A look at the Week 17 menu was enough to make us long for a few of those Thursday and Saturday games we curse around here all the time. Sixteen games, all on Sunday, and just a couple of which mattered to anyone but the most die-hard of football fans — or professional amateur prognosticators like the Gehlke Bros. We would have liked to skip this week, but with just one game separating Bros Junior and Senior in the season picks competition and with the Surfy trophy on the line, we swallowed our pride and our Pepto Bismal and did the best we could.
Sean hoped that the unpredictable motivations of the gridiron combatants would result in some upsets and net him a tie for the title, if not an outright victory. It looked possible, after we tallied up the three split games at stake. And in true NawFuL fashion they were all close ones. But fate was riding with the defending champ on Sunday as the Redskins upset the Vikings, the Titans held off the Lions, and the Giants gave QB Eli Manning his first career victory with a last-minute touchdown to defeat the Cowboys. The three-split sweep was Glenn's only shutout of the season and iced a sweet repeat of last year's championship — his first repeat in more than a decade.
Ben had his own reasons to celebrate in Week 17, taking the weekend with a season best 11-5. Glenn was second at 10-6, while Sean wrapped up 2004 with a 7-9 mark. We all got it right with Green Bay, New England, Seattle, Arizona and Denver. Our mutual misses included wins by Cincinnati, St. Louis and San Diego.
Now, are you ready for some number cruching? For the 256-game season, Glenn was 169-87 for a 66.0 percent accuracy rating. That is one game better than last season's 168-88 (65.6%) record. Sean also saw a one-game swing from last season, going 165-91 (64.5%) in 2004 vs. 166-90 (64.8%) in 2003. Ben was two games to the better this year, finishing 140-116 (54.7%) vs. 138-118 (53.9%) a year ago. The Bros saw fewer splits this season, with just 50 total vs. last year's incredible 66. That was 19.5 percent of all games played.
Sean managed to win the most weeks (6 wins, 1 tie), Glenn won 4 and tied 3 times, and Ben won 4 and tied twice. Glenn had the best one-week overall at 14-2 (Week 11), Sean topped out at 13-3 four times(!) (Weeks 11, 12, 14 and 16), and Ben had his best performance at 11-5 (Week 17). Worst weeks? Glenn's was 7-7 (Week 9), Sean's was 6-8 (Week 5), and Ben notched a 5-11 (Week 13).
The most splits we saw in one week was 5 (Weeks 1 and 3). Glenn's biggest lead at any point in the season was 4, while Sean's was 3. That's a swing of just seven games, showing how tight these predictions have become in recent years. Now, if the teams weren't so predictably NawFuL we might see more volatility in the season standings. Maybe next year.
That wraps it up for the 2004 season. We'll have the Surfy presentation in early February, then it's time to pack in the site until September while we wait to see who the 49ers will take as their first pick in the draft.
Total splits: 3
