2018 COAS Pigskin Pick 'Em: Epilogue

It's Black Monday in the NFL as numerous head coaches have been handed their walking papers and a dozen teams get to continue their quest for a Super Bowl title. And with the NFL season complete, so is the 2018 Pigskin Pick 'Em contest.

In the final week, I took five of seven games from Adam, but I'd already clinched the column title. It was the overall group title that was still in doubt. I didn't go through the exact number of disputed games between me and our group leader, but Adam did. I had eight disputed games with Jen, our group leader through Week 16. Down seven, I needed to sweep the week. I got everything, save one: Green Bay got shut out at home by Detroit, and that gave Jen, apparently now referred to as the football goddess, the group victory. See the standings after the jump.

Records This Season
Jen: 137-119 (7-9 last week)
Lucas: 136-120 (13-3 last week)
Kristen: 133-123 (13-3 last week)
Joe: 128-128 (11-5 last week)
Geoffrey: 115-141 (8-8 last week)
Aiden: 112-144 (0-16* last week)
Adam: 109-147 (10-6 last week)

But over the course of my one thousand-plus Confessions, there are a handful of things I hope you've learned: Sports do not take precedence over life and death; officials (almost) never impact the final outcome of a game; don't bet on Andy Dalton at night; and most relevant to the conversation, Happy wife, happy life.

I wanted to run through the group standings over the course of the season and look at leaders from throughout the course of the year. In particular, I wanted to see who won the most weeks (ties count as one for each person) and who held the lead the most over the course of the season.


Weeks Won (Highest Score in an Individual Week)

Lucas: 5
Aiden: 5
Jen: 4
Kristen: 4
Joe: 2
Geoffrey: 0
Adam: 0

I did find it a little ironic that Aiden was tied for the most weeks won, but finished so far back of the lead. But in failing to get picks in on time numerous weeks, including two weeks where he failed to get anything in will do that. I wonder how well he could have done under ordinary circumstances.

Weeks In First Place

Kristen: 10
Jen: 3
Lucas: 2
Aiden: 2
Joe: 2
Geoffrey: 0
Adam: 0

When I mentioned "Happy wife, happy life" before? This is why. If we went by weeks in first place, Kristen would have won outright by the end of November. Unfortunately, for the purpose of this contest, the only week in first place that matters is after Week 17, but per Kristen's direction, she is also now the football goddess.

I did have one other what-if scenario in mind here. ESPN has an option for dropping the lowest scoring week, so if we took that scenario into account, let's see how it would go for everyone. For the purpose of this one, I'm dropping losses from the equation since not every week will have 16 games.

2018 Wins (Dropping Everyone's Worst Week)
Jen: 133 (dropping Week 5)
Lucas: 133 (dropping Week 5)
Kristen: 129 (dropping Week 10)
Joe: 124 (dropping Week 13)
Geoffrey: 113 (dropping Week 10)
Aiden: 112 (dropping Week 13)
Adam: 107 (dropping Week 11)

Aiden's aforementioned weeks of not getting picks in kept his score where it is, but it didn't really help him much in the standings. Meanwhile, it pulled me and Jen into a tie for first, and unfortunately it didn't get Adam out of last place. If the pattern holds from the past few years though, Adam will end up winning the column next year. We'll see.

So congratulations to Jen, our 2018 COAS Pigskin Pick 'Em Champion! See you in 2019!