonus after his perfect week reversed the 35 points he lost in week 11 when TCU beat Boise State.

EricC, I have good news and bad news.  Although you’ll be eligible for another 66 points if you get the Super Bowl correct, won’t be enough to get out of 10^th place… however the good news is that there is no way Eric ‘Rolltide1’ Parker can catch you!

Arose – 74 Bonus Points + 73 Point Scoring Adjustment

Arose totally made out this week.  Not only did she get to reverse for 37 points Stanford lose from Week 18 and get an extra 13 points from the Week 9 scoring adjustments… when auditing her scores I cause two games that didn’t register from Week 12: 24 (U Ar over Co State) and 36 (TCU over MS State)!!!

These extra points have moved Arose from 13^th place to 12^th place!

Incidentally, Hess had the same score issue for Week 12.  After correcting his weights, Hess has regained a total of 51 points.

*** These score adjustments should populate into the PoolTracker System by tomorrow morning.  Please take a moment and check your scores.  You should check to see if you have a correct pick registered with ‘0’ points.  If so… you could get some points back too!

The Season Standings Going into the Super Bowl:

1	VJSchutz	6121
2	Jim Schutz	6043
3	Jp	6017
4	Ted Craig	5609
5	Badger	5565
6	Ryan	5548
7	BigCat	5537
8	President Malaise	5431
9	Hess	5339
10	EricC	5217
11	RollTide1	4888
12	ARose	4793
13	Steak n Potatoes	4738
14	vnibarger	4359
15	Nate	4241
16	Rada	4030
17	Robbins	4023
18	Big Dave	3990
19	PAC12BEAR	3623
20	Jeff	3053
21	Tashkent1	3010
22	mbounds	2327
23	dnibarger	1447
24	Skiclimb2011	148

DiploBall 3, Week 20: The Falcons Bump

Man!  I am totally kicking myself for not picking the Giants.  In my heart of hearts I thought they were going to win, but the numbers weren’t supporting my theory… so I couldn’t justify picking them.

However, there might be some truth to my ‘Falcons bump’ theory.

In the last four seasons the Atlanta Falcons have made the playoffs three times.  All three times they lost in the first round of the Wild Card games.  In 2008/2009 they lost of the Arizona Cardinals and in 2010/2011 they lost to the Green Bay Packers… both teams went on to win the NFC Conference Championship for berths into the Super Bowl. 

Oddly enough… the season in-between (2009/2010), when the Falcons came in 7^th overall in the NFC, barely just missing out on a Wild Card berth, they came in second place in the NFC South.  Essentially losing their division to the New Orleans Saints… and you guessed it… that was the year the Saints humiliated the Indianapolis Colts in the Super Bowl.

You get the idea.    

Does the ‘Flacons Bump’ really exist?  I don’t know… we’ll see.  Back in 2007 the New York Giants beat the Falcons in the third week of regular season and went on to win the Super Bowl… so… can beating the Falcons ago bring home the gold for NY?  As I said, “We’ll see.”

Week 20 Recap:

Only one person got three games correct this week, so we were close, but no cigar, for taping into the new ‘Perfect Week’ rule… and well… with so few points at stake, we were plagued with an abnormally larger number of ties.  14 people actually participated this week… and if you ignore the silly ‘tie break’ rule, we all landed in one of five placements:

1^st Place: Badger and EricC (4 points)

2^nd Place:  President Malaise (3 Points)

3^rd Place:  Robbins, VJ, Jp, Jim, and Pac12Bear (2 Points)

Honorable mention goes to Pac12Bear for getting three out of four games correct.  Unfortunately his 4 point weight on Green Bay didn't pay off.

4^th Place:  BigCat and Ryan (0 Points)

Last Place:  Ted, Steak N Potatoes, Big Dave, and Jeff (-4 Points)

With only two games this week there is a real shot at having a perfect week!  Who can do it???

DiploBall 3, Week 19: …

I don’t want to talk about it.

1^st Place:  Pac12Bear with 34 points

2^nd Place:  Robbins with 15 points

3^rd Place: ARose with 13 points

Last Place: President Malaise with -40 points.

DiploBall 3, Week 18: It’s All Up to the Wind

Happy New Year everyone!

This season of DiploBall has taught me a very important lesson.  It has taught me the difference between taking random chances and calculated risks.  Taking random chances comes with a great deal of dread… candles may be lit and prayers said… and when it doesn’t go my way all I can think about is how stupid I was for taking such a ridiculous chance.  However, taking a calculated risk might not always go my way… but regardless of the outcome I still feel great for going for it!   

Although my 4^th place finish this week ended up dropping me back down to 3^rd place overall I am very pleased with how I played.  Out of the ten games I missed, seven of them were decided a touchdown or less.  If the wind had been blowing in a different direction for Wisconsin, Stanford, Houston, NY Jets, or Iowa State, (any one of them, not all of them)… Pops wouldn’t be enjoying such a nice lead.

Oh well.  That’s why their calculated risks.  Now I have to focus on getting a perfect week to get back some of the points I’ve lost in previous week!

The game isn’t over yet!

1^st Place: Ryan (5)

It has been a remarkable few weeks for Ryan.  For the last three weeks he has manages to place in the top four… and that consistency has propelled him from 9^th place all the way to 5^th in the season standings!  With four weeks left and the ‘Perfect Week Bonus’ on the line… can Ryan make up the 87 points he needs to take 4^th away from Ted?

2^nd Place & ‘Most Correct Picks’: Jim Schutz (2)

VJ called this during our pregame Schutz family babble.  Jim is by far the strongest NCAA picker of the family, and it is no surprise he wound up on top… I just wish he hadn’t done so well, because now I’m back to having two people to topple in the next four weeks.

3^rd Place: VJ Schutz (1)

Seriously.  I was watching our picks very closely and I know poor old dad was sweating a lot this week, especially going into the final three games.  He had gone big, with more than 20 points, on UGA, Oregon, and OK State.  I had done the complete opposite, having gone low, supporting all three rival teams… and you can imagine… with Michigan States OT win, the gantlets had been thrown.    Unfortunately, my other two picks had wound up just a tad to short.

NCAA MVP of the Week: President Malaise (8)

If you ignore Jason’s NFL standings, he had a really amazing week!  He actually tied Jim and VJ for the most correct Bowl Game picks, 18 out of 21.

NFL MVP of the Week: Hess (9)

Hess ended up in second place for the NFL games, with 12 out of 16 games and 256 points earned!

Last Place: Rada (16)

Oh Rada… I had really hoped you’d start your year on a better note!

DiploBall 3, Week 17: Here We Go Again!

***** Week 18 Starts TONIGHT!!!  *****

***** GET YOUR PICKS IN PRONTO! *****

Wow, these last couple weeks have felt like a marathon.  No time to relax… just pick!  And this week is going to be HUGE!  Week 18 has 37 games, making it the biggest week of the season!  With this many points up for grabs anything can happen.

That said; it looks like my luck may be starting to run out. 

I normally don’t take a lot of chances on my picks and play a pretty conservative game, but by midseason I came to the conclusion that my only chance to overtake Jim and VJ was to play against my strengths… meaning ‘fish for upsets’.  I’ve done this unsuccessfully in previous years, but this season things were really looking good.  By week 16 I had managed to cut VJ’s lead from 138 to 32 points.  However… week 17 didn’t really work out the way I hoped… now VJ is enjoying a 60 point lead.

This is totally my fault of course, more so than just making bad picks.  Normally, I make my picks on Tuesdays and just let them be.  However, this week, I think I freaked out a little and I fussed with my weights too much.  The picks I played ended up looking very different than the initial picks I submitted on Tuesday… and it hurt me in the long run.

Anyway, all and all, I’ve been really happy with how I’ve been playing these season.  I’ve totally learned from my week 17 mishap… and I’m ready for the week 18 showdown.  Goonies never die!

1^st Place: EricC (11)

Speaking of Goonies never dying.  Eric will not go quietly into the night!  I think being eliminated from the DiploBall Legacy League focused Eric and prepared him for battle.  Since his elimination three weeks ago, Eric has finished in the top two position of the DiploBall Pick ‘Em League.  Awesome job man!

2^nd Place:  President Malaise (7)

More DiploBall Legacy League news:  A big congratulations goes out to Jason for winning our inaugurate year!  If you actually read these weekly recaps you’ll know Jason eliminated Eric to claim the fourth (and final) spot in the playoffs.  And being the fourth seed certainly didn’t intimidate him… because he drove his team all the way to victory!  Perhaps we’ll see another underdog rise-up and claim the Pick ‘Em victory!   

3^rd Place:  Ryan (8)

A great showing for Ryan… although he did pick the Saints… sure, I know the Saints won and his 15 point pick was correct.  But… yeah… securing a third play finish by picking against the Falcons is never going to ingratiate yourself to me.  However, since the Falcons clinched a spot in the playoffs, even though they lost, I forgive you.  

NCAA MVP of the Week: ARose (12)

Hats off to ARose for being the only person to pick all 5 bowl games correct!

NFL MVP of the Week: Pac12Bear

Pac12Bear had the second best NFL week, just behind EricC.  Unfortunately, Pac tanked the bowl games, leaving him with a very unbalanced week.

‘Most Correct Picks’ Honorable Mention: VNIBarger (15) and Tashkent1 (20)

Oddly enough, neither of our top picks winners made the point’s leader board this week!  Keep this in mind as we move into week 18.  Weighting your picks is VERY important!

‘Random Pick Of the Week’ Honorable Mention:  Jeff (21)

Jeff has had a very rough season, and frankly, week 17 wasn’t any different.  However, Jeff was the only person to pick Minnesota over Washington.  And that is worth recognizing.

Last Place:  Robbins (17)

Well… this is yet another example of how important weights can be.  Robbins picked 13 games correctly and came in 20^th place.  However, Hess also picked 13 games correct and came in 11^th place.  And interestingly enough, President Malaise can in 2^nd place with 14 correct picks.  The margins we’re working with here are very small.

Have a great week everyone!  Happy picking!

DiploBall 3, Week 16: No Rest for the Weary

***** Week 17 Starts TONIGHT!!!  *****

***** GET YOUR PICKS IN PRONTO! *****

Perhaps my melancholy, last week, was a bit premature.  Sure, there are considerably fewer points at stake for a couple weeks… however; I completely overlooked the potential impact of this year’s (new) Jeopardy style scoring.  Only six players ended Week 16 with positive numbers, twelve players ended the week with negative numbers, and two players (BigCat and President Malaise) ended with ‘0’ even though they made picks for every game!  Believe it or not, week 16 affected the season standings for eight different players… in both positive and negative ways.

Crazy week!  I’m feeling energized again.

New Rule:  I received quite a bit of positive feedback about the proposed new rule I sent out yesterday, so I think we’re going to move forward and make it official.  And for those of you who missed yesterdays email here is the quick and dirty of how it will work: 

1.       If you have a perfect week, regardless of the number of games available, you will get to reverse an incorrect pick from a previous week.

2.       To keep this simple, if you are eligible for a reversal, I will automatically do it for you based on the following criteria:

a.       Your highest available missed point value.

b.      Games from your worst four/droppable weeks will not be eligible.  (There is no sense reversing those scores that won’t end up counting in the long run).

c.       I will announce which games have been reversed in the following recap.

1^st Place: Ted Craig (4)

This was a big week for Ted.  Although he only earned 64 points this week, he took the win and successfully edged out BigCat, reclaiming 4^th Place in the season standings.

2^nd Place and Most Correct Picks: EricC (11)

In a week where most players should have just stayed in bed, Eric took a solid second place and earned the Most Correct Picks top honor, with 12 out of 19 correct picks!

3^rd Place:  Jp (2)

Once again, any week where I can whittle away at my dad’s lead is a good week, even if it’s only by 6 points.  In the last five weeks I’ve managed to gain 106 points on him and I only have 32 points left to go!  It’s going to be fierce!

NCAA MVP of the Week: Rada (16)

No one got all three bowl games correct… and only three people got two of them correct.  But Rada gets the edge for the MVP by earning 12 points off of her two correct picks.  And this might not sounds like much… but one person actually scored a -54 points on those three games.  Brutal!

NFL MVP of the Week: Tashkent1 (20)

So… I didn’t want to name any names… but Tashkent1 is the guy who took the header in the Bowl games… HOWEVER!  He also took third place in the NFL games!  Almost earning enough points to dig him out of that hole!  9^th place isn’t bad when you end the week with -4 points!

‘Random Pick Of the Week’ Honorable Mention:  Ryan, VJ Schutz, & Jim Schutz

In a week this bad… it’s a miracle that anyone was able to keep their head above water.  And with only six people finishing the week on the positive side, it’s safe to say that all of their correct picks were random… and thus, it is only right to recognize the other three folks who managed to earn a point this week.

Last Place:  Jeff (20)

Wow… poor Jeff.  I’ve got nothing.

DiploBall 3, Week 15: *Yawn*… Huh?

Urg.  The one problem we have always had with Diploball is how to handle the lull following the end of college regular season, when the number of games drop from 32 to 16… and so does the maximum point values.

In previous years, when CBSsports hosted DiploBall, we did things offline to make it more exciting; like double the points for the NFL only weeks and run separate pools for the bowl games and NFL playoffs.  But then again, CBSsports didn’t support post season play.  Plus, the process of doing all that offline was pretty time consuming… even more time consuming than my annoying transcendental weekly recaps.

Pooltracker, on the other hand, runs a fully integrated game; regular and post season for both leagues (NCAA and NFL) together.  The switch to Pooltracker has meant a lot less work for me… but I’m still annoyed by the lack of points during week like this.

When I first contacted Pooltracker almost a year ago, I asked if they could make the top points value of each week 50 so there was at least some sort of consistence… especially during the post season. 

They said they couldn’t, but since this was also an issue with CBSsports, I moved DiploBall to Pooltracker anyway, since they could at least offer a fully integrated season.

However, this whole drop in available points is really bothering me… and I don’t really know how to fix it.  Frankly, there is no way to fix it this season… we’re just going to ride it out.  Perhaps my annoyance is premature and things will pick-up again when the Bowl Games really pick up.  But who knows.  Even with the Bowl Games starting, we still only have 19 games coming up this week.

I think I’m going to reach out to PoolTracker again about beefing up the maximum points… but if anyone knows of another hosting site that can give me everything I want (and more), let me know.

Anyway, it really was an exciting week for football!  The Giants beat Dallas taking over the division title.  Chicago lost again putting Atlanta and Detroit into Wild Card positions.  It will be interesting to see how it all plays out.

******** Please Note *********

The Beef 'O' Brady's St. Petersburg Bowl schedule for Tuesday, December 20^th is not on this week’s list of games.  It will appear NEXT week.  So, the official start of the PoolTracker week is Tuesday (NOT Thursday)… don’t miss getting your picks in!

Anyway, enough of my melancholy.  Here is a VERY abbreviated recap:

1^st Place: Pac12Bear, President Malaise, and VNIbarger

Major three way tie this week!  All by people who could use the extra push at the end of the season!  Pac12Bear actually take the title of the week for winning the MNF tie breaker!

2^nd Place: Rada and Badger

Another tie!  Congrats!

3^rd Place:  EricC

I admit it.  I neglected to give Eric ample praise when he took second place the weekend before Thanksgiving.  I was busy, and like today, I didn’t put in much time to giving you all a proper recap.  However, since this has been a rough week for Eric, just barely missing the playoff cut for the inaugural season of the DiploBall Legacy Fantasy League, I figured I should take a moment to celebrate Eric for making it onto the leader board this week.

And in doing so, I figure it would be rude to point out that President Malaise, who took one of the 1^st place spots in DiploBall Pick ‘Em is also the guy who edged Eric out of the playoffs in the Legacy League.  That would just be rude, so I won’t say anything.

Last Place: Tashkent1

… ummm… yeah… I got nothing.