Thursday, January 4, 2024

2023 COAS Pigskin Pick 'Em: Week 18

And so it all comes down to this. 16 games. A one game gap at the top of the standings. Pride and bragging rights on the line.

I mean, not for me. While I'm on a bit of a heater, it's come far too little and far too late to be of any impact as I'm locked into the basement of the group for 2023. And so it's little solace that I split my six disputed games with Adam from last week's podcast, though he and I each took three of five disputed games from Joe.

It was solid week for the coalition, all told, as Geoffrey takes a one game lead over Adam going into the final lap. Jim and Joe both sit around the .500 mark, while I'm locked into a losing campaign and can only catch Joe if I run the table and he loses out. You can view how we've all picked in relation to each other here. Geoffrey's ridden consistency in all categories this season and has the second best hero success rate in the group, but in a fairly small sample size. Adam, meanwhile, has gone hero in a staggering 18 percent of games this year and has hit at an absurd rate up until the past couple of weeks as the regression to the mean I've been screaming about all year is finally catching up with him. We did jump back above .500 in consensus picks this week after a drop off in Week 16, if nothing else.

And so as we get started with our final round of the 2023 season, I invited our current leader in the clubhouse to join the column this week. Geoffrey's picks will appear below along with Adam's and Joe's. Among the usual columnists, Adam and I disagree on nine games, Joe and I on seven, and the two of them on eight games. The most important number to look at this week: Geoffrey and Adam disagree on seven games out of 16 in their race for a group championship.

Without further ado, for the final time this season, let's get to it!