Armchair Quarterbacks in heated contest going into Thanksgiving week

The thirteenth week of the Tri-City Record’s annual Armchair Quarterback competition has been contested (for the most part), as our pigskin diehards attempted to pick the winner of five collegiate games and five professional games that occurred during week thirteen. In terms of final records, our panelists always strive to put on a winning performance, which they hope will lead to more green checkmarks (wins) than red crosses (losses) on their weekly examinations. With only nine of our ten contests having been completed as of our early deadline, all six were sitting above .500 for the week. With that, this contest will remain a slugfest all the way until the end, and with roughly three months left in the season business is bound to pick up!

Let’s start by recapping the games from week thirteen of our competition. Since we didn’t feature high school this week, we will go right to collegiate action. In our local games, Michigan, Michigan State, Notre Dame and Western Michigan all continued their seasons last week. When the games were made final, three of our local teams were able to secure victories. In terms of final scores, #3 (CFP) Michigan (11-0) defeated Maryland, 31-24, #19 (CFP) Notre Dame (8-3) dominated Wake Forest, 45-7 and Michigan State (4-7) was victorious over Indiana, 24-21. Meanwhile, Western Michigan (4-7) was shutout by Northern Illinois, 24-0.

Finally, in professional action, both of our local teams, the Chicago Bears and Detroit Lions, were also in action, as they played one another in the first of two divisional meetings this season. This game, played in Detroit, saw the Bears (3-8) dominate the time of possession and the scoreboard for most of the afternoon, leading 26-14 with 3:06 remaining in the game. From there, the Lions (8-2) scored two touchdowns and a safety, to snatch a 31-26 victory from the jaws of defeat. It’s the Lions best start to a season since…1962!

Because of our early deadline for the Thanksgiving holiday, all our games had not been completed yet, as we were awaiting the result of the Monday Night game between the Chiefs and Eagles. So, we will just take a moment to mention what had happened up until that point from a record view. In the nine games that had been played, RoxAnn Rodney-Isbrecht, Rodney Lynch and Maureen Ovington led the brigade with 7-2 records, while Greg Krell and Bill Whitney each posted 6-3 records and Mike Banic was bringing up the rear of the field, with a record of 5-4. In next week’s edition of the paper, we will let our readers know the final results for week thirteen.66

In case you are new to our newspaper or need a refresher on how this competition works, let’s take a moment to bring you up-to-speed. Each fall, our newspaper enlists the assistance of six local football fanatics, who should be deemed “superfans,” really. Each week, the six-person panel is given a list of pre-selected games from the local high school, collegiate and professional ranks, and is given the daunting task of selecting the winners of each game.

Weekly records are kept from the beginning of the high school season through Super Bowl Sunday, with each week’s edition of the paper reporting on the progress of each participant. At the conclusion of the football season, the panelist who has the best overall record will earn the right to wear the 2023-24 Tri-City Record Armchair Quarterback hat and claim bragging rights until the next season begins.

In the event there are multiple AQBs that have the same weekly or season-long record, their place in the weekly or overall standings will be determined by a weekly “tiebreaker” game. In addition to trying to pick the winners of each week’s slew of games, they will also predict a total score from a specially selected game, one that usually stands out on a local or national level. The quarterback that predicts closest to the actual number of points scored by both teams will receive the higher position in the standings.

In the season-long race for the hat, there has been weekly movement in overall positioning virtually every week since this competition began three months ago. Last week was the exception to the rule, because it appears we may have broken the tie-for-second place in the standings, while seeing some of our other close races tighten up. Just remember that the records in this week’s paper are pending the result of the Chiefs / Eagles game and will change depending on who picked the correct winner.

In terms of the overall classification, RoxAnn continues to keep a tight hold on the lead in the race for top honors, with her overall record sitting at 89-40 through our first 129 games (with one game result pending). Her lead in the standings remains at three games, as Rodney claimed second place outright, with his overall record standing at 86-43. Rounding out the current podium, in third place, is Greg, with his overall record standing at 85-44. The final three positions in our race feature Bill in fourth place, with an overall record of 82-47, followed by Maureen and Mike, who sit in a tie-for-fifth place, with their overall records of 77-52. The margin between the top and bottom of the standings remains at just twelve games, so things are still hotly contested. Plus, with a few months to go, we still expect plot twists all the way to the end of this journey, so stay tuned!

The season continues this week, with the high school football finals being contested at Ford Field on Saturday and Sunday, along with week thirteen of the college football season and week twelve of the professional football season. If you are a fan of the game being contested on the gridiron, and, seeing you loyally support this column on a weekly basis, you must be – I know that you are excited to be watching plenty of football games right now.

Be sure to check back each week as our panel of ardent, loyal pigskin pickers weave their way through the football season, in pursuit of their own “one shining moment.” Now, here are your week fourteen games that our qualified panelists were tasked with picking:

Muskegon vs. Warren DeLaSalle

(D2 Championship Sat. in Detroit)

Grand Rapids Forest Hills Central vs. Mason

(D3 Championship Sun. in Detroit)

Bowling Green at Western Michigan (Tue.)

Michigan State vs. Penn State

(Fri. in Detroit)

Notre Dame at Stanford (Sat.)

Ohio State at Michigan (Sat.) *

Green Bay Packers at Detroit Lions (Thu.)

Washington Commanders at Dallas Cowboys (Thu.)

Pittsburgh Steelers at Cincinnati Bengals (Sun.)

Chicago Bears at Minnesota Vikings (Mon.)

* tiebreaker