Who You?

I now present our Week #2 winner, who is clearly a force to be reckoned with. This was bumped in from the comments section so as not to be missed. See if you can spot the one item Angela didn't provide us with.

Name: Angela

Title: Rookie

Age/Ht/Wt: Not a chance!

Favorite team: Packers of course but also huge Badger fan (alumni)...usually found in Madison on Badger Saturdays trying to relive my college memories and drunkiness

Is that me in the picture?: I am short and blond but would not be caught dead in those colors!

Secret to my success for winning week two: I guess a lot! (wish I had a better answer but I am usually doing my picks at work and trying not to get caught)

Motto: "If you're not the lead dog, the view never changes"

Favorite beverage: Lime Kool Aid with strips of baloney

Semana Tres

This weekend the NFL honored Hispanic Heritage Month, and I firmly want to believe that its intention was to simply reach out to and acknowledge its Latino fan base...because if the NFL knows anything above all else, entiende la comercialización. ¿Sabes?

Many of us watching the cutaways to Philly vs. Detroit during the Packer game were subjected to relentless criticism of the Philadelphia Eagles throwback (throwup?) uniforms. I remain unclear as to what the problem was.

Besides, they sort of reminded me of my #77 Dave Roller PJ's, circa 1974.

Oh, they meant the players?

We're still waiting for Angela to introduce herself to everyone. For all I know that could be her on the left. Staff writers here are warming up their poison pens for next week.

Here's the awful truth for those who think the fix is in. My brother Jim has won, and sister Amy has taken second, Amy benefitting from being dead-on on tiebreaker points. And it gets worse. Jim is all alone through three weeks in the overall standings. I firmly reject any suggestion of impropriety, kickbacks, and preferential treatment. Also, Rex Grossman remains my quarterback.

I'm sorry for the late hour; normally these updates are supposed to go out before the Monday night game...but I was at the Brewer game and watched the Crew dominate the Cards. Probably too little too late. Any Packer fans want to help me recruit Josh McCown and Nathan Poole to maybe pull off another 11th hour miracle for a Wisconsin sports team?

What's that? You don't remember Josh McCown and Nathan Poole? Bet Dave Stellick remembers. Muahahahaha.

Week 2

Before we recap the week, there is one game still going on. Cleveland just scored and now leads the Bengals 172-148 with 3:32 left to play.

Big ups go out to Joe and Nadine, who, like many of you, promptly sent me the entry fee for this pool. But they included some original artwork (left) with the check. Is niiiiice.

In the event you were wondering why Jerry's picks materialized on Monday out of thin air, it's because he was unable to get them in on time and instead posted them in a message on the Smoove CBS site. I didn't notice it until today, but they were in under the wire. Jerry's used up his mulligan for the year.

Angela Novotney takes first this week and wins what I suppose we should start calling the Freshman 50. Two years ago when Anna Muchow was a rookie, she also won week two and proceeded to torch many of us that year. Congratulations to Angela, who now no longer has the right to remain silent. Angela, I'll be looking for your bio whenever you're ready to post it or send it in. The truth is not required. If you cannot provide your bio, one will be provided for you.

Oh, before I forget, the Wackenhut security guy at Blockbuster strongly recommends Miss Congeniality starring Sandra Bullock. I realize this is unsolicited and appropos of nothing, but so was the recommendation so I figured I pass it along.

Speaking of show biz, the winner of second place this week needs no introduction or biography. Here he is, as seen in August, courtesy of "security tapes" from the New England Patriots "technology staff":

It's Bill Gullo, of course, my one-time co-worker at Miller who feels the power of the dark side. One of these days I'm going to sit down and tally just his winnings. If he doesn't already have some kind of total title, I'm sure he leads in earnings per game or something.

That's all I have for now. Have a good week.

Roomeo and Juliet

I picked up the phone last Thursday evening.

"Hello?"

The voice on the other end was unmistakably Reuther. But what was he saying? He intoned:

What light through yonder television breaks?
'Tis the Saints, and Indianapolis of the AFC East!
Arise, sons of Lambeau, with slings and arrows and max protect
In three hours' time vanquish the memory of 4th and 26
Behold the vestal livery of the green and the gold
Cast aside thy doubt that our quarterback is too old
Bring forth the pundits, the seers, and the fools
Who dare make predictions and tell secrets of cover two
And who is this Julius? Tis Caesar? Or Jones?
It matters not, my friend
Football is back, and I must get off the phone

I don't know that I've ever heard Roo quite so happy. So enthralled was I by his rhapsodic musings that I almost didn't have the heart to point out the flaw in his soliloquy. But that, of course, passed.

Dude! Indianapolis is in the AFC South.

Still, he was right. It's good to have football back, the trials imposed on us by the CBS Sports website notwithstanding. Before I get too far, I'd like to welcome back Team Lanning after a one year hiatus. Also say hello to new members Chris Graff and Angela Novotney. Mandatory bios will come at a later date, but I will at this time caution everyone that Chris is a Bears fan. I think that's him, third from left. I could be wrong.

Nice job, Jerry Znidorka (that's J-Z to you), right out of the gates. He gets first place in the first week. Interesting. Last season, Jerry placed dead last in week one. First place, as usual, will be worth fifty bucks each week this season. Second place each week is worth $20, and in week one, this spiffy little prize goes to Brother Jim, who owns the tiebreaker over Nadine/Joe.

Now then, this season's math:

32 players @ 50 apiece = 1600.

Weekly payout:
50 x 17 weeks = 850 for first place
20 x 17 weeks = 340 for second

For a total of 1190. This leaves 410 to divide amongst the overall winners.
175 for first
135 for second
75 for third

The last 25, you may remember, will go to the bottom-feeder, that is, the person with the worst point total who - and this is important - does his or her picks every week.

As usual, I will for the most part pay out all winnings at the end of the season, which saves me a lot of check writing. Exceptions are gladly made upon request, or if I see you and happen to have the cash on me.

More later.

This Looks Like A Job For....

If you've found doing your picks this season on CBS Sports ranks right up there with bobbing for watermelons in terms of level of difficulty, you are not alone. Not that we can't handle it.



"Of course without the likes of Americans like you, the jobs of Americans like me would be a lot more difficult. But don't get me wrong, Americans like me like difficult jobs!"




Still, in a world full of coarseness and contention on sports, politics, religion, and just about anything else you care to name, I suppose we should congratulate CBS Sports on finding something we can all agree on and that's that we hate their programmers. That said, everyone but Chad Lanning got their picks in the normal way, and Chad got his in on time via e-mail despite some technical difficulties. I had to enter them, and due to problems on CBS's end, I couldn't get the weights entered correctly until just now. So if you've seen some gymnastics going on with the scoring, that's me. I can be trusted. Even by Graff and Gullo. Hey, great news. Chevy is playing Our Country by Mellencamp in its ads for the third straight year and there's one on right now. So if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go ingest something letha...wait. Okay. There's some cheerleaders. I'm good.

MNF Tiebreakers

Thanks to Joel "Fred Glitch" Van Kylen for pointing out that there are two Monday night games in the opening weekend. The tiebreaker game is the later of the two.

A Better Mousetrap. But Not Really.

A handful of you have done picks already. Nice!

For the rest of us, and that includes me: In addition to loading up their website with all manner of unnecessary bells and whistles, CBS mucked around with the mechanism by which we do our picks, and it’s causing some grief. Here’s how to deal with it:

1. Read the instructions. Carefully. I wish I had before making that panicked call to Mike McCravens, who had figured it out.
   
2. If those are unclear, observe:

Notice how I’m moving the Steelers/Browns game around in this screen cap. It’s my 16 now; when I drop it below the Seahawks game, it will become my 14, and the two games above will be assigned the 16 and 15. So select your winners first, then drag and drop each game until they’re in your preferred order, 16 at the top and 1 (3 when the byes start) at the bottom.

I’m kind of torn on this. Some programmers at CBS did mainly because they could, not because it’s useful. Technology for the sake of technology irritates me.

On the other hand, this mindset is 50% of what keeps me employed.

As a reminder, the regular season begins Thursday night. Picks are due an hour before gametime, and gametime is 8:30 eastern/7:30 central.