With the Junior Bro protecting a 1-game edge going into Sunday, Sean and Glenn tallied five splits. All but one of the games involved playoff teams or held playoff implications — one of those intangible factors that played into Sean's favor as most of those who had secured their seedings rested starters.

The Junior Bro got a big lift in the morning as the Texans defeated the visiting Jags 42-28 in an AFC South showdown that meant little to Jacksonville, which was locked into the fifth playoff spot. The afternoon saw Glenn win two of three to even the score, when Baltimore derailed NFC North champ and division foe Pittsburg 27-21 and Denver held off a furious comeback to dash Minnesota's playoff hopes in overtime, 22-19. But when Arizona picked off visiting St. Louis to the tune of 48-19, that put Sean up by one game with one hurdle left to overcome: the Sunday night finale between the defending Stupor Bore champion Colts and a desperate Titans team that could only make the postseason with a victory.

The Senior Bro was banking on a Colts win to end the Gehlke Bros. regular season in a tie and extend the prognosticating suspense until February. But the Colts, already locked into the second seed in the AFC, rested Peyton Manning and other stars and supplied a porous defense for the Titans to run and pass through. The end result: 16-10 Tennessee, and a third consecutive title for Sean.

In escaping the 2007 season with a 2-game win, Sean wrapped up the week at 12-4. Glenn finished 11-5, while Ben was 8-8. We all correctly predicted New England's historic 16-0 regular season finish and their win over the New York Giants, in addition to wins by Cincinnati, Green Bay, Chicago, Cleveland, San Diego and the New York Jets. No one correctly picked the defeats of Tampa Bay or Seattle, a couple of playoff-bound slackers that rested their starters and paid the price.

* * * * *

Taking a final statistical look at 2007, we find that the Bros (Junior and Senior, anyhow) returned to the top of their games, averaging close to 2-out-of-3 correct predictions over the course of the season. Sean was 169-87 (66.0%) vs. 158-98 (61.7%) for 2006. Glenn went 167-89 (65.2%) vs. 154-102 (60.2%) last season. Ben, however, took a step backward in 2007. He was 134-122 (52.3%), or down 16 games from 2006 when he went 150-106 (58.6%). Although we didn't officially recognize splits this year in the weekly graphics because of the new format, we wound up with 50 of them between Glenn and Sean, with the Junior Bro taking 26. That is 19.5 percent of all games resulting in splits and continues a trend of fewer splits; there were 54 last season and 56 in 2005. Isn't it nice to see so much brotherly agreement as we grow older and (ahem) wiser?

As was the case in 2006, Sean won the war but not the majority of the weekly battles. He had the best record in seven weeks and tied once. Glenn had 8 wins, 1 tie. Ben had 1 win and 0 ties. Sean's best mark was 13-3 in Week 14; his worst, 5-9 in Week 4. Glenn posted a near-perfect 15-1 in Week 14, his best mark of the season, while enduring a 5-9 finish in Week 10. For Ben, 12-4 in Week 16 was countered by a pair of 5-9 finishes, in Weeks 4 and 9.

Over the course of the season Sean led by as many as 7 games and trailed by at most 1 game. We had at least one split ever week, and as many as 5 splits three times: Weeks 1, 13 and 17. Twenty percent of the 50 splits occurred in the first three weeks of the season, with another 20 percent coming in the final three weeks. There were just a pair of Monday night split games, both won by Glenn. We split an even number of games in seven weeks and an odd number in 10.

Want more stats? With luck we'll have a separate page devoted to past season stats soon. Until then, you'll have to wait until next season gets underway in September. We'll have a short Surfy Trophy presentation update in early February following the Stupor Bore. Will the Patriots finish 19-0? Stay tuned...