The twenty-first week of the Tri-City Record’s annual Armchair Quarterback contest has come and gone, but we made sure to continue our long-standing tradition of challenging our knowledgeable ‘super fans’ over some ultimate tough choices on the gridiron. Our diehards attempted to pick the winners of the six professional football wild card games that graced the docket on ‘Super Wild Card’ weekend. With six games on the slate for our pickers last week there were a plethora of different outcomes that could happen, which often separate the ’best’ from ‘just good’ in our weekly standings. This week’s results saw all six of our astute panelists finish with at-least four victories on their first playoff report card. We even had to go to a five-way tiebreaker to pave the way for our weekly podium!
Let’s start by recapping the games from week twenty-one of our competition. As we have mentioned previously, the high school and collegiate seasons have been completed, so our attention turns strictly to the NFL which sits roughly a month away from its greatest game, the Super Bowl. While Kansas City and Philadelphia had the week off, twelve other teams competed in wild card games with a spot in the divisional round on the line.
In those wild card games, Jacksonville defeated the Los Angeles Chargers, 31-30, San Francisco defeated Seattle, 41-23, Buffalo defeated Miami, 34-31, Cincinnati defeated Baltimore, 24-17, the New York Giants defeated Minnesota, 31-24, and Dallas defeated Tampa Bay, 31-14.
When the final whistle blew and all the scores were verified, the best record on the panel stood at 5-1. For just the second time all season, Greg Krell was able to ascend to the top step of the podium as our champion picker for the week. He took the lead after the second game on Saturday, when he was the only panelist to gamble on Jacksonville. That pick, which looked like a dire choice in the early going, ended up with him looking quite golden!
Our five remaining panelists: RoxAnn Rodney-Isbrecht, Rodney Lynch, Tim Hildebrand, Bill Whitney and Taylor Prestidge (with a little help from her friends), finished with matching 4-2 records and will have to go the tiebreaker scenario to determine the remaining weekly places. All five selected the Los Angeles Chargers to win, while the remaining losses came via defeats of Minnesota (four picked them) and Tampa Bay (one picked them).
Because we have a tie between the five panelists, we now must go to the dreaded tiebreaker scenario to determine the remaining places – second through sixth – in our weekly race. The tiebreaker game this week was the Jacksonville Jaguars – Los Angeles Chargers matchup, which finished with 61 total points. None of our five panelists came within thirteen points of the final result, but thanks to her projection of 48 total points, RoxAnn did just enough to take home runner-up honors, followed by Rodney (who projected 47 total points) in third place, to finalize our podium.
The remaining three positions, as determined by our tiebreaker, went to Bill (who projected 45 total points) in fourth place, Tim (who projected 44 total points) in fifth place, and Taylor (who projected 42 total points) had to settle for sixth place, becoming our weekly ‘cellar dweller’ in the process.
In case you are new to our newspaper or need a quick refresher on how this contest works, let’s take a moment to bring you up-to-speed. Each fall our newspaper enlists the help of six local football fanatics, who could be deemed ‘super fans’, really. Every week, our six-member 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 from each game.
Weekly records are kept from the beginning of the high school season right on 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 2022-23 Tri-City Record Armchair Quarterback hat.
In the event there are multiple Armchair Quarterbacks 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 correctly pick the winners of each week’s games, they will also predict a total score from a specially selected game, usually a game that 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 no position changes took place since our last update, as only one of our panelists actually gained a game in the win column over the others. In addition, this week should decide our overall champion; as only two of our esteemed pickers remain in the chase for the championship. And, in golf terms, the leader has second place already ‘dormie,’ leading by seven games with just seven games left in our season.
In terms of the overall classification, RoxAnn remains in the lead with her overall record standing at 142-62-1 through 205 games. The race is on for second place between Rodney, Tim and Bill, who are separated by just three games in the win column; Rodney is currently in second place, with an overall record of 135-69-1, Tim remains in third place, with an overall record of 133-71-1, and Bill is pushing both of them for a spot on the podium, in fourth place, with an overall record of 132-72-1. The final two positions belong to Taylor in fifth place with an overall record of 129-75-1 and Greg in sixth place with an overall record of 125-79-1.
The season continues with week twenty-two of our contest that will feature the four professional football playoff games on Saturday and Sunday, which are the ‘Divisional Round’ games. All eight teams remaining in the playoffs will compete for a chance to play for a conference championship next weekend. Hopefully our readers are continuing to enjoy this great fall tradition – because, after all, this contest is all about everyone having some fun!
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 twenty-two game selections:
Jacksonville Jaguars at
Kansas City Chiefs (Sat)
New York Giants at
Philadelphia Eagles (Sat)
Cincinnati Bengals at
Buffalo Bills (Sun)
Dallas Cowboys at
San Francisco 49ers (Sun) *
* Tiebreaker
Comments