Perhaps it is not entirely fair to malign poor old George. It was not his choice to be drafted into the emergency role of football prognosticator on Sunday when the Junior Bro dug through his pocket change in a desperate search for a secret game forecasting aid. The quarter to which George’s likeness was affixed represented not only Sean’s last-ditch gamble to overcome an 8-game deficit in Week 17, but a stark commentary on the bad luck that he felt had plagued him all season in pursuit of regaining the Gehlke Bros. Football Picks championship: if none of the close games would go his way, a coin flip could do no worse.

Or could it?

The 2010 Gehlke Bros. Football season will not only go down in history as the year that Ben finally broke through to win the overall picks title, but it will also be remembered as the year of the coin toss that defied the law of averages in ghastly fashion.

With George’s help, the Bros found themselves with 12 splits — a single week record. Sean went in knowing that he would need to win 10 of those games just to tie the Senior Bro for a postseason shot at the Surfy Trophy. But any hope that would happen quickly evaporated as the favored teams dominated in the early games. By the time the game clock ticked down to zero in Baltimore’s 13-7 win over Cincinnati, the Surfy Trophy was guaranteed to remain with Glenn.

But things ended much worse after that. Game after game the results went against old George. He only helped Sean win one of those dozen splits — the Raiders’ 31-10 drubbing of the Chiefs. By the end of the evening, as Seattle was celebrating its 7-9 NFC West division title over St. Louis, George was getting the sack while Sean was making him the scapegoat of a 3-13 performance, turning what had been an 8-game deficit into an 18-game defeat in just under 11 hours.

It didn’t help any that the Senior Bro put together his most solid showing of the season, going 13-3 to win the week over the Chaos Kid, who was 11-5. George, the Junior Bro’s hapless surrogate, finished in the basement at 3-13 and will be subsequently melted into slag. With so much disagreement there were just two mutually correct predictions — Pittsburgh and Houston — and one total surpise in Tampa Bay’s win over the defending Stupor Bore champs.

So Glenn retains the Surfy for a second year, Ben celebrates an 11-game victory in the overall standings, and Sean gets to keep his quarter.

FINAL STATS

Now it’s time for our last look at the season gone by and how it compares with previous years.

WINS & LOSSES: The Chaos Kid blasted the competition this year, but he did so mainly because his more seasoned opponents had such a mediocre season. Ben was 169-87 (66.0%), a dramatic 17-game improvement from last year’s 152-104 (59.4%). Glenn was 158-98 (61.7%), down 19 games from his 177-79 (69.1%) mark of 2009. Sean was 140-116 (54.7%) for 2010, or 27 games off his 167-89 (65.2%) record of 2009.

SPLITSVILLE: Even without the Week 17 anomaly, the Bros were on pace to have more splits in 2010. The final total was 62, with Glenn taking 40 of them and Sean 22. The number eclipsed the 56 total splits of 2005. Week 17’s 12 splits was a record, and the most recorded in a single week during 2010. There was at least one split every week, with odd numbers of splits occurring in 12 weeks and even numbers the other five weeks.

WEEKLY RESULTS: Ben had the most winning weeks by far, posting the best record outright on eight occasions and tying on three others. Glenn had 4 wins and 3 ties. Sean had 2 wins and 0 ties.

BESTS AND WORSTS: It was tough picking winners this year. 13-3 was the best effort, which was accomplished just twice — in Week 3 by Ben and in Week 17 by Glenn. Sean’s best was 11-5 in Week 13. Sean set the standard for worst week, going 3-13 in Week 17, while Glenn’s low point of 6-7 and Ben’s worst of 7-6 both came in Week 8. Ben did not have a losing record at any point this season.

TURNING POINTS: Ben checked out on the competition early. After falling a game behind in Week 2, he took the lead for good in Week 3, building his advantage to a high of 16 games over second place in Week 14. Meanwhile, Glenn and Sean had a seesaw battle going through Week 9, with neither Bro ever leading by more than a single game. That changed over the final eight weeks as Glenn’s advantage steadily grew to a high of 18 games by the end of Week 17.

So there you have it, a memorable 2010. A hearty congratulations to Ben for his long-awaited first picks title, and to Glenn on back-to-back Surfy victories. We’ll have award presentations soon. Until then, see you in September!