The brothers wasted little time finding disagreement in their predictions as the 2011 Gehlke Bros. Football season commenced, splitting the year's very first game when New Orleans took the field against defending Stupor Bore champion Green Bay. When the dust settled on the thrilling shootout, the Packers escaped with a 42-34 victory, and the Senior Bro took a small step in defense of the Surfy Trophy.
In all, Week 1 saw the Bros split six games. In early action Sunday, Glenn picked up another pair of splits when Buffalo slaughtered Kansas City 41-7, and Chicago handled visiting Atlanta 30-12. Sean got a needed victory when newly resurgent Detroit won at Tampa Bay 27-20. The afternoon saw the Junior Bro on the winning side again, when San Francisco repelled visiting Seattle 33-17.
But as so often happens, it all came down to Sunday night. As late as the fourth quarter of the game between the Cowboys and Jets, when Dallas sat on a 14-point lead, it appeared that Sean was on his way to a tie week. But an odd sequence of events saw the Jets capitalize on Cowboys miscues, including a blocked punt for a touchdown, and fight back for a 27-24 win that sealed a 2-game advantage for Glenn heading into Week 2.
Glenn won the week with a 9-7 record, with Sean second at 7-9. Ben, aka the Chaos Kid, who last year captured his first season title by out-predicting his dad and uncle, floundered to a 5-11 start. We all correctly predicted winners Green Bay, Philadelphia, Arizona and New England. No one got right the wins by Jacksonville, Cincinnati, Baltimore, Washington or Oakland.
