Week 5 Results

Outta My Way 

Wallyball stops for nobody!  Well, so far this season it hasn’t stopped for Scott K, Jose, Ryan, or Carter, who continue to lead the way with perfect 5-0 records. What is interesting is how they got here: they all took Baltimore in Week 1, but look what has happened since: In each week the four of them have taken three different teams.

	Week 2	Week 3	Week 4	Week 5
Ryan	LAR	CIN	GB	BUF
Carter	DET	CHI	NYG	MIN
Scott K	GB	CIN	PHI	SF
Jose	DEN	PHI	GB	BUF

Congrats Carter for taking 3 of the 4 teams in the NFC North, and Green Bay wasn’t one of them.

The moral of the story: there are plenty of ways to win at Wallyball. It’s just that those of us at the bottom of the standings haven’t seemed to find any of them.

Don’t overlook Gregory and Greg. They forgot to read the memo that says to never take Indy in week one…. or maybe any week that they’re not playing the Broncos or Chiefs (sorry Wally). They’re still undefeated, and thanks to the prize for having the first tie, they have all the buying power that comes from having 10 quarters in your pocket.

Along those lines, Tim, Scott I, and Gil are hiding behind all of them in the standings, but they have only one loss each. If they can find the right combination to finish the season on a winning streak, they would likely finish in the money.

Sometimes you’re the windshield… 

If those folks were Davante Adams, Dave B was the photographer… at least until this week, when he wisely made the Scot McGregor shift to low-ball and is now going to chase down the consolation prizes. The Lions at New England were clearly Dave’s Zero Star Lock of the Week™

Dave will be in a battle with a couple of the original Wallyball members: Just one week after picking up his first win of the season, Paul fixed that mistake by also hopping on the Lions bandwagon to New England.  Plenty of good seats were still available.

I don’t think Wally intended to go low when he took Pittsburgh at home vs. the Jets (what kind of team loses at home to the Jets???) or Denver at home vs the aforementioned Colts. He also didn’t count on Russell Wilson falling off the cliff from “savvy veteran” to “aging rapidly.”

It’s not Festivus

… but it is for the rest of us. Two losses can get you into the money with a good winning streak and some nice tie-breaker points. More likely, you’ll be in the same boat as everyone else with three and four losses- competing for consolation prizes, the $50 for 50%, or for the holiday prizes that go to the people with the best record in November and in December/January. More on that in the weeks to come.

Bold Pick of the Week

Congrats to Linden for breaking Carter's streak of winning this highly-coveted award by picking Tennessee on the road against Washington. However, the mere fact that this qualifies as a 2.5 point game and BPOW tells us that (a) the Commanders are better than we thought or (b) the Titans are not very good. I think we know which one it is.

Smart Pick of the Week

It was tough to be bold this week, but many of us were smart. For example- we’re all going to take Buffalo at some point- might as well take them when they win by 35. Good one Ryan, Bret, Gil, Tim, Colin, Andy, Jose, and Gregory. 

But even smarter: the Niners are inconsistent; the Panthers are terrible.  Sounds like the formula for Wallyball points! Both of the Scotts earned 22 points (and probably the most they’ll get out of San Francisco this year:  

Good luck to everyone this week!