2014 weekly results

  1. Week 1 It looked good on paper.
  2. Week 2 Who do we suspend for abusing the prognosticators?
  3. Week 3 Don't worry, be crappy.
  4. Week 4 Seven up.
  5. Week 5 Almost perfect.
  6. Week 6 Don't fire the coach just yet.
  7. Week 7 Half-life.
  8. Week 8 Football before dawn? Yawwwwwwn.
  9. Week 9 Like a throwback weekend.
  10. Week 10 Ride my see-saw.
  11. Week 11 Victory is in the Cards.
  12. Week 12 Don't forget your fortune cookie.
  13. Week 13 'Don't get skunked!'
  14. Week 14 Share and share alike.
  15. Week 15 You need a week off.
  16. Week 16 Wrapped up for Christmas.
  17. Week 17 Resting the starters.

Resting the starters

With the 2014 Gehlke Bros. Football title decided last Monday night, there was little left to do in Week 17 but play out the string. Although Sean has had little to celebrate during a long, frustrating season, he did get to walk off the field for the final time this year with a moral victory of sorts.

The Bros weren't the only ones with little to play for in Week 17; just a couple of the NawFuL's postseason berths were still up for grabs, and a few of those who had already clinched were resting their star players. We came up with four splits to close out the action on a lazy post-Christmas Sunday.

The early games saw New Orleans come from behind to beat Tampa Bay, 23-20, and it was Buffalo getting a rare win at New England, 17-9, which probably would have been unlikely if the Patriots still had anything to play for. (They'd already locked up home field through the playoffs.) Sean was guaranteed a winning week in the afternoon when his Panthers blew out the Falcons, 34-3, to capture the NFC South with an abysmal 7-8-1 record.

The week's lone highlight for the Senior Bro came when the 49ers, playing under coach Jim Harbaugh for the final time, defeated the visiting Cardinals, 20-17. It was the fifth time in five opportunities this season that Glenn has won a split game featuring the Cards.

Taking three of the four splits meant that the Junior Bro shaved a couple of games off his margin of defeat, as Glenn successfully defends his Surfy Trophy by 15 games. Using a cribbage analogy, Sean said that he was not only skunked, but double-skunked this year. To be sure, it is rare in GBF history to play through such a lopsided season as this one was.

Sean won Week 17 with his 12-4 record, while Glenn finished second at 10-6. Ben was third at 8-8. We all correctly predicted the wins of Baltimore, Green Bay, Pittsburgh, Indianapolis, Dallas and Denver. No one picked the New York Jets or Philadelphia to win.

Before we hang up the cleats and helmets for another season, it's time for one last look at the 2014 record book...

FINAL STATS:

GETTING BETTER ALL THE TIME: Glenn set a blistering pace in 2014, ending with a record of 169-86-1, or a 66.2% rate of correct predictions. That is a 10-game improvement from his 2013 mark of 159-96-1, or 62.3%. Sean saw his success rate edge one game lower in 2014, with a 154-101-1 finish (60.4%) vs. 155-100-1 (60.7%) last season. Ben's slump also continued this year, as he finished 138-117-1 (54.1%) vs. 150-105-1 (58.8%) in 2013, a decrease of 12 games.

BREAKING UP'S NOT HARD TO DO: Splits were easy to come by this year, as we notched 60 of them. That's six more than in 2013 and getting close to one of every four games! Glenn won 37 of them, Sean took 22, and one ended in a tie. There were nine weeks with an even number of splits and eight with an odd number, same as last year. There was at least one split every week, and in what might be a first, there were 11 weeks that featured multi-game shifts in the standings. Of those 11 weeks, Glenn recorded sweeps in four of them and Sean swept once (or twice, if you count the tie in Week 6.) The most splits in one week was six, which happened in weeks 3 and 15. After playing to a draw in Week 1, Glenn steadily grew his advantage and never led by less than five games after Week 3. His largest lead was 17 at the end of Week 16.

NIGHT MOVES: Thursday night games have become as much a part of the sport as Sunday and Monday nights. Those have not always been the Senior Bro's best moments when it comes to splits, but this year extended a successful nighttime streak he began in 2013. Glenn was 3-2 with Thursday splits, 5-3 on Sunday night, and 4-2 on Mondays. We don't see many Saturday games fortunately, but Sean took the only split we had on that day in Week 16.

EVERYTHING IS COMING OUR WAY: Whether it was luck, skill, or a little of both, there didn't seem to be any stopping Glenn as he piled up the wins in the first half of the season. It wasn't until Week 6 that Sean finally snapped the Senior Bro juggernaut that had been in high gear since Week 11 of last season. Glenn won 9 weeks and tied for the best mark twice. His best record was 14-1 in Week 5, while his worst was 8-8 in weeks 2 and 13. Sean had 4 wins and 2 ties, his best record the 12-4 he saw in Week 17. His worst performance was 6-10 in Week 2. Ben was off his game from the start this year, winning just 2 weeks and never tying. His best effort was 11-4 in Week 7. He had a season low 6-10 in Week 1.

THANKS FOR THE MEMORIES: Still on an emotional high from his comeback victory in 2013, Glenn entered this season eager to defend his Gehlke Bros. Football picks title. He backed that up with one of the most lopsided wins in GBF history, rolling to a 10-game lead by the end of Week 5 with multi-game pickups of 2, 2, 3 and 3 in weeks 2 through 5. But any thoughts that the Senior Bro might waltz to his fourth championship in six years were put in doubt when Sean finally turned things around with a 4-game pickup in Week 6 followed by another win in Week 7 that saw the lead cut in half.

It turned out to be a blip on the radar, however, and with Glenn's dominating performance in Week 12 that saw him sweep four games to build a 13-game lead, there seemed little question that the Senior Bro would hoist the Surfy high once more. He mathematically clinched the championship on Monday night in Week 16 when the Bengals defeated the Broncos. It was the earliest a championship has been decided since the GBF site went live in 1998, and the largest margin of victory by the winner since Glenn won by 18 games in 2010 — the infamous "coin-flip" year in which Sean lost 10 games in the final week of the season.

So ends this year's GBF picks season. We'll keep an eye on the playoffs to see if the Seahawks can repeat as Stupor Bore champs. Otherwise, see you in September!