First and foremost, let's wrap up the picks context from this season.  I know many of you are dying to hear the outcome, so I won't tiptoe around the subject for long.  Going into week 15, the two of us were in a dead heat at 89-96 apiece.  Even more unbelievably, after week 16, in which we both went 8-8, we were deadlocked at 97-104 all.  This was truly going to be a matchup for the holy halls of ESPN Classic.  Then, there came week 17.

Week 17 is hard to gauge against spreads for the same reason I refuse to hold fantasy league championships on the last week of the season.  Some players get rested for the playoffs, while other teams throw in their last epic tank-jobs in order to solidify their places in the top 10 of the draft order.  

While Leah Vegas-Killer kept to her proven method of choosing teams she knew were in first place and had decent players (her general plan, in its most simple sense, was that if she knew about the team, they had to be good), my analysis finally paid dividends.  While she picked teams such as Tennessee (1st place) and Minnesota (she knew I bought my best friend Chris an Adrian Peterson jersey, which means they must have a great player, and more importantly, a player she's heard of), I selected Indianapolis because I knew they had better second-stringers than the Titans, and so on.  In a meaningless game to both teams, the Colts' JV squad stole the lunch money from the Titans and I gained one game on her, and so on and so forth.

So, on the first week my over-analyzing actually paid off, I went a season-best 11-4 in week 17 to bring myself back to exactly .500 (112-112).  LVK went a very respectable 9-6, but ultimately it wasn't enough.  I was able to retain my crown, and more importantly my dignity, with her final score ending up at 112-118.

So that's that.  I apologize for missing the playoff picks, but don't worry, my Carolina-Indianapolis Super Bowl looks like it's probably not going to happen anyway, with both teams being embarrassingly booted from post-season play by teams they never should have lost to.

I've told a few people that once this first post is out of the way, I'll get on a roll again, and I'm sticking to that promise.  I have hours set aside some hours to write in the coming weeks, and that's that.  Thanks for stopping by, and I'll see you soon (I swear!).