2008awards

2008 Awards

The winners, losers, and other tidbits from the 2008 Season

The Money Winners:

Playoff Champs:

1st- Jason Sperinck - $720

2nd- Ryan Schulke - $140

3rd- Tara Vaezi - $20

Regular Season Champ:

Genevieve Kelly - $100

The Non-Money Awards (and other fun facts):

Brides Maid Award: Meghan Callaghan - When the championship games were set, in 7 out of the final 8 scenarios, Meghan would have walked away with 1st place. The only way she wouldn't get any money is if the Steelers beat the Cardinals in the Super Bowl. Well, we all saw how that ended last night. She was the front-runner throughout the playoffs, picking 8 out of the 11 playoff games correctly, but just fell short at the end by sticking with her Eagles to win the Super Bowl.

Regular Season MVP: Chris Cantatore - He started the season by picking an unprecedented 12 games in a row correctly, when the previous best start was 4. He all but assured himself of playoffs by mid-season, but started falling apart toward the final weeks, going 1-4 in the last 5 weeks, but still finishing in 6th place in the regular season.

Comeback of the Year: Jason Sperinck - Similar to last year, when 2007 Champ Colin McCall started the season out 0 for 6, our champ this year started out with only 2 wins in the first 8 weeks before he finally started winning consistently and got all the way up to 2nd place in the regular season. His regular season placement came up huge for him, since he needed the tie-breaker to win the big prize.

Falloff of the Year: Terry Sberna - Terry came out of the gate with 6 wins in a row and 8 out of 10 right to start the season, but had an unfortunate losing streak mid-season that kept her just out of the playoffs despite two big wins in the last two weeks of the season.

The Just Fell Short Award: Colin Liebtag - This one goes to the player who finished just outside of the playoffs. Colin had a 4-game winning streak to end the season, which got him only 4.75 points shy of sneaking in. Much like his Week 17 pick, the New England Patriots, he did everything right, but it just wasn't enough.

Ballsiest Player of the Year: Rob Flachs - Rob managed to go the entire regular season picking nothing but underdogs. Even with this strategy, he still carved out a solid 9-8 record and finished in 3rd place in the regular season. (Runners up: Yuhwei Ling, who is still yet to pick a favorite 3 years running now, and Josh Zaro and Jason Sperinck, who each picked only one favorite all season)

"E" for Effort Award: Rodney Walsh - This award goes to the lowest ranked participant who kept making picks every week, even though he was probably out of it by week 14 or so. Your commitment to the Quint Pool is commendable.

"F" for Barely Any Effort Award: Salvatore Cardinale - This award goes to the person who failed to make a pick for the most amount of weeks. Sal missed 5 weeks' worth of games, which ended up costing him

Best Faction: The Vaezis - Holly, Tara, and Ali all managed to make the playoffs this year, while Kathi fell just about one win short of sneaking in. If there were some sort of meta-gambling scenario, where we gamble on you guys, the Vaezis would be a hot commodity. (Runner up: The Roselle Park PD - Mike Bell, Sam Assad, Jim Kompany, and Dino all had a taste of being in that top 16 this year, although only Mike got in from that bunch. And of course, ex-dispatcher Genevieve Kelly won the regular season prize.)

Most Frequently Picked Teams:

1- New York Jets (40 times)

2- New York Giants (39 times)

3- Indianapolis Colts (38 times)

4- Pittsburgh Steelers/Arizona Cardinals (33 times)

Least Frequently Picked Teams:

1- San Diego Chargers (11 times)

2- Cincinnati Bengals (13 times)

3- Seattle Seahawks (14 times)

4- Oakland Raiders/Houston Texans (15 times)

Picked Against Most Often:

1- Minnestota Vikings (44 times)

2- Houston Texans (43 times)

3- Miami Dolphins (38 times)

4- Tampa Bay Buccaneers (36 times)

5- San Diego Chargers/Seattle Seahawks/Oakland Raiders (35 times)

Picked Against Least Often:

1- St. Louis Rams (7 times)

2- New York Giants (8 times)

3- Kansas City Chiefs (12 times)

4- Denver Broncos (13 times)

5- Indianapolis Colts/New England Patriots (15 times)