Bringing home the bacon

The regular NFL season finished up this past weekend, and with it the Pick'em Pool 2014. Out of 16 games played in Week 17, I guessed 8 of the outcomes correctly, and that pretty much sums the whole season up. I was excited to snag my lone weekly win of the year, and then of course immediately after that I completely faceplanted and only got 5 games right the following week. Everything balances out. After my personal high and personal low, over the last six weeks of the season my weekly totals were perfectly clustered right around the breakeven: 7,7,9,8,9,8. And my final position in the overall standings nudged up and down but ended up exactly where it was when I last reported on it, tenth place. I finished a couple points behind my grandmother, tied with one of my cousins, one point ahead of my dad, and incrementally higher than my Very Little Bro and assorted other cousins and uncles. Not terrible, not amazing, and so it goes.

The much more significant news to report is that over the tail-end of the season, my wife was able to claw her way up from fifth place to first! Yes, my wife won the overall pool for the entire season, earning a kitty equivalent to winning two and a half weeks. She never did quite manage to eke out one of those singular victories, but she was remarkably consistent down the stretch (7,9,10,11,9,9 in the final six weeks) whereas everyone else in contention for the overall prize suffered the same kinds of soaring-then-choking setbacks I did. Sunday was a strange and exciting day as my wife went into it one point behind the overall leader, then proceeded to outscore her rival 9 to 5. The gent who ended up in third place had been the leader as of a few weeks ago, and actually outscored my wife 10 to 9 in the final week, but he had cratered the week before with an abysmal 4. It was odd to find ourselves biting our nails over the outcome of the Green Bay and Detroit game as the Sunday afternoon games wound down in the evening, but it seemed like things could still go either way at that point. Fortunately, they went the right way in the end, and I am incredibly proud of the love of my life for setting herself up to be in that glorious position out in front at the finish line.

So we each got a big win, mine a momentary flash of brilliance (and a ton of luck), hers the result of dependable quality performances week in and week out. All in all I'd say we make a pretty good team.