Steel Balls

In an unexpected turn of events sure to displease my fellow Ballers, copanut reclaims the Steel Balls trophy following a three year hiatus.

I must admit to being surprised, considering I had the worst prediction regarding our beloved Steelers. In fact, my guess was so bad, I did not bother even looking at my predictions once the Steelers’ wobbly wheels came off the Matt Canada bus by mid-season. But after all these years, haven’t we learned from the Steelers that we should never give up until the fat punter kicks?

I had naively guessed 13 wins, meaning every single one of you was closer to the mark than I was, including both EstimatedProphet and tennbob who correctly guessed the final result of 10 wins. Unfortunately for me, it doesn’t count that the Steelers would have ended with 13 wins had Mitch Trubisky not gifted wins to three awful teams in a row. But fortunately for me, our contest is not about Steelers wins alone!

With the entire division taken into consideration, as is the rule of this contest, copanut and tennbob tied with a total score of 9. As you know, the score is the net difference between the guessed results and the actual results, so lowest score wins. Four of you came in at 10, making it a close contest all around.

Being tied at 9, the contest fell through to tie breakers.

The first tie breaker is playoff wins. We do not yet know the answer for playoff wins, but it doesn’t matter since both copanut and tennbob guessed 1 win.

The second tie breaker is the total number of touchdowns scored by Diontae Johnson, who entered the season with a two year non-scoring streak. He finished the season with 5 TDs. Copanut guessed 6 and tennbob guessed 4, so we were both off by 1, and therefore remained at a tie.

The third tie breaker is the total number of sacks by Nick Herbig, and here the tie was finally broken. Herbig notched 3 sacks. Copanut guessed 3 while tennbob guessed 5, so copanut finishes with a total score of 11, beating tennbob’s 13.

Now, it is my general habit to screw up these tallies in one or two places, so I encourage you to double check my work. If so, you may be able to pry the trophy out of my hands. The overall contest was so close that pretty much anyone could be the winner if I made a mistake.

Summary of predictions:

Scoring:

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